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.