ear-fung.us I’m a programmer. I’m also pro-grammar.

If You Want to Use My Photographs, ASK ME!

I was at my local aquarium store talking to the owner and he mentioned he was searching the internet for custom aquarium stands and noticed that my wife, Dana, was in a photo on an aquarium furniture website. He wondered if they were the ones that built my stand.

I said definitely, "no," and asked if he'd forward me the link but decided to do some searching on the internet myself. I found it.

So here's the deal: all my photographs are are licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons. That means:

You are free:

• to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
• For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
• Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

So... If you want to use my photograph for any commercial work, YOU CAN'T just take the photo! You must ASK ME! Then if I agree to let you use my photo, you must COMPENSATE ME!

This website that brought this rant on made an especially egregious violation of my intellectual property rights by using a photograph of my wife as an endorsement of their company. Also, this is an aquarium furniture website that did not build my aquarium stand. So not only have they stolen my photograph, they're lying about the work they do. Makes me wonder what other photographs they've stolen of the internet.

Completely despicable.

I will be calling this company on Monday morning insisting that they remove the photograph from their site immediately. If that doesn't go well, I'll be having my lawyer send them a cease and desist.

The photograph in question: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markrickert/705739541/ The copyright notice is clearly displayed next to the photo.

I'll give more updates as the story unfolds.