This is normally the post where I ease you guys into the week with some beautiful images I find in my travels around the interwebs, but sadly that ain’t happenin’ today.
After a year or so of Escape Monday posts, one of the photographers I featured actually wrote to me recently and said “Take my images down. They aren’t yours and I never said you could use them.â€
I argued that I had given him full credit for the images, provided links back to his site and heaped praise on his work. I wasn’t making a cent off it or trying to pass it off as my own, what was the big deal?
He came back at me saying that he never asked for my help in promoting his work, he was perfectly capable of doing that himself.
He then suggested that instead of regurgitating other people’s content again and again I should rather focus on creating my own original work and promoting that – “the world would be a much cooler place if everyone did that†he argued.
He then said if he downloaded an entire book or song or film and posted it on the internet for free, did I actually think the people who made it and who earn a living from it should thank him?
He said I’m treating copyrighted work as if it’s valueless while gaining value from it myself (in terms of traffic, readership, attention, etc – hahaha! Readership! Hahahaha! Traffic! Aaahh, stahp! You’re killing me!)
He said he wouldn’t have had an issue with me using a few of his images provided I’d had the courtesy to email and ask his permission first, which is a fair point.
So, going forward instead of just copy / pasting other people’s work every time Escape Monday rolls around, I’m going to do the right thing and ask their permission first.
So sorry guys, no Escape Monday this week, I’m busy asking permissionz.
Instead, here’s a video of a rad oldie-timey mofo playing “Tiger Rag†like a badass on a home-made Callioforte:
Life-changing.
-ST
