The RPF uses a stolen photograph on their FB

[loganallenwolf]

Okay, after some debate, I'm calling out The RPF publicly on this one. This photo they have posted on their FB Page is a THEFT, an unauthorized use / photoshop of the costume that my GF (Twinklebat ) and I created and a photo originally taken by LJInto:



This is the original image:



For a community of creators (who are supposed to abhor theft), The Replica Prop Forum is developing a very bad habit of posting things they shouldn't. THEY SHOULD KNOW BETTER and this is simply inexcusable.


Now, The RPF is no doubt now going to contact me and going to lament the fact that I didn't contact them privately first to have this removed. As an Administrator myself for many years, I've learned the best way to get bad behavior to stop is to address it out in the open. I've found it just *magical* how behavior miraculously changes for the better when things are addressed publicly. (I can't tell you how many times I've tried to do things quietly and gotten all sort of promises of change, only to be burned time and time again until things were made public.) So, I'm not going to do The RPF the favor of hiding this mistake for them. This is becoming a continuing pattern of behavior and quietly removing this picture doesn't lead me to believe that they're going to learn their lesson. They obviously haven't. To The RPF: the ONLY thing I want to hear from you is a public apology, and a notice that this picture has been removed. You messed up, AGAIN. Own it... and make yet another promise to everyone you'll do better in the future.

For those of you who are going 1) attack me and 2) rush to The RPF's defense: You're going to argue it, but no, IMHO this isn't defensible. This is lazy. There are about a million images of Dr. Strange they could have used. (How about the movie logo?) But no, they probably did a quick search for "Benedict Cumberbatch Doctor Strange" (or something like it) and it returned this image. That's *obviously* - let me repeat that - OBVIOUSLY - Benedict's face photoshopped on some guy's costume (mine). They even credit the thief who stole the picture! (& He's actually stolen two of my pictures.) But nowhere on the thief's Deviant Art page does he attempt to give credit to the creators of the costume or the original photographer. (Unforgivable sin: the thief removed the original photographer's watermark.) I run a FB page, and I would NEVER post an image like this on the page of the forum I own, EVER. Also, I'm an 8-year member of The RPF, so I'm not someone with a grudge. I think The RPF is a wonderful forum, one of my favorite on the internet actually, but at this point I believe that powers that be need to take a strong look at whoever is running their FB page and make a decision on whether to remove them for continual poor judgement.


Why am I making such a big deal over a lousy photo? I'm not actually all that mad at the thief; he's stolen my pics like many others have and many others no doubt will. I'm getting used to it. But, I mean, The RPF?!? That I can't fathom or accept. More than anything, I'm so incredibly disappointed. The RPF is a forum and a membership of which I hold in the highest regard... and I feel let down.

And I feel all the members of The RPF deserve better.

Allen

(Please note: I'm not checking this thread or responding to any posts here. The Admins, if they wish, can PM me. All others PM's on this matter will not be answered.)

 

[teragon]

I'm no law practitioner, but doesn't it fall in the fair use ?

 

[Stry]

I tend to look at this from a different point of view. Had this been a photo of my outfit they had photoshopped id be very flattered indeed.
There are hundreds of doctor strange pictures out there and them choosing that one, wow what an honour I say.
Great outfit BTW loganallenwolf

 

[boshuda]

I'm no law practitioner, but doesn't it fall in the fair use ?

I don't think he's objecting on legal grounds, but on moral grounds. His objection seems to me to be that The RPF has a policy of banning people who have been proven to pass off other people's work as their while they themselves are allegedly doing the exact same thing.

 

[Fly4v]

Not a direct theft by the RPF... but, yeah, I know how you feel.

Credit needs to be given where credit is due and you do have a cool costume.

Sadly, it seems if you don't want your stuff nabbed then it has to be defaced with massive watermarks... and even then... a skillful user of photoshop can remove them.

 

[teragon]

I don't think he's objecting on legal grounds, but on moral grounds. His objection seems to me to be that The RPF has a policy of banning people who have been proven to pass off other people's work as their while they themselves are allegedly doing the exact same thing.

