Bobbie

Well I’m very late to the party and so I’ll honor the request to give funkyfacestudios journal a rest.

Firstly thank you to the people that let me know that my images had been stolen, I appreciate it. Actually I’m a little chuffed that someone thinks my work is good enough to steal, not that I’m happy about them being stolen but that someone liked them, hey I’ll take any compliments I can get. I’m also very pleased that it’s been sorted and they won’t be taking images from Red Bubble again.

Now for the reality check, if you put your images on the web they will more than likely at some stage be stolen, get used to the idea, it will happen, it doesn’t matter how big a copyright you put on them if someone likes them enough they will take them. I belong to another photography site where this is almost a weekly occurrence simply because it’s a site with a lot of talented photographers and a lot of tempting photos, it won’t be the last time it happens here. As far as I can tell the best defense is a strong community like Red Bubble where people are familiar with each others images and can notify an artist if they’ve seen their image elsewhere or notify the community if they recognize more than one artists work. Then it is up to each artist to contact the person using their image and explain that the use of the image is in violation of the copyright and to politely request it be removed, also let the “thief” know that you will be contacting the site admin. Contact site admin and politely explain the situation and request removal of the image. Most of the time that works. Particularly if there are a number of artists involved. I have seen cases where they were particularly stubborn and it was necessary to point out the legal ramifications of breach of copyright. There are people that don’t realize they are doing anything wrong, there are others that don’t care but some reasoned pressure usually helps them care.

One thing to remember is that if you contact another site as a member of Red Bubble you are then representing all of us, your behavior is how the community at Red Bubble is perceived. If you’re going to represent the community please be well behaved. I’m a little disappointed that the Red Bubble community has been represented as hysterical and bullying. I understand that it took some time to get the appropriate responses, 10 hours I believe. Where is the site? Did anyone check to see if, like the Bub, the admins were likely asleep? Could it be a site that the admins work in their spare time? 10 hours is not a long time in a global community, give them a chance.

What I was very impressed by was that the issue was brought to the attention of the community and that when the RB gods realized what was happening they acted quickly on our behalf. That’s the first time I’ve seen that happen, thank you very much Red Bubble. I was also impressed with the initial reasoned response.

Lastly thanks to the RB community for looking out for each others work.

I think we need a Red Bubble night watchman…