Emma's Photo On Flying South Website.

[lovethatgrey]

I have been feeling very sick to my stomach in the last 48 hours and would just like to let all of you all know that this week I discovered with HORROR that one of MY photos of Emma has been posted on the Flying South Website without my consent. The way I had found out about this was through another parrot owner who had noticed the sale they were having. I just about jumped out of my skin when I saw Emma's picture because I have never had business dealings with this company and won't ever order from this site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

 

http://flyingsouth.com/theadventurepack.html'>http://flyingsouth.com/theadventurepack.html

 

One of the great benefits of being on a forum is learning from other people's misfortunes and terrible experiences.

I had read of too many nightmarish experiences of Adventure Packs that have never arrived and no email responses to the clients who have purchased. I can only imagine the several clients who have not written on the internet about their shoddy experience. What bothers me most of all is that this is a company that I have never ordered from "specifically" due to the terrible experiences that I have read about.

I am grateful to all of those people who took their time to share experiences which were very stressful and irritating. I know that if I had had the same experience, I would have been SO mad.

I hate to think that others may have seen Emma's picture on the site, ordered the AP as well and perhaps are still dealing with the same miserable service.

I contacted Jamie Skeie, the owner of Flying South and The Pink Bird and the results were truly disappointing. I emailed to ask him to remove my Emma Photo and this is what the final response is.

******************************************

 

*************************************************

Me:

 

Hello Jamie and Danielle,

 

Have you ever heard of Copyright infringement?

Could you please explain why my picture of my african grey is on your website? Yes, the one of the african grey at the very bottom of the page

 

http://flyingsouth.com/theadventurepack.html

 

I have never had any business dealings with the FlyingSouth Company nor has anyone from your company contacted me to ask for my PERMISSION or AUTHORIZATION to use my picture on your website.

That picture happens to be MY personal property and I do not appreciate coming across your site yesterday to discover that you are using my picture for your own monetary profit. Please remove it immediately.

 

Jamie:

 

Hello,

 

If you would have sent me a kind message, that would have been a little nicer and more productive. I don't appreciate your threats. Why don't you take me to court, or get your photo copyrighted if you feel it should be hung in a museum somewhere. Or, why don't you study copyright laws a little more before you go threatening people. You know, I've been in business since 2003 and never had someone get so uptight about their bird in a picture. Give me a break. Is your bird a star that needs royalties? Or is your bird in protective custody? That picture has no copyright and if it does you should be a little nicer to people anyway! Do you know what copyright infringement even is? Google it! You can't just take a picture, post it in chat groups and all over the net and then go around to everyone with a copy and threaten them.

 

If you feel I have infringed an image of your bird in the Adventure Pack, you can receive $30,000 for each infringed picture. I posted what you need to do next, if you do indeed have a copyright. If you prove to me that it is copyrighted I will remove it. Or, you know, I would have happily removed it, if you had asked nicely.

 

 

Somebody infringed my copyright. What can I do?

A party may seek to protect his or her copyrights against unauthorized use by filing a civil lawsuit in federal district court. If you believe that your copyright has been infringed, consult an attorney. In cases of willful infringement for profit, the U.S. Attorney may initiate a criminal investigation.

 

 

Me:

 

Being nice has nothing to do with this.

 

Before lecturing someone else about being nice, you should lead by example by asking permission. There are no threats in this letter. I have simply asked you to remove what does NOT belong to you.

 

You could have responded apologetically and done the right thing, instead you've responded in a way that truly shows your character. As a business person, what you have done is ethically and morally wrong.

I do not need to have a copyright of this picture. I personally took this picture and I don't need to justify anything to you.

 

Please remove my picture immediately, if you it is not removed, you will leave me no choice but to take further action.

 

Govern yourself accordingly Mr. Skeie

 

 

Jamie:

 

lol. how is what i have done morally and ethically wrong?

 

 

Me:

 

 

You obviously are very ignorant when it comes to the law. Since you enjoy Google so much, I will include this link for you. If you have difficulty understanding it, I suggest that you seek legal counsel to have it translated to you.

 

Once again. Please remove my picture.

 

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

 

 

Jamie:

 

now you have moved on to name calling. nice.

 

 

 

Me:

 

Does this mean that you choose not to remove a picture which is rightfully mine off of your website? Why do you not wish to just post pictures that you personally own?

 

Thank you for confirming what other people have posted about you. Perhaps there was a time in the past that you were a very good business person and Man.

 

Previously, I've steered clear of ordering from ThePink Bird as well as FlyingSouth because of the terrible client experiences that people have written about on the internet and told me about in person. I realize today that I made the right choice. Thankfully, your ex wife had the decency to do right by some of your clients.

 

Removing my picture from the Flying South website would have really made a difference in how I feel about the person behind these 2 company names, instead I feel extremely sad and disappointed that it has led to this.

 

If my picture is not removed by the end of this business day, I will make sure that as many parrot owners as possible are aware of my personal experience in dealing with you as well. If you do remove it then I will just put this behind me and move on.

 

What do you choose to do?