Ok, but the RPF didn't try to pass it off as their own work, since they credited the source, albeit the source was a "thief" of the original image. Could they have investigate further ? Sure, but like OP said, they probably found it on google and used it to illustrate their news, which falls into the fair use, so why investigate further ? Anyway, now that it was made clear that the source they gave is wrong, they can find a solution with OP.

 

[boshuda]

Ok, but the RPF didn't try to pass it off as their own work, since they credited the source, albeit the source was a "thief" of the original image. Could they have investigate further ? Sure, but like OP said, they probably found it on google and used it to illustrate their news, which falls into the fair use, so why investigate further ? Anyway, now that it was made clear that the source they gave is wrong, they can find a solution with OP.

Ah, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood you a bit. Fair Use is a legal term. I thought you meant the RPF was covered by fair use because they credited their source, who they probably thought was the original creator.

 

[Art Andrews]

@loganallenwolf, let me make sure I understand your complaint.

1) papperflygpan, a member of deviantart took a photo that you/your GF own the copyright to and photoshopped it to look like Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange.
2)This deviantart member posted his work without pointing out that the original photo came from you.
3) We stumble upon his image and post it on our facebook page, giving him credit for the image and linking to his page.
4) You publicly call us out and try to shame us as if we have knowingly done something wrong and are asking for a public apology even though we couldn't possibly have known this was sourced from a photo you owned.

Is that about the long and short of it?

I am curious. Just exactly how do you expect us to respond to this?

Oh wait... you aren't even checking this thread? OK... so you just wanted to be a drama-llama and drop a turd in here but can't be bothered to even keep up with your own complaint. That tells me your don't really care about this issue as much as you care about scraping together a vapid excuse to call us out. We will be removing this thread shortly. I am only leaving it here for now so others can see the ridiculousness of your accusation.

 

[Gordon Gekko]

http://adventurecampradio.com/ is using the same image. Are you going to go burn their house down as well?

To go so ApeS**T nuts over something like this, makes me think you do have another motive.

 

[joshvanrad]

You mess with the Art, you get the Andrews!

 

[tuskentrooper]

It is indeed unfortunate that someone Photoshopped someone else's photo without permission or credit, and we have removed the photo from the Facebook timeline. We endeavor to support members of the RPF community and the photographers they work with.

Should this situation occur again in the future, we do have a process in place for addressing things: http://moviepropsites.com/about/intellectual-property-policy/

Thank you to those who could see that this was an unintentional use of stolen imagery done without malice and with diligent efforts for attribution. That type of support and perspective is encouraging! :thumbsup

 

[ANBUspidey]

@loganallenwolf
Wait are you telling me that someone photoshopped a picture they found on the internet :confused...why that's unheard of! No one has EVER done that before :facepalm

Plus why post something if you are just going to run away after posting it....have the cojones to stick around for responses which WILL happen since you are posting on a public forum.

 

[Art Andrews]

You mess with the Art, you get the Andrews!

Continuing our lawless rampage by shamelessly stealing this line for my signature! I am STEALING IT! STEALING IT I SAY! Even if you offered to give it to me, I'd just steal it anyway!

 

[Fetts.Sobriquet]

Incredibly childish way to go about this OP. Regardless of who is in the photo, LJInto took it and owns the copyright (per the cited original). Shouldn't LJInto be the only one with reason to complain here? If you just wanted some attention you could have gotten some positive attention by PMing the staff, they would have removed it, then you could have posted a big "Thanks for helping me out and being cool guys and taking down a picture some other person took of me which I don't even have the copy right to" post. You could have shown off your costume again by posting the original photo and everything. You could have brought attention to yourself in a good way.

 

[TheNickFox]

For anyone looking for a TL;DR for the original post:

"I don't want to handle this via PM so I'm going to attempt to shame the RPF for not doing due diligence that would have been impossible to do. Also, now that I have created this grenade of a thread and have insisted on not using PMs, I'm going to run away and insist that this be handled over PM."

