Aquarium dealer in Portland Oregon using our photos without permission

[MaxBottomtime]

I found these and other images on an aquarium fish dealer’s website, COLDWATER MARINE AQUATICS . They are all being used without permission, including yours. Their contact information is
ColdwaterMarineAquatics@gmail.com

PHONE: 541-513-6157 or 503-933-7745

Snubnose Sculpin (Orthonopias triacis)
Tracy Clark

Zebra Goby (Lypthrypnus zebra)
Ken Bondy

Light Bulb Tunicate (Clavelina huntsmanii)
Peter Liu

Red Urchin (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus)
Paul Nicklen, National Geographic

Sitka Shrimp | Coldwater Marine Tank | Pinterest
Copyright Micro-Reefs LLC

Jewel Anemone (Corynactis Viridis)
Sue Daly

Black Turban Snail (Tegula funebralis)
Gary McDonald

Purple Urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus)
Claire Fackler / NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries

Red Abalone (Haliotis rufescens) | COLDWATER MARINE AQUATICS
Kevin Lee

Red moon snail (Norrisia norrisi)
Laurel Valker

Spot Prawn (Pandalus platyceros)
Mike McDermid

Blackeye Goby (Rhinogobiops nicholsii)
Carl Gwinn

Purple Dwarf Olive Snail (Callianax biplicata)
Ken-ichi Ueda

Eccentric Sand Dollar (Dendraster excentricus)
Karen Vitulano

 

[AquaticEngineer]

Hi everyone, I am one of the owners of Coldwater Marine Aquatics my name is Stu Wobbe and I apologize for any disrespect or frustration this has caused. I am going through our website this weekend and vetting all of the photographs.

I try to use only public images, images our friends and customers have taken of the livestock we send them, or images we have taken or had taken by others of the actual animals that we sell to the public. One of the photos listed above (the Sitka Shrimp from Micro-Reefs) is a picture of an animal we sent to Micro-Reefs for their temperate aquariums, and that's our preferred method of photo use

To put everyone at ease, we have never sold anyone's images in any form nor do we intend to do so. The images were intended as a reference picture of what the animals we collect and sell could look like.

Please feel free to contact us with what you would prefer us do if we have used one of your images as a reference.

If you would like it removed completely, let us know.

If you like photo credit given in the adjacent description of the animals or directly on the image, and the image to remain as credited to you please let us know.

As of the posting of this though, I will begin removing photos that don't fit into our guidelines of photo use starting with the list in the previous post.

Again, I apologize for causing any worry or distress to all of you who go through such great lengths to get such beautiful pictures, photos such as your own are what steered me towards keeping temperate marine life myself.

Regards and apologies,
Stuart Wobbe
Co-Owner Coldwater Marine Aquatics

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I've heard from a few others this morning including Michael Ziegler and Phillip Colla. Apparently some photos were cropped to remove watermarks. Mike Ziegler sent me a link that you may find helpful. Letters to my copyright infringers | Compound Eye, Scientific American Blog Network
This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in § 512(c) of the U.S. Copyright Law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The infringing material appears on the Service for which you are the designated agent.
The disputed content is a photograph of a bullet ant:
[link to infringing URL]
My original, copyright-protected work is here:
Fill in the blank
Please remove these files from your servers at your earliest convenience. Alternately, that image may be licensed for continued commercial use for US $95.
I have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by myself, the copyright owner. I hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that the above information in this email is accurate and that I am the copyright owner.
Thanks for your time,

---------- Post added September 6th, 2014 at 06:06 PM ----------

I spent a good portion of today going through their website. I found more than fifty photos from photographers I know, including two of my own and three of Kevin Lee's. Some of the photos had the copyright watermark cropped off.

 

[Incident]

To Stuart,
As a former professional photographer I feel I have some basis with which to say this:

What you did was complete BS, and your WEAK "apology" after being caught was a JOKE. Total douche move dude.

This line is a real head scratcher: 'If you would like it removed completely, let us know.'

So now it's the photographer's responsiblility, whose images you RIPPED OFF, to ask you to remove them? Wow, another DOUCHE move.

And the photographers should feel at ease since you never sold any of the images? Guess what bro...they were still stolen. Not only stolen, but altered to hide the watermarks. You knew damn well what you were doing.

Freaking douche move dude.

 

[AquaticEngineer]

I am removing all the images that are not either my own or taken by people actually owning our livestock.

