If you follow Love & Hisses on Facebook, AND you were on Facebook on Saturday, you already know this. Those of you who don’t, here’s the story: I was scrolling down my Facebook feed, and suddenly I saw a familiar picture. This one, to be exact:
That’s Jake – and the picture I used for the holiday card back in 2010. I love that picture so much.
It was posted on a company page, with their logo slapped right on the picture. To say I saw red would NOT be overstating it, and I think you can imagine the profanity that swirled through the air. I messaged the company immediately asking them to credit me or to take the picture down. Then I posted on the Love & Hisses FB page, my timeline, retweeted Fred’s tweet, and eventually emailed the company. In the meantime, a lot of YOU guys were sharing the post, and leaving comments on the company’s version of Jake’s picture.
Look, here’s the thing. I do watermark my images now – as I’m sure you’ve noticed – but I’ve been on Flickr since 2005 and I’ve uploaded over 27,000 images. I only started watermarking a few months ago, and to go back and watermark all those thousands of pictures on Flickr just isn’t an option for me. I can barely keep my sidebar updated, I have a bunch of old entries I still want to upload here, there are a zillion things on my to-do list and I’d need to clone myself a couple of times to get it all done.
(Also, if you clone a slacker, you get… another slacker. If you clone that one, you get a puddle of goo who does nothing but lay on the couch, watch episodes of The Good Wife and call for cats to come keep her company. What I’m saying is that I’m apparently a clone of a clone, as I’m sure you suspected all along.)
It’s one thing to have a FB page like Freekibble share a picture (which they did a few months ago – and they immediately credited the picture to me when I asked them to), and another thing entirely to have the FB page of a corporation put their logo on the picture. The irony here is that – okay, it was Cat’s Pride litter. I wasn’t going to share the name of the company because it’s been resolved, but trying to write about it without using the name is proving to be more than I want to deal with. So what I was going to say – the irony is that we do use Cat’s Pride Fresh & Light, but Jake does NOT like it. I use a mix of Fresh Step and Cat’s Pride in all the litter boxes but one, which is filled only with Fresh Step, and that’s the litter box Jake prefers.
So eventually I saw that the picture was removed from the Cat’s Pride FB timeline, and then it was removed from their photo album, and lastly I received a heartfelt apology from Cat’s Pride. They apologized, said that it wasn’t their habit to use artwork without permission, and they’d review their procurement process to be sure it didn’t happen again. Lastly, they said that they wanted to offer some free product, but noted that I’d said Jake doesn’t care for the Cat’s Pride.
I told them that though we actually do use the Cat’s Pride Fresh & Light, I’d prefer that they donate product to Challenger’s House instead. They’re sending out coupons today, so I consider that chapter closed.
And that was my Saturday!
In closing (for this topic, anyway), Diane sent me this link, that I think is good information for anyone who posts their pictures on the internet – Two Simple Steps to Protect Your Photos From Being Stolen on the Internet.
And lastly, I understand that not everyone is aware of how to reverse search for an image using Google Image. Here’s a simple video on how to do it. I reverse searched the picture of Jake, and immediately found the entry where I originally posted the picture in 2011.
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Snuggly ‘Maters on Miz Poo’s bed in the dining room.
Stripey keeps it clean.
REAL clean.
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Baby Beans haz a confusion.
“I do not understand, y’all.”
“It’s this magic water thing. I see how the water comes out up here. Delicious, fresh, tasty water.”
“But then what? I mean, it flows down into the bowl… but the bowl doesn’t overflow.”
“It comes out HERE…”
“And then it goes down THERE…”
“Still coming out HERE…”
“But the bowl NEVER gets too full, and it NEVER overflows.”
“Thinking about this makes my brain hurt.”
“STILL not overflowing.”
“It makes no SENSE! Bitsy says that tiny elves come out when we’re not looking, and they haul the extra water away in little bitty wagons. I think she’s messing with me. I would SMELL tiny elves. Wouldn’t I?”
“After all that thinking, I need a nap.”
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Another Pickles & Weeds/ GameCam video (there’ll probably one a day for the rest of the week). This one is of them playing (and it’s also of them jumping and running). One thing I’m learning by going through all the GameCam footage is that apparently Dandelion REALLY liked hanging out under the couch. No wonder she’d disappear and then suddenly reappear. She was under the couch the whole time!
Just so y’all know, I always put the code in so that the videos will embed in my entries, and when I double-check the entries before I schedule them to post, the video shows up just fine. But somehow, in the process of posting, WordPress strips out the coding. So I have to come back at some point and re-paste the code so it’ll show up embedded. All of this is to say that if you want to see the video without going to YouTube and it isn’t showing up for you, please check back. When I get up in the morning, I’ll re-post the embedded video and it will hopefully show up right!
