My Website

K.A. Rutledge

Adam writes:
"I dont think I will because I got permission from all the owners of these tree's to use them on my site."

No, you did not get permission for all of the images. Most of the images I saw were from Stone Lantern Publishing and they don't allow others to use their images. After these violations are reported to your site host, your site will be removed. Further you are going to be subject to a lawsuit, and for no good reason. You are illegally publishing copyrighted material and you will suffer the legal consequences of doing so. Why do this? Why lie about your having permission? Why bring all of this trouble to yourself, why break laws, why violate copyright, why alienate the community you want to be a member of?

Just do the right thing, Adam. Your persistent unethical and illegal behavior reflects very poorly on you. This is not the thing to do and you know it. Good luck.

Regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

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rockm

Adam,

Andy is being gentle here. He's the editor of Bonsai Today online.

Brent

Adam

I notice that you have a banner ad for BonsaiBoy. If you have received money or other compensation for displaying this ad, you must be even more careful about using copyrighted material (if you have).

A constructive note: The image file sizes are unnecessarly large for the photo sizes, making the loading very slow for my dialup connection. A full 8x10 inch photo can be reduced to under 100KB with almost no loss of quality when viewing on a monitor. The smaller 3x4 pictures you have should only be about 15 to 20KB. This will make them load much faster, or alternatively, you can use thumbnails that will load very quickly and link to the full size photo which will show plenty of detail that you can't currently see because of the small picture size. I prefer the latter.

If your photo editing program doesn't have one, you should invest in an intelligent photo compression program. I use Ulead SmartSaver. It cost me $50, but there are probably less expensive alternatives. You can get incredible degrees of compression with this program with almost no loss of detail or resolution. All of the photos at my website use this system.

Brent

Adam

Andy,
You win, I will remove the pics. Boons picture on the main page is staying as I did get permission from him to use it.

__________________

|Adam|
check out...
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Cass Bonsai Gardens

Adam

I did not intend to offend or make myself look stupid in the process of this thread, sorry for the trouble Andy, I hope this wont come between me and you and the rest of the forum. The pictures are now removed.

Gooday All,
Adam

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|Adam|
check out...
My Blog
Cass Bonsai Gardens

Ralph

Adam,
I dont think you should feel embarrassed. Andy rightly points out copyright, and it would be the same deal with any photograph or artistic rendering. It doesn't hurt that it comes up for discussion here as well, as there are always new people entering into bonsai, and it is necessary for those folks to know what they can display/publish and what they can't.
It wasn't long ago, that myself and many others would simply copy and post a picture of some bonsai I saw on the web on this site, because I wanted to discuss something about it. Those images are someone else's property (and it isn't always the artist). No one here was in any way attempting to profit from someone else's work/property, but it is their work, and we need to respect this, regardless of our own motivations.
I dont like the fact that I can't take pictures when I go to a museum, after all, I am not going to resell my images. But the museum has the right to restrict images of the art displayed, and I need to obey and respect that right.

Jay

Adam and others, remember Andy is trying to help you. He has no problem with you or your site posting pictures and text, just not that which belongs to others.

By the way, if you have a picture from a site of a tree belonging to someone, you need to get the sites permission to use it. Even with the permission of the owner of the tree the image of the tree on the site belongs to the site.

I have not been able to get to your site it is always busy, but is the picture of Boons tree a picture you took? or is it off his site? In those cases his permission is required, and written permission is best. If Boons tree was on another site, you do not have all the permission you require.

Last I think it is wonderful that you are trying to start you own site, and I KNOW you will do it within the norms of our society.

Jay

__________________
A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

K.A. Rutledge

Adam writes:
"Andy,
You win, I will remove the pics."

No, you win. I'm happy to see that you've done the right thing. We all here make mistakes. It is what we do in light of those mistakes that matters most.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

rockm

Adam,

No need to be embarassed. The world of copyright law and the Internet is new territory for everyone and the rules aren't crystal clear. They are becoming a little clearer though. You'll find that some folks, especially professionals, require permission to use their photos. It's always best to seek out permission and get a "go ahead and use it" before you post, instead of a "take it down" response once it's published online.

As for your web site. Keep it up. For what it's worth, I've found, like many of the others responding here, that I go to individual's web sites to look at their personal trees and not trees done by others anyway. If you're a beginner, don't try to look like a professional. Be a beginner and be a source for beginners and have your site evolve with you as you progress in bonsai.

For instance you could post pics of your new trees, then follow up with new photos in 12 months or so so others can see the development of the trees. Keep on online record of how your'e caring for your trees and ask for pointers while you're doing it. You can also seek out a list of url links to other sites to post, to care instructions, good online sources of material you've found, etc. That would be useful to alot of folks.