Sunday, July 13, 2008

It was supposed to be shirts

Well, this update was supposed to be shirts.
Mail Bag ended up taking over again, and turning it into a random stuff whirl wind of not a whole lot. There are a TON of shirts on the reserve file, and they need to go up, but figure on that being next week.

The mail continues to heckle, this time with "Photo Raiders".
Photo Raiders really clog up the works by raiding other sites unrelated to SonicGear of all their Sonic photos, and then send them to Gear, hoping for credit. This is way uncool because the original owner/picture taker gets cut out of everything just because they happened to put up a website.

Why is it difficult?
Because the original owner/photographer can then come after SonicGear since the raiders never bother to say where they get their pics from. It makes it look like SonicGear is stealing photos! Which it wouldn't do.

A Hassle, too
It especially is troublesome to me, because I've got to hoard the photos/email until I can find out whoever posted it first, then I have to do the legwork to track whoever it is down and try to get permission. That keeps me from doing the rest of the update, or doing any improvements to the site. It also loads up the inbox because the process is never quick.

A Gray Area:
It can also lead into a very "Gray Area". What about defunct sites? Sites that have pics but not updated since like...2000? 1998? Where is the owner? Will they EVER write back? That becomes an abandonment issue. If someone clearly abandons their site+photos, I have no problem collecting them all to preserve it on SonicGear. The problem is that a lot of this stuff is coming from VERY ACTIVE places like current blogs and innocent people posting up goods or previews.
Ebay: Ebay is also in the gray area. Clearly, if they're selling something they don't want it anymore, and probably don't want the photo either. I have no problem with these pictures. Also, SonicGear doesn't sell anything on ebay, so it's not like it's taking the photos for re-use or to misrepresent items. (all that is stated in the disclaimer, though)

Due to all the photo raiding, I had to put up an email guidelines page, with questions, answers and tips. At the bottom is the actual email address.

I want the photos. But I don't want to get them in a "Bad Way" that harms other sites or cuts people out.

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