Bad Guy Reptilesncritters.com - Thieves

[crespo72]

Sounds like you are working to right your wrong and are headed in the right direction.

As far as all here taking a collective dump on you and your business after you have cleaned up your site you might be wrong about that.there will be those that see what you have done and that will hopefully help them see you in a different light, of course their will be a few that will harbor a personal grudge and will never change their thoughts towards you no matter how good you do.

I certainly hope you get it right.

Ed, I appreciate your balanced and reasoned conclusions. The onus is on my business to get all of the images cleaned up in a timely manner. We are working hard every day contacting photographers for permission to use their photographs, buying images off of stock photography companies, and at the same time handling all of the day to day operations of our business. Some people on this forum grossly underestimate the amount of hours it takes to do all this work. One poster in fact gave a rather ludicrous estimate of "2 hours" to accomplish this task. You see, when I come across such unreasonable thinking of some forum members it makes me wounder what planet they are from. Well, in any event I hope to encounter more people like yourself Ed on this forum.

 

[crespo72]

Really, Your apartment you sit at a computer day in day out is a Core business operation location. Considering your doing all the sites editing not some person you hired, you could of fixed this in under 2 hours. With all the time you sit at home.

Robert
Crespo
RC Enterprises
601 E 18th St
Apt 504
11226
NY
Brooklyn

[email protected]

Rich, I guess you feel justified in violating my privacy by posting a picture of my apartment and contact information. I also feel that the forum members will equally be appreciative to know where your business operations are located—from your own home! Apparently, both your snake breeding business AND your computer repair service can be located at the following location:

Rich Kedzierski
9563 Anchor Dr
Clay, Michigan 48001
[email protected]
586-258-9546 - Fax

While Google Street View would not work for your area (I guess Google doesn't care to bother mapping your neighborhood, I wonder why?), I was able to get a nice aerial picture of your street.

 

[crespo72]

Robert is this your global headquarters?

Robert Crespo
RC Enterprises
601 E 18th St
Apt 504
11226
NY
Brooklyn
1.3473122130
[email protected]

You have posted that you are a global operation, I asked for you to post a copy of your U.S. Fish and Wildlife export permit to see if you are in fact a global operation and to see if you are exporting legally.

Of course I could just call them myself to verify what you are saying is true. but why would you lie? on the other hand why do you steal pics that belong to others?

Ed, I want to be truthful with you. Yes, the above address is my "global headquarters" as well as my residence. I don't see why I can't live and work from the same location. You have to admit, you can't beat the commute time to the office! Regarding your request for me to present you with a copy of my U.S. Fish and Wildlife export permit, I cannot produce one since I do not ship the animals myself. I deal with other suppliers who actually do my order fulfillment. These companies have all of the government export permits required to import and ship the animals internationally. It's perfectly legal and above board. It's also not a bad deal for the companies that I deal with since it costs them nothing to acquire additional sales while my job is more focused on marketing and sales as well as an extensive amount of time put in doing customer service.

 

[crespo72]

Has anyone contacted the rightful owners of said pics to let them know of the copyright infringement instead of the pointless back and forth with the guy?

Ubaldo, actually it's not pointless at all since I am getting a chance to tell everyone of the progress that we are making with this project. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of actual UNDERSTANDING going on. We are working every day on changing our images. Thus far, we have completed close to 400 image changes and verifications. However, that still leaves about 2000+ images to check and verify with possibly hundreds more new images to change. Also, many of the image owners are being contacted and are requesting that we take down their photos to which we comply 100% with. I am fairly certain that there are members who are active on this forum thread who are combing my website to find more image violations and then sending email notifications to the image owners. In addition, when a forum member posts and image violation on this forum thread we eventually fid it and add it the top of our priority list to be removed more quickly. I hope that I have given you a better picture of the work being done, and perhaps to persuade you to not feel like certain forum members who feel that nothing is being done by us. Have a good day.

 

[crespo72]

Take every photo off your site and start over with pictures you have gotten rights to use!!! That is the only way to correct this. No one else should have to tell you what to take down that's you responsibility.