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Today’s permanent resident (stilll cleaning out that folder) : Loony Jake.
Maxi doesn’t come inside much, but when she does she prefers to sleep in that bed on Fred’s desk. Jake, being obsessed with Maxi, can’t stand the excitement.
Corbie and Jake are discussing what’s going on (“Maxi’s on the desk and I’m watching her!”), and Maxi hisses at them both.
He’s just such a little loon.
Every now and then, Jake feels the need to climb on top of the cat house in the back yard. I tried to convince Fred that we need to put a deck up there, but he doesn’t agree.
Sharpening his claws.
Judging by the stink eye I’m getting from both Jake and Corbie, I interrupted something. Excuse ME.
Rough life ain’t it, Jakey?
“Indeed.”
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Previously
2012: No entry.
2011: Peter cheers Marcia on in her Race! Around! The Room!
2010: Keebler’s so busy keeping an eye on The Crazy that he doesn’t even notice Elwood reaching down for a tap.
2009: These days, instead of immediately smacking any kitten who comes too close to her, Miz Poo will sniff them, regard them and THEN smack them.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
A sun deck is an excellent idea!!! 🙂
I agree! Fred is so talented he could knock one out in no time!
He’s actually been talking about making a two-level cat house for the back yard (to replace one of the plastic containers), and I’m trying to convince him that the second level needs a deck. We’ll see if he ultimately agrees with me. 😀
Twist his arm…
The photos of Baby Beans and the water fountain reminds me of the first time kittens discover a mirror and see the mysterious kitten in the mirror.
I’m glad you gave Cat’s Pride hell.
One day I’m going to be in the room when Baby Beans gets to looking at himself in the mirror, because it’s pretty awesome. 🙂
I am totally with Baby Beans on this. Technology is AMAZING!
As far as the photo debacle, I am glad Cat’s Pride stepped up and did the right thing. I honestly was less bothered by their actions (being as they rectified it) than with the number of people who engaged in a form of victim blaming, telling you to relax, get over it, or lecturing that you should have watermarked your photo. Newsflash… even if I don’t watermark, the photo is still mine and taking what is mine without my permission is called stealing. But, as a practical person, I know that I am going to need to start watermarking my photos before long (even though my photos can’t touch your quality, I’m working on it). Any recommendations for an inexpensive program that’s easy to use?
Also… Do you have a problem with spammers in your comments? My spam filter catches 99% of them before they hit the blog, but it’s more and more alerts lately. I wouldn’t mind the spam as much if they actually said something that made sense. And it’s all about one topic and closes with a completely off the wall comment about toasters.
it is why I had to do away with anonymous comments. I’m still getting a slew of hits from spammers, but they can’t make comments so i don’t have to deal with it any more. I’ve tried turning them back on and I immediately get over whelmed with them again. The spam filter does catch them, but a) I get an email about it so I have to deal with it and b) i have to go through the spam filter to make sure there isn’t a legit comment in there (it happens) so I have to see them twice.
as to the people who were telling Robyn to relax or blame her for this mess. I work for a stock image agency. A lot of the images we sell aren’t watermarked, and people think they can just take them and use them on commercial sites. We have hired a service to troll the internet for us, and every month we get lists of people who have done this and we send them a bill for $1000 along with an explanation of copyright infringement. You wouldn’t believe the excuses these people dream up to justify what they did. but there is no excuse for theft. Which is why I was quite shocked about CP. I seriously hope they drop some serious couponage on the shelter..
I teach computer skills to elementary students, and work with them to understand plagiarism. Connie, as far as your stock pictures, is it still OK to use for educational purposes only? I only use clipart on the website, but students occasionally like/want real pictures for reports. I don’t want to be teaching them to steal!
TECHNICALLY – if someone is selling photos, then to take them with out licensing them and display them is theft. We have license pictures to people to put on a poster in their kitchen. We charge them a ridiculously low fee for it. (we license the image, they create the poster) We have had schools call us and we charge minimal fees..
but in all honesty, if you are using the image off line for one class, I can’t see how anyone would ever find out about it. but since this is a class about this sort of thing, you are probably best to stick to open source images. There are some websites out there that will license you an image with no fee, or you can look for copyleft images..
I hope they do, too! The shelter manager’s going to let me know what they end up getting, and I’ll try to remember to report back.
