Back to Hacking Bigfoot Eruption, main page…
January 2022 (PicRights.com)
Many years ago we got a newspaper clipping given to us, a story in an Idaho newspaper about Expedition Bigfoot: The Bigfoot Museum, a museum in Georgia. This is the kind of tip we need. We rarely get that far east, as we are in Oregon; thus, tips from others is helpful. In fact, that is a major premise of our site. Eventually we hope more will contribute, and when people do, we will give them credit.
Immediately we put this Museum in the site. We sketched a drawing of imagery related to the museum, thinking this would be legal.
Next we took a picture of a picture from the article, installed it into that page while giving full credit to its owner.
Two things. Our lawyer said in 2018 (our inception) that a picture that we take, of anything is our property. Not true in this case as a direct image of proprietary imagery is against the law. Over 1,000 pages in our site and this was our only snag?
Secondly: as of today (January 6, 2022) we learned from the internet that giving credit to a pictures owner, still does not make it legal.
We were slapped on the wrist by PicRights.com. It felt like a scam.
First, they were a company out of Canada.
Second, their phone number on the letter was a voice recording that said, that our balance was not high enough, and then hang up.
Third, they contacted us directly, instead of going through our lawyer. Sneaky.
Fourth, at their website they did not have a “Contact Us” section.
Fifth, the $575 fee was not mentioned until later in the letter.
Sixth, the only direct contact we could find, was making payment.
Our lawyer had quit the firm that represents us, and this was news to us. We were then contacted by the new lawyer who later confessed to being a litigation lawyer and not a business attorney.
There was no concern about the shady qualities of our attacker, but instead, “It is cheaper to pay the fee, than fight it.”
Due to no one buying our merchandise we have no income at Bigfoot Eruption. We still refuse to put advertising on our web pages. What are we to do?
Our biggest complaint is, why didn’t they just ask? Why did they wait all these years?
We feel PicRights.com is a bottom feeder. They found a void, and filled it, doing the dirty work of facilitating collections. The lack of ability to communicate, person to person, shows they do not want to deal with the concerned public that they have confronted.
We see no grace in this process, we tried hard to learn the law, and not break the law, and yet hear we are.
Nice if we had – had a mentor in all this, instead we learn everything from scratch, from web design to legalities, which can come at a price. Always seek out a mentor, and a mentee.
We feel that lawyers are part of a bigger problem. “We will help you, if you can afford it.” We get it, but still it is clear that the little guys get hosed.
A little more guidance and this could have been avoided. Here was our crime as stated by the helpful “Frequently Asked Questions Section:”
“You are responsible even if you accidentally infringed someone’s copyright or didn’t know the image was copyright-protected and needed a license. Your lack of knowledge doesn’t excuse or dismiss your unauthorized use, nor does it waive the fees you need to pay for your unlicensed use of the image.” – PicRights.com
picrights.com – Frequently Asked Questions
We feel we just “legally” shared comments from PicRights.com, what say you?
According to louder.online, it is ok…
See this quote in the above link…
“From an ethical standpoint, citing content from another website is done so readers don’t think it’s your own original work.” – louder.online
“It’s okay to expand on another website’s topic.” – louder.online
So we learned something very important, at a price.
Look for us to try and monetize the site, or something…
So, we have learned that giving credit to a source still does not make it legal. Amazing we only violated this on one website page.
Apocalypse by DeSa81 at Pixaby.com
Apocalypse by DeSa81 at Pixaby.com…