This approach may please you and few other forum members but it is really not the best option for me. Of course there are self-interested business considerations to consider, but also my customers have come to expect seeing actual images of the animals on my website. Yes, I know that some of these images are in some form of violation, but we will be eventually getting to all of these image issues in time. How much time until all the images are completed? It's hard to tell but we are probably looking at another two, possible three to complete this task. Also, doing the project your way would be very extreme and would undoubtedly result in errors in our haste to get the site images back up again. Of course, doing the project correctly from the very beginning would have been ideal, however, by our taking the time now to correct matters in a more thorough manner will prevent future complaints once the project is complete.

 

[crespo72]

Robert,

When I allow my photographs to be used by other people, they compensate me for doing so in an amount mutually agreed upon prior to them using my images or they are not extended a license to use my images. When you put my photographs on your site without my permission, not only did you infringe my copyright, you did not pay me a prearranged amount for the use of my photographs, and because my images were used to represent your produce, you made money in part by using my images. As a result, you have failed to pay for a product/service that you utilized for commercial gain. That, Mr. Crespo, is theft of service.

Chris

Chris, I agree with you 100%. I certainly should have asked your permission before using your photograph. I was not aware that you had a prearranged payment system for your photograph's in place. What is your usual rate for such compensation?

 

[Chris Anderson]

Chris, I agree with you 100%. I certainly should have asked your permission before using your photograph. I was not aware that you had a prearranged payment system for your photograph's in place. What is your usual rate for such compensation?

Robert,

Rates vary based on the usage. Uses for non profit education are on one end of the spectrum and commercial purposes are on the other. If you are offering to make this right by paying my usual rate for commercial use of the three (not one) of my photographs you used, you are welcome to contact me via email and I'd be happy to provide you specifics of what the rates I get are.

Chris

 

[Magical Geckos]

Your better than than me.. I wouldnt let him use somthing of mine for $1,000 a day

 

[Chris Anderson]

I expect that he will not be willing to pay me my standard rate for commercial use on all three photos, Dennis. I'll be quite surprised if he is/does. I rarely allow my photos to be used by others for commercial purposes and my rate reflects it. That said, I have gotten that rate multiple times, which is why it is a standard rate and not a made up figure designed to discourage.

Chris

 

[Shiari]

In the corn snake section:

Your "amber" is a normal.

 

[Mark McVay]

Robert,

Rates vary based on the usage. Uses for non profit education are on one end of the spectrum and commercial purposes are on the other. If you are offering to make this right by paying my usual rate for commercial use of the three (not one) of my photographs you used, you are welcome to contact me via email and I'd be happy to provide you specifics of what the rates I get are.

Chris

People use photographs everyday? Gimme a break.

 

[SirenSanJose]

People use photographs everyday? Gimme a break.

"Usage" here would mean "what type of person or group wants to print or post the photo on their website", not how often the photo is "accessed" or "used".

Most photographers have different pricing scales for registered 501(c) nonprofits, a person just wanting to repost a picture they really like on their website (a 'not-for-profit' use, but they're not a legal nonprofit group), or a registered corporation using the photo to sell or promote something -- a for-profit use.

 

[SirenSanJose]

People use photographs everyday? Gimme a break.

Also, given your definition of "usage" -- the photos in question are posted on the internet, active on the website, 24/7. Even when the pages aren't accessed every day, by your definition, they would be "in use" because they're an active part of the site. For a photo to be "not used" every day, it would have to be put up and taken down with some frequency. Pageviews don't determine "being used", its simple availability online does.

 

[Chris Anderson]

People use photographs everyday? Gimme a break.

Yes, they do, but unless they are going to take and use their own photos, they have to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the photographs to legally use them. For commercial purposes, most photographers charge for use.

As far as the possibility of Mr. Crespo paying me my standard rate for use of my images on his site to sell animals in order to make right on his theft of service, he has decided not to. Thus it appears he has not only knowingly committed copyright infringement but also theft of service.

Chris