(Also, I didn’t know that you work for a stock image agency! Another note to add to my stalking-Connie file. 😛 )
now I’m curious what is in that file 😉
Hi, first I did not “lecture” Robyn to watermark pictures. I am not an expert photographer that’s wise in the ways of internet photo stealing. I just remembered taking a watermarking course with a Photoshop class about a hundred years ago, and remembering how easy it was. Wondered if it had occurred to Robyn – because why should it even have to, but that’s the way of our world now – that’s all. I assume she’s regular folk, like me, at the mercy of the photo stealin’ goats of the internet, and wanted to be helpful. So just stop.
Well, to be fair there were several people on the Cat’s Pride post (on their timeline) who were pretty sure it was my own fault for not watermarking and I should be flattered that they were using my picture at all. I don’t think Kelly was necessarily talking about you, Mary – there were conversations going on all over FB because not only did I post it on the Love & Hisses FB page, I posted it on my own timeline, Fred shared it on his, other people shared it on theirs… like that old Faberge Organics commercial (holy cow, Heather Locklear was practically an infant in that commercial!), there were conversations going on all over the place, and then when Cat’s Pride took down the picture, all the shares (and the conversations) went poof. 🙂
No one said it was you. Like Robyn said, there were at least a dozen people who told her so and one in particular (who didn’t use her own name) came back five or six times in a particular thread to tell her if she had only protected herself better that this wouldn’t happen. One simple statement is fine and perfectly reasonable (and helpful). Someone that comes back that many times is lecturing. If it wasn’t you, than perhaps you should “just stop”. Not to be thin-skinned, but there’s really no reason to jump on me here.
I use – and like – Alamoon (alamoon.com). It’s not free (unless you want to do your pictures one at a time), and there are a few things that annoy me about it, but I like the job it does better than the job my Photoshop Elements program does. Also, it’s simple, and god knows I NEED simple! But hold off on getting anything – I know that people were suggesting programs back when I first started talking about watermarking, so I’m going to post the question in Friday’s post and we’ll see what’s out there. Maybe I’ll find something I like even more. 🙂
I don’t actually have a problem with spam – well, okay, wait. I just went and looked, and my spamcatcher has caught almost 800 spam comments since the day before Christmas, so I guess I should say I don’t have a problem with spam getting through the spamcatcher, and it doesn’t alert me when it does catch spam, so I go in every couple of weeks and just delete it from the spam folder.
Which is not helpful at all! Maybe Connie’s suggestion of turning off anonymous comments is the way to go.
I get an email every time someone comments on my blog (including my own comments… it’s a pain). Then I have to track it down and they’re usually buried weeks back in the blog. I have one persistent spammer that writes (or should I say “copies and pastes”) paragraphs worth of articles on isotopes and directs readers to a website about toasters or Walmart. Heck, if my spammers just said anything interesting or sensible or even on topic, I’d leave them there 😉
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m going to look into it and start watermarking soon.
I have no idea why, but my own comments don’t show up in my email. I mean, I’m okay with that, but I wish I knew why, so I could advise others on how to make it happen for them too.
Over at Dinosaurs, we’re forever getting slightly insulting spam comments, most of which sound almost like legitimate comments except that they link to Louis Vuitton knockoff bags and the like.
Or perhaps Amanda went rogue… 😉
I use the Batch Watermarks – http://thebatchwatermarks.com/index.html. Very easy to use and only $27.00. I tried Alamoon, and could not get it to work properly, tried contacting the company and never received a reply. Finally gave up and got my money back from paypal. I do really like the Batch watermarks. Easy to use and can watermark in batches. It also chooses white or gray text according to the background of the picture…..
Sorry to hear about your travails with that, er, company — here’s hoping that Challenger’s House gets a LOT of coupons. The Baby Beans sequence is priceless and time spent with Jake is time well (and cheerfully) spent.
Glad the whole CP episode got resolved! They should know better than to mess with L&H readers!
I hope the link (regarding protecting your images on the web) is helpful. I attended a lecture by the attorney who wrote it and learned a lot from her.
I found it super helpful. And thanks again for sharing it, I like how they made the process so simple to understand!
Oh, man, I would have been so mad. I’m so glad they resolved it as best they could (I mean, considering they’d used the photo in the first place).
A site once used a photo of my children to illustrate their own post. I can still get adrenaline all the way up to my sinuses, just thinking about it. They gave me the same kind of “it’s against our policy to use other people’s photos” statement—but then, how did they end up somehow accidentally using my photo? Surely there was no doubt that those children did not belong to anyone at the site and so the photo could not possibly belong to them and also must belong to someone else? It’s mystifying.
