Picasa Thieves Poll and Update

To get caught up on this subject, feel free to read my coupla Picasa posts.

P I C A S A
Picasa is a free photo-hosting site by Google. Unfortunately, free isn't the only thing it is. It is also a cesspool of wicked, wicked hoarders who call themselves "sharers" and play hot potato with other crafters' (and publishers') intellectual property. Who me, ranting??? ;-)

T H E ~ P O L L
I created a poll (look left! top of column...) that gleans various suggestions and responses from Beki Haley's All About Beading forum on Delphi. This time, rather than create long, wordy poll responses I thought I'd sum them up here. Especially since I seem to create confusing polls on a regular basis. Maybe this will help to put the responses into context:

1. Raise pitchforks & take to the streets!
In other words, throw a royal group fit, scream and yell and be outraged

2. Write the offenders privately
Contact the "sharers" and tell them how you feel/what you think, asking them to remove the content. Or curse them in Yiddish, I don't care. Whatever you think. 8-)

3. Report the items as offensive
Not Picasa's recommendation for IP violations, but one theory is that if enough people do it, the dweeb in charge of fielding the emails will delete the stuff out of sheer exasperation.

4. Create an online petition
One suggestion was to create a public petition and send it to Picasa so they are well aware of how folks feel.

5. Notify the copyright holders
If you know how to contact the author or publisher, do that, and let them decide whether to go through the IP complaint/removal process with Picasa.

6. There's nothing we can do
Pretend you're Kafka. Or, up your meds and forget about it. You can't damn the river. That sort of thing.

7. Let the porn industry handle it?
This was Monkey Girl's idea, I include it in the interests of complete disclosure.

8. Quit publishing stuff
If we didn't publish, they wouldn't have anything to steal. This is the most logical solution in the list, IMHO. ;-)

9. Blame the victims
People who publish, especially those big meanies in the big publishing houses, are just greedy bastids who don't want to share. On a more subtle level, you might choose this answer if you think the craft authors sort of deserve whatever they get.

10. Urge publishers to pursue offenders
Not quite the same as other options -- this means that we exert pressure on publishers to defend their works, assuming they have more resources compared to their authors (who mostly don't actually own the rights anyway) and to self-publishers.

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FYI, after my last...er, rant, my home girl Phreadde, aka fibergal, contacted me to say there is a grassroots method in place for reporting offenders to the major publishers. You can contact her (I won't put her email address here unless she tells me to but you can contact me for it...) and she sends frequent updates to the publishers about who's doing what where.
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T H E ~ R U L E S
This time, you only get to pick one answer! Buahahaha! So think about it -- which one do you think would be most effective (or not)? Feel free to change your answer next time you stop by (within the next 3 weeks).

As usual, I'll post a summary when it's over.

P I C A S A ~ "F R I E N D S"
The two "women who like to share" that I linked to in previous posts have both toned it down quite a bit. In fact, one has been removed. So here are some fresh offenders, in case you're not aware of the extent of copyright violations on Picasa:

• Papinsu (rhymes with "shameonyou?") http://picasaweb.google.com/papinsu 38 public albums, none of which she owns the rights to...
• Maria http://picasaweb.google.com/flugfel 17 books (other people's...) in several languages
• Cica http://picasaweb.google.com/cato1979/ 21 books...mostly beadwork