Do you or your friends/family post photos or scrapbook pages online? On Flickr, on your blog(s), on message boards, anywhere? Than you could be affected by this issue, where anyone can poach your images and use them in advertising, etc WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT. Not to mention, they won’t pay you for the privilege.

To find out the dirty details, read the 5/9/08 post on Claudine Hellmuth’s BLOG. Others are blogging about it too: TIM HOLTZ, KELLIANNIE and SCRAPPIN{JEWLZ}, It’s a topic for the message boards at CKMB and AMR (which is where I first heard about this; thanks Dee!). And the PPA (Professional Photographers Association) is getting involved (just Google PPA orphan act and you’ll get hits on several articles, etc).

Okay, this is a Soapbox Issue for me. THIS is why I don’t post personal photos online. I’ve been asked many times why I don’t post my own layouts or other work on my blog. Mainly the reason is that “it’s not about me,” it’s about scrapbooking. But also, it’s about not having my privacy invaded by no-good, blood-sucking, dirty lowlifes as those who will CONTINUE to steal images (it’s already happening now, these laws will just make it legal). Do you know what’s been going on with Flickr and their sister site, Orkut? Faceless online perverts have been “stealing” images of children and using them to advertise their sicko child porn websites, and God knows what else they do with photos of children in the privacy of their homes. Why anyone would try to make this kind of thing legal is WAY beyond me. I’m just baffled. Baffled, but not speechless, as you can see. Shouldn’t lawmakers be working on a bill to PROTECT the average person and their personal photography??

I hope you also feel strongly enough about this issue to at least read the story on Claudine’s blog, click on the link she so nicely provides, and write your governmental representatives. It’s just a quick form, all the verbage has been done for you. PLEASE make your voice heard. And if you have a blog or belong to message boards, you must spread the word. This affects too many of us scrapbookers and, if our numbers band together, we CAN make an impact. {Climbing down off soapbox}….

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2 Comments

  1. avatar

    This is why I’ve been very reluctant to post anything with pictures of my friends, family & kids with out they’re permission there are always people out there willing to steal your ideas a lot of add agencies just troll the net taking original ideas from unknown’s and spinning it as they’re own! I think it was Terry Pratchet who said creativity is a bit like a pot sometimes you put in to it some times you take out of it. A little like your spend a cent leave a cent that you have at some stores. Which of course I like the whole idea but there are always people who are taking & never putting back which spoils it for the rest of us. I will link to this, not that I get much traffic but it all helps thank you for bringing it to my attention it won’t be long before they try something like this in the UK! Seeya hugya *G*

  2. avatar

    >>> Do you know what’s been going on with Flickr and their sister site, Orkut?

    Flickr is owned by Yahoo, and Orkut is owned by Google… so this is a little erroneous don’t you think?

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