I was so hyped up on the adrenaline from the whole thing that I had to go take a nap when I crashed down from it an hour later. 🙂
Jake is by far my favorite. I’d hug the hell out of that cat!
So excited for more Pickles ‘n’ Weeds videos. They are so entertaining.
You go get those big corporations, Robyn. That said, I’m glad they fixed the issue.
Finally, my favorite moment of today’s post was glancing at the “tags” section of your sidebar and noting that “Boogers” and “Poo” (and “Sugarbutt”) are some of the most prominent words there. Lord, will I EVER grow up?
It’s much more fun to be twelve!
Ha, indeed!
Yes, I would build a sun deck on the right side of the cat house & attach it to the scratching post (tree)..with a retractable awning for the summer months..lol.
CP tweeted me back yesterday and said they were resolving it. The funny thing is that I have tweeted maybe 3 times total. I saw Fred’s tweet that they were making a donation to Challenger’s and I thanked them for doing the right thing and promptly forgot about it. I am angered again today at their “contribution”. I hope those coupons are for Free product and not a couple bucks off. They should have made a cash donation, and a hefty one at that, for their thievery. grrr
I hope they’re for free product, too! The shelter manager will let me know what she receives. The more, the better! 🙂
that Baby Beans is a cutie…..we would be baffled by the fountain too, but we don’t think it is elves.
rude about the picture stealing, but yet another reason for mom to get it together and watermark our pics…at least you caught it, they took it down and agreed to donate to Challengers (though we have to admit it is a little funny that they managed to get a pic of the one cat that WON’T use their product).
Love us some Jake….
In all fairness though, we all love Jake. We all want him for our own too. Everyone.
That’s good of you to have them donate money to the challenger’s house. Your good karma inbox is surely overflowing. Again.
My four cats Re using exactly the same waterman fountain as Baby Beans does, but they just take it for granted. BB, you are a thinker!
ARE, not Re. stupid autocorrect (or my lousy typing) 🙂
And WATER, not waterman. Sheesh.
Autocorrect is a priceless invention less for its uses in virtual keyboards than its hilarity when it screws up.
The last thing I do before bed at night is read the “Damn You Autocorrect” posts, so that I go to sleep happy (and sometimes laughing until I cry!) 🙂
Yes! Great way to end the day. 🙂 I should try that!
Oh yes, I have learnt a few new English words from that site (I’m Polish) 🙂
If I may say so, I think Baby Beans is, like, Corby kind of beautiful, isn’t he? That tiny nose! I believe that’s the tiniest kitty nose I ever seen.
He really is Corbie kind of beautiful. And he’s a little man, I’m wondering if he’s going to have a growth spurt, or just stay tiny.
He may have that “Alice gene”. 🙂
And here I’d just gone and deleted my Facebook with the new year 🙂 Well, glad I can get updates by coming here.
Don’t worry little Baby, I bet there are humans and big kitties who are all “whoa! that is freaky…”
Has the Corb Man put on a little Christmas chunk? Not that it in anyway diminishes from his Corb-appeal(ha!), but, just askin’…
HA – Corb-appeal! He hasn’t put on any weight lately, he just tends to carry his weight in his front half. And it’s the angle. The angle, I tell ya!
So glad the picture thing got sorted so well and so fast, especially at the weekend! The company messaged me on FB to say they were sorry and had removed the image, as Im just a nosy fan here in the UK I think thats pretty decent of them.
Todays pictures are wonderful!! I want some of those little elves, and Fred should make a deck on every cat home 🙂
It’s one thing to share your picture on their page, with or without credit, but to put THEIR log on YOUR picture without YOUR permission is where I think they went wrong. And I totally missed the fun. The picture had already gone poof before I found a post from you about it.
I love those game cam videos. Some day I’ll have to get you to show me how you do it and what kind of camera and all. I’d love to have one set up to see what my cats do thru the day or night.
I’d say I agree with this. It was the logo that was over the top. I share pictures all the time (well… “all the time” for how much time I spend online these days, anyway) and I don’t always give proper credit, usually because I can’t find it. What I DO NOT EVER do is say, “Look at this picture I took specifically to show y’all about something of mine!” Because that’s not only stealing, that’s lying. And while “stealing” can be argued rather effectively in this era of undocumented (and in some cases undocumentable) pictures readily available online, lying (by putting your own logo on, which gives to any reasonable person the impression that the photo was either taken by someone working with the company or was purchased for the company’s use) is a whoooooole ‘nother bucket of worms.
