I made $$$ from my cabin pics!!

[judynorth]

I was also banned when I requested that my pictures be removed from the website. I also don't know if he removed the pictures yet either. If someone cares to check they are of a BA cabin (A431) on the Diamond Princess - one of the cabin and one in the bathroom (you can see me taking the picture in the reflection). I'd be interested to know if he did remove them. I have had no response from him. Funny, my husband just tried to access the website from his computer and was banned too. Really underhanded of him!:mad:

[iluvcruzin]

It's gone Judy.

[Coral]

JudyNorth - it appears your picture has been removed.

 

The owner of the site is cooperating with me and is removing my pictures as requested. He is having a difficult time remembering which ones he has taken and I have had to send him some reminders but he is being civil to me and I have yet to be banned. I do have access to several ISPs and can check if I have been banned.

 

What a pain. How the heck are people putting water marks on their pictures?

 

Again, thanks for the heads up on this.

[Coral]

You might get banned. He did that to at least two of us on the RCI board. Kind of funny that he did not offer to pay for them prior to posting them on his site!!!!!

 

I agree!

[Cruising89143]

JudyNorth - it appears your picture has been removed.

 

The owner of the site is cooperating with me and is removing my pictures as requested. He is having a difficult time remembering which ones he has taken and I have had to send him some reminders but he is being civil to me and I have yet to be banned. I do have access to several ISPs and can check if I have been banned.

 

What a pain. How the heck are people putting water marks on their pictures?

 

Again, thanks for the heads up on this.

 

Coral I am looking for a way to watermark my photos. Most of the software has a yearly charge of around fifty dollars. I will do that if I have to but if anyone has an alternative please pass along the suggestion.

[Fury1995]

At least some of you got your pictures removed. He just banned me after I requested mine be removed, but according to aggieastrosfan my pictures have not been removed. How rude to ban us just because we don't like that he posted our pictures without permission. It's like, if I can't have your pictures, YOU can't have my website! Nya nya nya!

 

Jane they're gone now.

[judynorth]

Coral I am looking for a way to watermark my photos. Most of the software has a yearly charge of around fifty dollars. I will do that if I have to but if anyone has an alternative please pass along the suggestion.

 

Thanks Iluvcruzin and Coral for checking my pictures. I am glad that they are gone.

 

Cruzingator2, you can watermark your photos with Photoshop Elements. I think it is even possible to do a batch edit and watermark them all at once. I might try that and repost at least some of the pictures that are already there and definitely future pictures. I don't mind someone downloading my pictures (several hundred have) but I don't want someone downloading them and then selling them as if they were their own.

 

PE is a great photo editor too. I have used it for all the pictures that I have posted on Webshots (even the ones that the guy stole from there :mad: ).

[Coral]

Question - it appears they are being removed from the free website. What about the website that people pay for?? Does anyone know what that website contains?

[Cruising89143]

Question - it appears they are being removed from the free website. What about the website that people pay for?? Does anyone know what that website contains?

 

I don't have any idea of what that site contains but I would hope that he would have the common sense to remove the photos from all sites.

[Voyager]

I posted my pics of the cabins on the Monarch on www.cruisedeckplans.com and was paid for them!! I made $8.50:)

If you have pics of your cabins, or ANY cabins, you should go there and post them!! Also, if you have a certain cabin and need info on it you MAY get a picture of the exact cabin if you are lucky! The more people that share their pics there the more people will have GREAT info when it comes to researching specific cabins! So give them your pics, make a few dollars to cover your bar bill, and help future cruisers know what their cabin REALLY looks like!

 

LOL ---"cover your bar bill" Wha'd ya have, a sip? :eek: lol ha ha ha he ha ho !!

Next time, try a drink or two..... :D Wait !, sell those pics first. Ha ha he ha....:p

[SakeDad]

I don't mind someone downloading my pictures (several hundred have) but I don't want someone downloading them and then selling them as if they were their own.

 

 

Where has anyone seen that he is SELLING the pictures for money??? They are on his FREE website for everyone to see! You guys keep saying he's making $$$ on YOUR pictures and no one has said how. Yes, he has a paid portion of his website that he makes $$$ from but he is not selling the pictures as far as I know of. He paid ME and gave me photo credit AFTER I gave permission to use my pictures.

I think there are some charges being made here that have NOT been substantiated yet.

[sppunk]

You all should contact CLIA - those were posted without authentication or permission, which is illegal.

