Wiki pictures used without permission
totototo@telus.net (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:38:23 PDT)

On 30 Jun 06, at 7:09, Mary Sue Ittner wrote:

It's the potential for this kind of piracy that has led me to put a
copyright notice on each and every picture I contribute to the wiki.
Not that I think this will make a devil of a lot of difference, but
at least no one can say "I didn't know."

In the interests of not obscuring the interesting part of each
picture, I keep my copyright notices off in one corner. Of course
this makes them easy to remove, but such is life.

If the problem persists, it may become advisable for us all to put a
watermark copyright notice smack across the face of the picture where
it can't be trimmed off.

This is actually fairly easy to do using masks and selective
adjustment of hue, brightness, contrast, gamma, or whatever suits
your fancy.

Incidentally, the website is clearly the brainchild of an amateur
whose understanding of "usability" is unusually shaky. Among other
things, the long unindented list of plant names on the homepage is
totally unworkable, while the site demands you have cookies turned
on. Whoever built this site clearly doesn't have a clue, not about
copyright, not about usability, and obviously not about acquiring and
retaining customers.

In a word, they're idiots and we shouldn't expect anything more than
a seriously subnormal level of competence -- or is that incompetence?

Those of you who have been victimized and who are in a malicious
frame of mind may wish to simply send them a notice that your fee for
unauthorized use of your pictures is X dollars per image, please send
your payment in US dollars immediately or the bill will be turned
over to a collection agency for action. I suggest that since the site
is commercial, it would be reasonable to set X at $500 or so.

Complaints to the ISP that hosts the site may also be in order, with
the overt object of having the entire site taken offline.

Don't get mad, get even.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate

on beautiful Vancouver Island