 

Jamie:

 

How do you think celebrities feel having their personal lives in magazines and all over the internet? Your bird is in no way a celebrity and you have no copyright on this picture. Once something is posted on the internet it is no longer personal nor is it private. If you have nothing better to do with your time than to talk about me in chat groups, then so be it. I will not be insulted or threatened by anybody. The picture stays. The Adventure Pack is my product. Had you not lowered yourself to the level of name calling and threats I would have removed it and offered you a discount on our new line of Yucca Bird Toys. But you didn't. I have also read through these chats groups and find it a little ironic that the same people talking about my personal life without permission are complaining about a picture. If you care so much about a persons' right to privacy, then I suggest you leave my ex-wife out of this and conduct yourself with a little more class. I do, however, have a business to run and would hope that you will leave your personal problems out of my email box from this point on.

 

 

Post edited by: lovethatgrey, at: 2010/03/21 21:40<br><br>Post edited by: lovethatgrey, at: 2010/03/21 21:40

[Joolesgreyuk]

I don't pretend to know much about copyright laws but there is such thing as manors and these people appear to have none - the words rude and ignorant spring to mind.

[jessdecutie18]

How terribly rude... no matter how nice or mean you put it, it's still your picture he put on his site and you are asking him to remove it. There is no reason to be childish enough to keep it up. Some people are so infuriating...

[lovethatgrey]

Thanks Jess and Jooles. I feel a little less emotional about it today, but I must admit that I was in shock when I first saw it and even worse when the owner of The Flying South Company refused to remove it.

[Eckobird]

WOW!! How ignorant, rude, and very unprofessional of him!!! That makes me mad:angry:

[dw310]

That guy certainly knows how to lose lots of business, fast. Sorry for your bad experience with him.

 

It looks like Emma is in an Adventure Pack. Or has he now changed the picture?

[lovethatgrey]

dw310 wrote:

That guy certainly knows how to lose lots of business, fast. Sorry for your bad experience with him.

 

It looks like Emma is in an Adventure Pack. Or has he now changed the picture?

 

 

He hasn't changed the picture at all. Emma is the one at the bottom of the page looking at the sky.

[Acappella]

It seems to me that your stongest legal argument is not that the picture is private, but that it is being used to sell a product, so they are potentially making money off your image. Of course, I don't know the law, and things get dicey when it comes to internet stuff, but that issue feeels like a big one to me.

[lovethatgrey]

This bad experience has made me feel a bit differently about posting pictures on the internet. I don't mind sharing knowledge and info with other parrot owners but now I'm not sure how I feel about sharing my photos anymore.

[Elvenking]

I just find it incredibly cheesy that they couldn't find a bird of their own to photograph. They will not get any of my business. Just to see how their customer relations are. What a bunch of shmucks.

[crossfit]

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about copyright and intellectual property:

 

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

 

And another:

 

http://www.intelproplaw.com/

 

Yes. You own that picture even after posting it. It is considered fair, for example, if I were to take that photo and use it on my web site saying, "friends of mine from various african grey sites this one is Emma" or some such but even then you could be grumpy and ask me to remove it.

 

The question is, do you want to do something about this guy using your photo? Do we have any lawyers on the site or amongst our friends who can send him a registered letter asking him to remove the photo? That would be the next step. Document everything. Keep copies in hard copy of all the emails if you choose to follow up on this.

 

It doesn't matter if you were rude or not, he legally can't use that photo.

 

(my dad was a lawyer and some of my good friends work in the field of internet intellectual properties issues so this is a somewhat educated answer, not just my opinion).

 

By the way, we all should bone up on intellectual property if we hang out on the internet. For example, because we are on a forum, our words here are not owned by us but are owned by the owner of the site. That isn't true for email. Check the sites you upload pictures and videos to as well to make sure they are not taking your rights by you posting to them. Read the fine print. Websites are cheap and easy to build these days. I post all my pictures to my own web site and not photobucket or any of the popular sites for this reason. I am not saying they currently try to take ownership, just that I am paranoid about my photos. We can also state in the text field of any photo, "all rights reserved" and include our name making it more explicit.

[lovethatgrey]

Thank you so much GreyForum family!!

Emma's photo has "magically disappeared" from the FlyingSouth website in the last 2 hours. I didn't even know. It was my good friend who looked on the site and asked me "Where's Emma?"

 

I kept telling her to look at the bottom of the page .. when she still couldn't see it .. I looked myself and am feeling much better NOW!{Feel-good-00020114}

[jessdecutie18]

Nice Glad this has been made right

[danmcq]

Sorry you ran into that rude business owner.

 

Unfortunately, just about everything we post on the web, upload photos to photobucket, YouTube etc. is fair game for anyone to copy and use.

 

The law in a nutshell, is "If you want to protect something, copyright it, BEFORE you go public with it". IF you read all the licences and terms of use on all these sites we visit and post to, they are all protected and given basically free rights to use anything we post.

 

Many taking of intellectual properties have been taken in this manner and others received credit for it.

 

Example: Dayo Journal - Book I have been updating here...anyone could taken that content and write a book "Dayo or Bimba" or whatever they wished and I could do nothing about it.

 

However, I view it more as a tool for future owners to "Know" Dayo when we pass on. So, I really have no worries of whether someone uses it or not. Though I would probably feel offended as you do if they didn't at least ask.

[lovethatgrey]

You're right Dan. I'm glad he removed it and hope it stays off permanently.{Feel-good-00020114}