 

Your personal property was used for the monitary gain of another - CLIA is strongly opposed to this and takes hard stands against such criminal action. I will never use this company's service, and advice everyone I meet not to as well. I feel for those who have gone through this.

[Cruising89143]

Where has anyone seen that he is SELLING the pictures for money??? They are on his FREE website for everyone to see! You guys keep saying he's making $$$ on YOUR pictures and no one has said how. Yes, he has a paid portion of his website that he makes $$$ from but he is not selling the pictures as far as I know of. He paid ME and gave me photo credit AFTER I gave permission to use my pictures.

I think there are some charges being made here that have NOT been substantiated yet.

 

First of all you're missing the entire point here. This person is a TA and he owns this site. He sells cruises for a living and there are links to his travel agency all over that site. He is benefiting from those photos. There is also a fee membership if you choose to join. He took photos that were NOT his to take. That is dishonest. Now he is banning some of us for asking to have our photos removed. If he had no problem with removing the photos then he would not have banned us.

[mcfaddensfarm]

No, I think you misunderstood. At least, what I was trying to say. (Can't speak for anyone else.) I wasn't saying he was making money off our pictures, I said someone ELSE was making money off our pictures. In other words, I download John Smith's pictures off his webshots album, then turn around and sell them to cruisedeckplans.com for 50 cents a piece. It says right on the form to sell these to the web site that "By submitting your pictures to us you agree that we can use them on our website and that you are the owner of such pictures." So the thing that bothers ME about all of this is that someone ELSE says that they are THEIR pictures. When clearly, that is MY son in the pictures. That's all that I'm saying about this. I just want him to take my pictures off because they were submitted to him fraudulently.

[Casshew]

If you want protection you need to use a service that has the software capability of disabling the famous "right click" on the picture to steal it. The technology is out there.

 

It's easy to get around the no-right-click just by a screen capture and then crop.

 

Not that I have ever done that

[judynorth]

Where has anyone seen that he is SELLING the pictures for money??? They are on his FREE website for everyone to see! You guys keep saying he's making $$$ on YOUR pictures and no one has said how. Yes, he has a paid portion of his website that he makes $$$ from but he is not selling the pictures as far as I know of. He paid ME and gave me photo credit AFTER I gave permission to use my pictures.

I think there are some charges being made here that have NOT been substantiated yet.

 

The point is that he did not ask permission to use our pictures. If he had requested permission (which he did not but easily could have) I might have allowed him to use my pictures. Apparently he finds the pictures, posts them on his website without giving credit to the owner, and then is offended and becomes defensive if you say that you don't want them there. His email response to a previous poster was absurd to say the least! I originally thought that someone else might be combing the web for pictures to sell to this website but it appears that he is finding the pictures himself and posting them without asking permission first. That is WRONG. He might not be selling our pictures, as such, but he is profiting from them because advertisers pay him by hits on his site and our pictures draw people to the site. More hits, more money from advertisers., more money for him.

[Merion_Mom]

Very well-expressed, Judy.

[TPKeller]

Curious how people think you can post something on the internet and expect it not to be looked at or even used, with or without your permission?

 

[...]

 

And as always... Read the fine print....

 

2. Grant of License.

When you post Content to Webshots you choose whether to make that Content "Public" (meaning that such Content will be included in our Community section and will be available and searchable to anyone who visits the Webshots site) or "Private" (meaning that such Content will be available only to those who have been given the URL address for such photos and will not be indexed or searchable in the Community section of Webshots). By posting Public or Private Content to Webshots you grant Webshots, its affiliates and partners a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, sub licensable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transfer, transmit, distribute and publish that Content for the purposes of displaying that Content on Webshots. In addition, when you post Public Content to Webshots, you also grant us a license to distribute that Content, either electronically or via other media, to users seeking to download it through the Webshots Desktop or for purposes of other services provided by Webshots and to display such Content on Webshots affiliated sites, including but not limited to other sites owned and operated by CNET. This license shall apply to the distribution and the storage of Your Content in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed. You may remove Content you have posted on Webshots at any time. When you do remove your Content, the license described above will automatically expire.

I don't think people expect their pictures to not be looked at. But there are protections against people taking intellectual property and using it for other purposes or in other places without permission. As has been mentioned, the copyright is automatic. Enforcement is another issue, but when someone does this, it is clearly against the law.

 

Please re-read the fine print, especially the underlined portions. I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV) but I have seen similar wording in other places, and this is consistent with the language they need to have in place that allows them to simply perform their services as an on-line photo gallery. Unless the other web sites in question are owned by the same company, then nothing in this grant of license applies to them.