So there is no responsibility on the part of the photographer to get the image removed, but I wanted to let others who we've spoken with about photos know that I want to credit them if they desire to have it

Otherwise, all images with any question of ownership are being removed. I was just trying to show people what a particular species looked like. not steal an image and make money off of it. I make not a single dollar unless I go out and collect that animal and get it to someone wanting it.

If my apology came off as insincere, please know that it is not, I'm working away from home this weekend with my kids and am clicking and typing as fast as possible to fix this.

Again, my apologies and things will be corrected by morning

Cheers,
Stu Wobbe

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Chris Grossman, owner of Diver.net was less than pleased to see his image being used.

This is a good faith request for you to take down the website COLDWATER MARINE AQUATICS [204.93.213.54, 204.93.213.55, 204.93.213.94, & 204.93.213.95] which is using my original image http://diver.net/c/Peace/2009.12.05-06/PC067634Xlr.jpg without my permission. In fact all or much of the content of this web site appears to be taken from other websites and photographers, many of whom I know personally.

My photo (with my logo edited out) is being displayed without my permission on Vermilion rockfish (Sebastes miniatus) | COLDWATER MARINE AQUATICS

The original can be seen at Urticina mcpeaki, Torpedo californica, Mediaster aequalis, Sebastes rosaceus, Sebastes hopkinsi, & Amphissa versicolor : Underwater Photographs of Santa Barbara Island, California : December 5-6, 2009 & http://diver.net/c/Peace/2009.12.05-06/PC067634Xlr.jpg

My name and copyright appear both in the lower right hand corner of the original photo and in the embedded EXIF information.

I am the photographer and copyright owner of the photograph of http://diver.net/c/Peace/2009.12.05-06/PC067634Xlr.jpg
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law, including but not limited to copyright exceptions such as fair use doctrine which allow use for news, parodies, research, and review.I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner.
Thank You,
Chris Grossman
diver.net
chris@diver.net

 

[AquaticEngineer]

Pulling them as we speak I never intended to be malicious in this en-devour, so know that I will work quickly tonight now that the kids are all asleep

 

[drbill]

Pulling them as we speak I never intended to be malicious in this en-devour, so know that I will work quickly tonight now that the kids are all asleep

How can you make the statement that you "never intended to be malicious" when you have apparently taken images with copyright embedded in them and removed that information? That suggests you were conscious of the fact that copyrighted images were being used and you hid that fact.

 

[boulderjohn]

hat suggests you were conscious of the fact that copyrighted images were being used and you hid that fact.

"Suggests" is as politely as you could have put it.

I used to be involved with the creation of online education materials, and the use of good photographs and video is critical to that educational medium. I was the Executive Director of Curriculum for the company, a very large one, and we absolutely did not want to be involved with any lawsuits. Our graphics people were accordingly given explicit orders to make sure nothing of that kind was ever used without clear permission. The same was true of written material, which was a terrible PITA for English classes because under copyright law, pretty much anything written after 1923 is protected. (That is why 95% of the literature in school anthologies is from before 1923, and students have so much trouble relating to it.)

Our company also purchased courses created by others, and one of my jobs was was to review potential purchases. I never reviewed a single courses that was not absolutely FILLED with illegal images, videos, and literature. Our competition was beating us on price by being almost completely illegal and just counting on the fact that no one would notice.

Just before I wrote this response, I wrote another response on another thread in which I made a reference to an event in scuba history. I had to look it up. After putting the key words into Google, I got a bunch of sites that might have contained the information I needed--I had to check. The first 4 sites I found were from totally different dive operations, each giving a brief history of scuba. All 4 were absolutely word-for-word the same. At least 3 of them, and possibly all 4, were illegal. I have seen the same thing countless times over the years--site after site filled with materials taken completely from other sites.

This sort of thing is going on all the time all over the world, because the Internet makes it so easy to steal the images, the videos, and the words of others and because it is so hard for the original owners to find it in that huge chaos of information. It is understandably upsetting to those who originated those images, videos, and words, but it is also upsetting to those of us who are struggling to follow the law that the others are so flagrantly flouting.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The infringed images were removed from the Coldwater site, but they are still on Melissa Harris' Pinterest site. I had to sign up on Pinterest in order to file a copyright infringement claim against her. I informed them that all of the images on her site are stolen and she even has price tags on them and is selling them from her Facebook page. This is nothing but theft and the other photographers have been notified as to what Ms. Harris and Coldwater Marine Aquatics are doing.