Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Being polite and the internet

Howdy all!

Okay, I have some finished cowboys coming, and some other neat stuff, but for now I need to vent just a touch:)

So, in a post from some time ago I used a few photos that I hadn't taken... I just needed a few shots of some specific minis, unpainted.  I found one when I did a Google image search and, using the "insert link" thing in blogger, showed the picture.  I didn't think much else about it.

I just got a message that, to be honest, seemed very rude.  Maybe it is just the "tone deaf" nature of the internet and I am totally mis-reading it, but it went something like "Do you make it a habit of stealing peoples photos and bandwidth?  Take my picture down or credit me properly."

Now, that strikes me as rude.  Personally, I would have approached it with a "Hey man!  Hope you don't mind, but I think you are using one of my photos, and it is actually costing me a bit of bandwidth.  Would you mind taking it down?"

Am I reading too much into it?  Or was it simply rude?

I did remove the photo... I had no idea it would cost anyone bandwidth, and I suppose I didn't think that a photo of a pair of unpainted miniatures out of a blister was hot property.  Funny, too, because I would have been happy to remove it, as well as put up a new post all about the person's blog in attempt to say sorry, if the initial message had been even remotely polite.

Oh well.  That's the internet, I suppose!:)

Anyway, coming up next... some finished cowboys, and maybe some photos of my buddy's cowboy set-up, which he is now putting up on the MAIN table, instead of the secondary 6x4!

7 comments:

Scott MacPhee said...

I've been on both sides of this. I actually had a guy use pictures of my miniatures, uncredited, to sell his rules. So I understand someone getting peeved at you using his pic without permission.

I've also used another person's images without permission, back when I wrote my first webpage.

So yes, he could have been nicer. You catch more flies with honey and all that . . .

Author said...

Yeah, I can especially understand if you are using pictures of something someone painted, or something you've made, and then I understand even more when it is for selling something... but this was literally a single photo of an unpainted miniature of which there are dozens of photos online that are basically all identical... I just picked one randomly.

And yeah, I guess what annoyed me was the attitude, really. I would have been HAPPY to address it and then some if it had been mentioned in a nice way. I certainly never thought that using so basic a photo would upset someone, and the idea of using bandwidth never even occurred to me... so I guess the "do you always steal blah blah" just really seemed very unnecessarily snarky.

Beccas said...

Don't worry about. Another day on the interwebs.

muzik212 said...

Yeah sounds like a douche. Costing bandwidth??? Really?...Really?? Id have to imagine that you stole a whopping 16th of a cent. Yeah this guy get the tool of the year for flawless practice of douchebaggery. After all you steal my stuff all the time and credit me as buddy and I dont care :)

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

I learnt a long time ago - always credit pictures that aren't yours...

...for the same reason you describe.... :o))

Anonymous said...

On the latest posting on my own blog, I wanted a suitable quirky picture that I had found on the web. I really couldn't wait round to find out if I could get permission to use it, so instead I adapted the photo, then put in a whole paragraph attribution, including a summary of the message the original site was trying to get across.

Strictly speaking, I'm still doing the wrong thing. But I've now sent the site owners an email about it, and I'm hoping they will appreciate that I have (hopefully) pumped a few hits their way.

One difference from your case is that I didn't point the link to the photo on the owner's own site - I stored it on my own webspace first.

BattleSausage said...

Dear Sir:

I am writting to inform you that I wrote this topic first on my blog. Please remove your article as it is the same as mine. Also I am taking my ball and going home.

Screw you guys, I'm going home!

(honestly they are pictures of unpainted miniatures....grow up douche bag)