Here's an interesting little email conversation that I've been having. A guy wants me to give him my photos of his car for nothing. I told him he could have the photo that's on the website, but if he wanted the original he'd have to pay me a small amount. He didn't like that.
Here's the url with the photo:http://www.chevyasylum.com/cruisin/cruisin2010/20100403/single/1953%20Lincoln%2001_01_jpg.html It was taken at the Rockabilly Weekend in Las Vegas last month. Btw, here's the guy's website for his printing business: http://www.redlinelv.com/ Not much there except a phone number and an address.
I'm not gonna give him a call because that would give him a direct link back to me. Since the email address is through gmail (raytherat@xxxxxxxxx) there's not much to lead back to me....although my land line phone number's on the thumbnail pages and it's easy enough to do a lookup on the owner of the domain (chevyasylum.com).
The original isn't in this exchange, and ya have to read it from the bottom up. The statement about representing myself in court is a bit exaggerated, but it's true nonetheless. I've made motions and arguments as attorney pro se several times...I've never had a judgment go against me where I had to pay court costs or other parties' legal fees...I can't say that I won everything I asked for in every case, but in all but one I got what I was going after: a reasonable judgment. The single case where I wasn't successful in getting what I asked for in a petition wasn't argued in court. The judge took me and my ex-wife into his chambers and told me that he wouldn't even read my petition for a reduction in child support based on a reduction in income. I got a lecture on how it was my place to provide support for my children and that was that. If he'd read more of the petition that just the heading of it, he might have understood a little better, but he didn't. However, I filed an argument with what's called the Office of Recovery Services (that's the entity that's responsible for garnishing wages, etc. and ended up with a fair-sized refund from them, since my records were better than theirs and they realized that they'd taken more than they were legally allowed.) Meh...it's in the past. I'll let it stay there.
Be sure to check out the guy's grammar and spelling. This is what I'm about to sent to him: Dear Johhny: This ended up in my spam filter. As a result I didn't get to it until now.Let me explain something to you. The reason I put watermarks on my photos is because I sell them. I'm sure you can understand selling, especially if you really DO run a printing company. And if you really do, then you should know that releases are only valid for persons or groups of persons. This is the law: "as long as a photograph of private property is taken while the photographer is on public property or on property that is open to the public then it is permissible to publish that photograph without permission from the owner of the property."
So, the photo stays.If you feel that you have a case that warrants a law suit, I suggest you contact an attorney and have him or her explain the law to you. I should mention here that I have a rather extensive education in areas that have involved business law. I have represented myself in court numerous times and have never lost a case.
Sincerely, Ray the RatOn Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Redline LV <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
If I try and take a pic off your site of my car it has a watermark
over it. I dont need prints of it as I own my own printing
company. I dont inderstand why I have to pay for a pic of my car.
If so pleas take it off as I didnt sign any release form for you
to use my car on your site. Thank you for your understanding.
Johnny
On 4/9/2010 12:26 PM, Ray The Rat wrote:
Hi. You can have the copy on my website just by saving the
image to your hard drive. But since I try to supplement a
fixed income with photography, I ask a small amount for my
photos. I ask $10 for the original or an 8x10 print and $20
for an 11x14.
Let me know what format you keep the photos in and we'll see
what we can work out. K?
RtR