Glad to see this got taken care of. The RPF supports creators, but I've found they tend not to respond kindly to threats. Seriously, next time, PM the staff or go to the Movie Prop Sites website and contact them there. Despite what must be a torrent of emails and PMs, I have ALWAYS found the staff to be extremely forthcoming and responsive.

-Nick

 

[Kid Omega]

I tend to look at this from a different point of view. Had this been a photo of my outfit they had photoshopped id be very flattered indeed.
There are hundreds of doctor strange pictures out there and them choosing that one, wow what an honour I say.
Great outfit BTW loganallenwolf

Getting your **** stolen and not credited is not an honor and no one should be that much of a doormat to be thankful for that.

It's not the RPF's fault here, it's the person who photoshopped it to begin with, but what a seriously idiotic thing to say.

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

Wow OP, how to act like a child throwing a tantrum. Super classy.

 

[Lord Magneto]

 

[loganallenwolf]

As Art himself mentioned me in his comments and I got a message notifying me of this in my e-mail inbox, I am going to respond here, once, for 2 purposes.

1) I'll get this out of the way and give everyone a big sigh of relief. Art, please delete my membership in The RPF. Everyone, feel free to commence the "good riddance" posts. You all have fun with those. 8 years, flush. You may want to classify me as "running away" now - but honestly, I simply don't want to be a part of this community anymore, and I don't care what is posted after this. I'm not coming back, so please just delete me as you delete this thread.

2) I'll briefly address the response and these complaints / attacks on my character.

First, I posted the obvious reasons why I didn't think the excuse "we didn't know" wasn't a valid excuse. The (sigh) excuse I'm given? "We didn't know."

I posted the exact reason for posting this publicly: apattern of behavior from The RPF (which was not addressed) that I don't think will be resolved by posting privately. Experience has taught me that public posts are magical in this regard. It's the only thing that seems to motivate true change online. The response? "What?!? How dare you post this publicly!"
And this is becoming a continuing pattern of behavior from the RPF: not doing their due diligence (or not even thinking about it, I dunno) and either posting stolen work or in the case of the recent Beat Down Boogie video, appropriating it themselves (but again, "Big oops! We didn't mean too!" was and will continue to be the excuse for these and future transgressions). Obviously, someone just isn't getting the message here. I believe(d) The RPF should hold itself, and be held, to a higher standard than that. Stop making excuses RPF, you're supposed to be the flagship of the creative community. Posting material, that anyone who gave it two seconds thought would realize is stolen, is just - I don't know how to say this nicely - stupid.

To explain: I posted that I wouldn't be responding here not to be a "drama llama" or to "run away", but because I work 60-80 hours each week and I simply don't have the time. I didn't want to be accused of not responding (avoiding these exact same allegations) if it took me 3 or 4 days to get back here. (And furthermore, to put it quite bluntly, I didn't care to respond to what anyone not in the Administration wrote; I said my piece and I was fine with what I wrote and whatever came my way.) I was simply trying to head those complaints/accusations off at the pass. I'm taking this time out of my insanely busy schedule to post now, and after this I've got to get back to work.

Finally, I didn't post this looking for attention. I don't need it, and I don't care what any of you think of me. If I was looking for attention, I wouldn't have posted that I wasn't checking the thread! I posted this because I care(d) about The RPF and I'd like them to start putting more thought into what they are posting. Right now, the "rush" to post things quickly seems to be clouding their judgement.

And gosh, call me petty for asking for an apology for posting an obviously stolen photo. How dare I!

Maybe after this, The RPF will actually change and start giving those two seconds of thought before posting things they shouldn't. Art, maybe you can actually talk to your staff, and really try to ensure mistakes like this aren't again repeated in the future. Get the message through this time. How many more times does The RPF need to make these mistakes before it gains a bad reputation for making them? A few more of these, and, regardless of whatever excuses, The RPF will have (rightfully) gained that reputation, and that will be sad day.

With that, so long folks. I wish you all the best, in spite of whatever you may think of me. Good luck and good costuming.

 

[joshvanrad]

Well, that certainly went south fast.