 

I would even point out the irony that Webshots protects themselves with this complex license just to allow them to display the pictures on their own web site, that users have submitted. How much more wrong is what the other guys are doing with no permission at all!?

 

Theron

 

P.S. It is very disappointing that this guy is choosing such questionable tactics, my favorite TA is also affiliated with his company. They need to so some house cleaning.

[Undrhil]

The point is that he did not ask permission to use our pictures. If he had requested permission (which he did not but easily could have) I might have allowed him to use my pictures. Apparently he finds the pictures, posts them on his website without giving credit to the owner, and then is offended and becomes defensive if you say that you don't want them there. His email response to a previous poster was absurd to say the least! I originally thought that someone else might be combing the web for pictures to sell to this website but it appears that he is finding the pictures himself and posting them without asking permission first. That is WRONG. He might not be selling our pictures, as such, but he is profiting from them because advertisers pay him by hits on his site and our pictures draw people to the site. More hits, more money from advertisers., more money for him.

 

I still haven't seen anyone post what pictures are available in his pay-site. I guess no one wants to give the guy more money by paying for a membership, but if the photos he stole *are* or *were* posted on his paysite, then he owes monetary damages to the original owners of those pictures, unless he obtained permission to *reuse them in a commercial manner*. I bet he's still hosting those pictures which he removed from the free site, on his pay site. And, if he isn't, then it's because he's been reading this forum and knows that eventually someone will look and *then* the **** will hit the fan...

 

I don't have any cruise pictures posted anywhere online, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any of mine (unless he's taken to cruising the dumpster behind Wal-Marts after the photo lab dumps their garbage) but once I get back from my next cruise, I'll be looking into copy-protecting my photos before I post them anywhere. Sorry, people ... I won't even email them to anyone because you never know what someone *else* might do with that picture ... :(

 

Undrhil

[emmy]

I have closed down my photos until I can get them watermarked for copyright. It's a shame that it comes down to this but it is the principle of the thing and the fact that he saw nothing wrong with what he did. No way would I use his agency or any agency tied with the national account.

 

I totally agree... I had used this agency recently and a TA that posts on these boards who works for them and was not happy with them so when I saw their agencies name of the response email it was just one more reason NOT to use them.

 

Emmy

[Coral]

As stated earlier, he has cooperated with my email requests and has removed all of the pictures that I have found and pointed out. If he had not, I would have been contacting his corporate office and CLIA. Because he cooperated, I will not be doing so (unless my pictures pop up again).

 

I do know someone with that agency. It is the type of agency in which people buy franchises and work independently - so if one person is a bad agent, it doesn't necessarily reflect on the other agents with the company. I wouldn't judge other agents based on this person's actions.

 

-----------

 

I have allowed one website to use my pictures. I was approached by a person on this website who has a great website in which is not meant for profit. He politely asked and I said yes and he has my name next to each photo giving me credit.

[TennisLover]

I posted my pics of the cabins on the Monarch on www.cruisedeckplans.com and was paid for them!! I made $8.50:)

... So give them your pics, make a few dollars to cover your bar bill, and help future cruisers know what their cabin REALLY looks like!

 

I think I'd have to spend at least a few days on board taking cabin photos all over to cover my bar bill! $8.50 surely won't cut it :eek: .

[Nliedel]

I'm not making any accusations here, but it is possible that the negative reaction some people are getting has anything to do with how the request to remove the photos was worded? It just seems odd to me that some people were treated with courtesy and others banned and ignored.

[Coral]

I'm not making any accusations here, but it is possible that the negative reaction some people are getting has anything to do with how the request to remove the photos was worded? It just seems odd to me that some people were treated with courtesy and others banned and ignored.

 

Nliedel - Steve has been very quick and responsive to my email and has followed through on the pictures I have pointed out. I mentioned that I am leaving town soon but would look again when I returned to make sure that all of them were removed (it is hard to go through each ship he has listed).

 

I have to say that my email to him was very direct and probably wasn't the nicest email. I basically said that the pictures were used with out my permission, I gave him 3 days to remove them and told him that I would contact his corporate office and CLIA if they were not done by that time. Since he is cooperating, I will not be contacting the people I mentioned.

 

I think the owner realized that what he did was wrong and realizes he really should cooperate and be responsive.

[Nliedel]

Actually I am not sure it was Steve that is the bad guy here as much as the people who submitted photos knowing they were not theres for money. Unless the guy searched the web and grabbed and posted, but if he admitted that I missed it.