Some of you know that Kitten Central of Placer County took an image they found on the internet and used it as their profile photo. That image was mine. I wanted to be kind about the whole thing and I contacted them on the post where they changed their profile pic, mentioning the photo was mine. There were a number of their fans who were quite moved by the photo. Now since KCPC does ask for money on their facebook page to help take care of the kittens in their care I was less and less comfortable with them using my image. My comments were ignored. They continued to post on their page. I made a comment on my own personal facebook page and a few people took it upon themselves to contact them about this. Using someone elses photos online is not only bad form, it is actually illegal. I work for a stock image agency and we work with several companies who go after people who still our images and these people and business are hit with quite a hefty fine for the use. I seriously wanted to handle this nicely and help this rescue understand the legal issues with their just taking images from the internet - especially since they are basically using them to make money. Coleen contacted them privately and the person she talked to basically blamed me for not watermarking my images. This is not my fault. Watermark or not, taking an image that is not yours is illegal. You left your keys in your car that is not an invitation for anyone to take it and drive it off. I still wanted an amicable end to this, so I contacted the rescue via private message because apparently that is the only way they can respond (despite their responses to peoples comments on their page) and laid out what I know and tried to help them understand so they would not end up in legal hot water. I also asked them to share with their followers who saw my image on their page that it was my image asking that they give credit to either my blog or this page. I did my best to be as positive and helpful as possible, since we are all in this for the cats. I got a nice reply that night. Nice in that it was pleasant, but not as open and responsive as I would have like and a little to cya. But that is okay, as we all have our own walk in life, but there was no apology for their behavior nor an offer to give me credit. Then this morning I got what I feel is an FU reply... hence my sharing my experience. I think this is wrong. I only wanted to help and a little credit for my image. I do not understand why that seemed like too much for them, but apparently it was. I can only hope that through all this they learn not to just take images they find on the internet and use them. One of these days they will run into someone who cares about the money and will sue them. At least when that happens they cant say they had no idea.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:09:45 +0000
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