A special thanks….
Yesterday I found a blogger who was using my Friday Flower Fiesta logo in her blog. There was no attribution, and since I still use it in my blog, I asked her to remove it. She did, with an apology.
Actions like that cause me to go above and beyond. So, Ms Blogger, here is a Friday Flower Fiesta logo just for you to use as you wish in your blog or anywhere else. It’s yours:
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I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Posted on September 28, 2012, in Corel, Digital photo editing, Friday Flower Fiesta and tagged friday flower fiesta. Bookmark the permalink. 60 Comments.
Sweet!
Cool, you are!
You’re pretty darn awesome!
Forgiving and gracious. You are a good man.
Fab story
You’re a classy guy! xoM
Now that is nice of you…
You’re a good man, Charlie Brown! I’m so glad she apologised.
You rock….!!
Look at you two….playing so nice!
Russel, This is why I look forward to your blogs
Thanks to everyone for your comments.
I love happy endings!
Lovely, Russell. Just lovely.
How nice of you to give a flower away.
You really are a sweetie
that’s lovely – hope she passes the ball of kindness and generosity on….
Nice resolution – but have a look at this…http://annakeiller.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/copyright/.
I must admit I find it all a bit mind boggling…
that’s sweet russel
First you pardon this person’s blunder; then give her a gift. Your actions give new meaning to the word forgive.
A pat on the back to you, Russel.
Blessings ~ Maxi
Very nice!
You are so cool!
You are awesome!
Both of you were classy in handling the situation… I had a similar situation and what I got was: “I sent you an email and since you didn’t respond I assumed you’re OK with me using it for free!!!” She sent it to a wrong email address!!
….”assumed”…..ack!
What a great way to handle the situation. How kind of you!!!
As my husband used to say, “a gentleman and a scholar” you are!
Thats nice of you Russel..
I has someone reblog one of my posts recently and while its nice that they thought it fitting for a reblog I would ask that they would ask permission first as is on my Copyright detail… However investigating the Blog concerned it turned out to be a blog set up of reblogged items and no ( About me page ) and it had only been set up in September.. it had an email address in umpteen letters and numbers of the kind Spammers use.. So I didnt comment as I think sometimes its a ploy to get our IP addresses and emails..
Usually I am very trusting, but this time my sixth sense kicked in..
Wishing you a great day… and Im sure your lady blogger will love the gesture ..
Sue
Somewhere around the WordPress universe you gave permission for reblogs by using the WordPress platform. I’m not a big fan of those reblog sites because they don’t really tell me anything about the person. I kind of like the originality of people. Maybe reblogging everything in site is original?………lol
If you don’t like to have your posts reblogged, check with the WordPress forums or your theme creater to see if you can turn that feature off.
Thanks for the advice Russel.. May just do that.
That was super nice of you.
Classy way of handling a tricky situation.
Those large simply reblogging sites are annoying – thanks for the suggestion about them
Wow, what a gentleman
Wonderful, kind, and forgiving!
Thanks, Kristin.
This was big of you but I wonder how you would feel if one of you stolen images was making tons of money for a company without you permission? We do have copyright laws for a reason!
The same way. I asked this person to take my image down. She did, with an apology. I gave her a little present for being so nice.
If a company was making money off of my image, I would ask them to cease and desist. If they didn’t, a letter from my attorney. Lawsuit afterward. There’s a protocol to follow.
I don’t need a lesson on protocol! I did exactly as you did but I did not reward them with a permission to use it anyway. I still think that there is a difference between stealing an image or re blogging your images on wordpress and catching someone advertising on a national level and making tons of money with your image. And by the way it is not that easy to bring a lawsuit when you don’t have a lot of money. The notion that lawyers will take it on consignment is a meth. I just hope that you never have to deal with this problem because you will find out the hard way that the odds are stacked in favor of the thief. You can make them cease and desist as I did but not before they have taken advantage.
Apples and oranges. The person here was not making money from my image and she took it down within minutes of me asking her to. She is not a big corporation making money off of me.
How long I could prove that the big corporation was making money off of me would determine exactly what I would do. I have never heard of a big corporation not doing the right thing when one of their employees goes astray. It’s always the small business, where the owner is trying to take shortcuts, that is difficult to work with. They’ll claim they didn’t get the email, didn’t get the cease & desist letter, etc. I would give a company 24 hours to take my work down, big or small, but the size of the company and the money involved would determine what my attorney did. Some things just are not worth it, and I discovered a couple of decades ago that “principle” can be very expensive.
By the way, lawyers don’t work for free. They don’t take just anything on consignment. There has to be a reward involved, usually a big one, such as with punitive damages. Those types of damages are usually paid for by a company’s insurance company. But if a company is worth only a million dollars, it’s highly likely that they don’t even have such insurance. It’s easy for an attorney to find out; minutes, if not seconds. Even with a judgment, if a company has no money to pay the fine, what’s the point of you spending the money on a lawsuit and an attorney taking it on consignment? None. And if you can’t pay the attorney’s fees, either, no reputable attorney would take the case. I find nothing wrong with that.