I’ve heard recently about a blogger who was irate over people “stealing” her pictures – they weren’t stolen, they were simply reposted with less than flattering commentary, but proper credit was given on every single picture. So she started watermarking her photos. AAAAAAAAAND anyone else’s photos she felt the need to put up on her website, including photos from a friend who was a professional photographer. (And no, she did not give credit.) People crazy.
I caught just the tail-end of the Cat’s Pride brouhaha when I checked FB on Sunday. I’m glad it all got resolved in the end, but as someone whose background is as a professional journalist (these days, one has to put the “professional” in there to differentiate oneself from all the self-appointed “journalists” out there), I’ve been increasingly alarmed at the laxness with which people approach serious issues like intellectual property rights, plagiarism, and simple “getting the facts right.” Well, I’m in danger of launching into a soap-box harangue….
But on a different note, I wanted to let you and Kelly and all the other fosters out there know about this other thing I saw on FB over the weekend: Tax breaks for pet foster parents…make sure you claim yours (http://www.examiner.com/article/tax-breaks-for-pet-foster-parents-make-sure-you-claim-yours). It’s not “new” news, but it may be new to some of you, as it was to me. I know most of your rescue groups cover the fostering costs, but there may be some stuff that isn’t covered that you could claim.
BTW, that’s an adorable Christmas photo of Jake!! And the Baby Beans series today is just TOO cute. Haven’t watched the game cam yet. I’m saving that for later in the day when I need a pick-me-up.
Hey LH community! wanted to give you an update on the Jack situation: I took him to the vet today and had him checked for an infection. It came back negative for infection, but he is a little inflamed. she said that can be caused by him holding it (which he apparently did for most of the day there) and stress. She offered to give me anti-inflammatory medication and Prozac, but I declined them for now. Over the weekend I purchased two new litter boxes and mixed in some cat attract litter in with the old (That stuff is EXPENSIVE BTW!!!), and I’m going to limit his access to just my bedroom and bathroom, and keep the kids away from him. We’ll try this for a couple of weeks (in addition to the Feliway plugin and keeping the litter box cleaned out nightly) and see how he does. My vet did say she can tell he’s a little bit of an anxious kitty and that a move and the holidays combined was enough to push a sane cat over the edge, so it sounded like I was doing all the right things and that the behaviour should hopefully stop in the next month or so. Thank you ever so much everyone for all the advice you left here though! I’ve read everything about mine and the comments left for the other Jack (who’s marking the dog beds)and appreciate all the input and support. Made an impression on my vet that I was a good kitty mama too! 🙂
And as always Robyn – your photos and the commentary make my day!!
Seeing your post mentioning Cat Attract reminded me that I have a bunch of coupons for Cat Attract and other Dr. Elsey’s products. I’d meant to send them to Robyn along with my Christmas card, but just plumb forgot …. until now.
So, if you or Robyn or anyone else wants them, I’m happy to mail them to you. Each is for $1 off and I’ve got them for
Cat Attract Litter Additive or Precious Cat Ultra Litter Attractant (3 of these)
any size bag of Cat Attract or Kitten Attract (this looks to be for the litter — I’ve got two of these)
Also, 1 coupon for Precious Cat Senior Litter (8 lb bag) or Long-Haired Litter (8 lb jug)
and
4 coupons for Dr. Elsey’s Urine Removal System.
There’s no expiration date for any of these coupons.
E-mail me at charlenelinfu (at) gmail.com and let me know where to send them.
Sherry (or anyone else), feel free to jump on this offer – I’ve got a ton of Cat Attract coupons. The good thing about Cat Attract is that every time you buy a bag, you get another coupon. 🙂
Thank you for offering them, Charlene!!!
good that there was no infection. Did they run a PH on the urine?
Sweet Loony Jake. I just love his phiz.
I live with 12 cats – all rescues of course – and though I am a total cat person, I rarely meet others who “understand.”
That said, I love, love, love your blog. And so do all my kittehs…
I LOVE those pictures of Baby Beans trying to figure out the water fountain! That’s just adorable!
And as a librarian, I get really tired of telling people that they can’t just take something from the internet without at least providing attribution. Of course, some of these people are the same ones who copied entries from the Encyclopedia Brittanica and turned them in as their own work!
I loves me some Loony Jake! Long may his tunes be loony!
So how does the water fountain work? I’d have to go with elves, too. That type of thing has always driven me batty, since the first time I saw a “never-ending beer pour” or something at the house of a friend of my parents’.
Looney Jake can look ticked?? I’m.. I’m stunned! I feel woozy, I need to lay down now..
Love the water fountain series!