Would you consider Master Card a company that could not afford insurance? Your instructive posture is offensive. This was not just anything and at the time I was a single mother with six kids to support. A video and a image of my original along with one of the magazine ads was sent by the lawyer to the CEO of this company and they did stop using it. I had to pay the lawyer for that. In my opinion a deal was made between the lawyer and the company and if you think that doesn’t happen you are living with your head in the sand.. As I said the odds are stacked against you or maybe you have better odds with a ” reputable” attorney.
You obviously are still angry about the situation. I can do nothing about that.
For some reason you took offense when I said that there is a protocol to follow. There is. If you followed it, great!
An attorney will do what you want him to do, or he will decline the case. However, someone has to pay the attorney. If he can’t see a win, and money coming from the win, they he’s going to want you to pay.
Sounds like the attorney followed the protocol and all ended well.
You have to understand that there’s no money to be made in a single case. MasterCard obviously had an employee go astray and did exactly what I, and your attorney, would expect them to do. That fact that you are unhappy is neither here nor there. Personally, I think you should be happy. However, if you wanted to sue them, you should have told your attorney, “I want to sue them.” He would have said, “Sue them, but the odds of you winning are slim, so I won’t be the one handling the case unless you put me on retainer.”
Again, I’m sorry you’re still angry at what happened but I have no control over your emotions or what happens in your life. Breathe, relax, and move on.
By the way, a couple of years ago, AOL-Time Warner used one of my images of a United States flag surrounded by clouds on the AOL front page. I was ecstatic yet angry at the same time. I knew it was a good picture when I took it. I was angry that AOL was using it with no attibution and no permission. I contacted them on my own since I have a lot of experience with stolen images and a lot of experience in the legal profession. Within minutes the AOL front page had been changed with “Photo by Russel Ray Photos, La Mesa, California” being added underneath the image.
That’s what companies do when their employees go astray. They make the appropriate changes. If you want money from them, though, you have to sue them but in order to win, you’re going to have to show that the company did the same thing over and over and over and over again, a corporate culture that apparently approved of theft by their eemployees. AOL wasn’t doing that, it I suspect MasterCard was not either.
The appropriate thing for your attorney to do was to say, “Take it down within ___ days or expect a lawsuit by my client.” They took it down. All’s well.
Again, You assume a condesending arrogant posture as if you know everything about this problem. You don’t but I am not going to take the time to explain it. You would not understand or hear anything that you do not believe. You seem to live in a world where you believe that everyone does the “right ” thing in the end even and especially a corporate giant. In other words a Republican know it all. I have had enough and will move on for sure!
I’m so sorry you are so angry. Again, though, I cannot do anything about that. I can only tell you my experience based on 29 year working in/with the legal profession and 19 years of having my own problems with stolen work.
I don’t believe everyone does the right thing. Greed often gets in the way of things, which is why we don’t have an unfettered free enterprise system. There are rules and regulations to try to reign in that greed.
I’m only saying that based on what you’ve said, it sounds like your attorney and MasterCard did the right thing. The fact that you are unhappy because you didn’t get millions of dollars to help raise your six children is neither here nor there in a legal sense.
Yes, definitely move on.
See, there you go again assuming that when you open Time magazine and six others to see a double page ad with your artwork looking back at you you assume all I cared about was money. You ass! It broke my heart. You are probably also assuming that I had six kids out of wedlock too. My husband died not that you have any compassion for that. By the way Russel, I am about as old as your wise old grandmother and have had 40 years in this business. Please don’t bother to reply; you will only insult me again and you have the distinction of being the only blogger who has done so.
Again, I’m sorry you are so angry. Obviously, you didn’t have a good attorney, but I can’t do anything about that. It’s water under the bridge, probably. However, you might check on the statute of limitations, as well as anything that MasterCard and your attorney might have signed.
In my view, MasterCard didn’t make money off of your images. Rather, they saved money. There is a legal difference.
Best wishes.
I think what you did was very nice, above and beyond, and commendable. Time is short, and in everything we do, we must ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” I feel you did just as Jesus would have done. Great job Russel! Other people may mock you and scorn, but remember they did to Him as well. In a world full of hatred and evil, it’s no wonder time hasn’t been even shorter. The world does not understand kindness, nor the ways of the heavenly Father. God bless you!
Thanks, Lyn.
Thanks for following me and God bless you! Awesome website, btw!!!!!! ♥♥♥
Well done Russell, an error is an error and that’s how we should all handle it…inform the other, apologize, accept apology and move on with kindness.
I like that! We could abbreviate it:
IAAAMO
pronounced “I triple A mo”
lol
That was a nice thing to do! Thanks also for visiting my blog
There you go!
nice to meet you, thanks Greetje
Hello Russel Ray Photos, Thank you for camping out in my Blog and liking my poems. You are welcome any time. Best Wishes, The Foureyed Poet.
Well done, Russel! Hugs!
Lada
Thanks for stopping by my blog and liking several recent posts. Best to you.
That was a nice gesture Ray. Thanks yet again for stopping by and ‘liking’ so many of Colltales posts. Hope Zoey approves them too. Actually, she may like this Caturday’s post too. All the best. Wesley
sweet and understanding