Some reporters seem determined to shame them all. :P

You did email them? With a comment about how their reporter seems determined to give them legal trouble?

I would email the reporter, the editor, and the publisher–all the same email so they all know the others got it. And if you don’t hear back in 24 hours, email them again and say if they don’t immediately apologize and correct the situation you will take legal action. Newspapers know better. This is sloppy reporting.

At a newspaper, if *their* copyrights are violated, they do not hesitate to scream about it–believe me, they care and don’t want to be caught like this, at least, not anyone who has been working there for any length of time.

Phone @ Het Nieuwsblad HQ, they tell me to phone local ‘Antwerp redaction’. I do so, the lady isn’t there, a guy (apparently saying your name when you pick up a phone is out of fashion) tells me to email her. I ask if they could at least change the words ‘Neon Judgement’ into ‘Grensgeval’ to correct the article: Nope. I ask for the e-mail address: ‘Look on the website.’ I leave my phone number, and go to the website. Of course, the ladies email adress is nowhere to be found. I guess at it being eline.bergmans@nieuwsblad.be (like all the other e-mail addresses), but it returned ‘delivery failed’. I did send it CC to the main ‘Antwerp department’ with the message that I was not certain about the e-mail address and that they should forward it to the lady. No reply from them either. Neither did I get a phone call from them.

“you will take legal action” => I think they just realise that most people find this way to much trouble. :(

Ugh, I know how you feel, Vint. I don’t know why they think that Flickr is like, a stock photography collection or something. We are PEOPLE taking OUR PHOTOS and they are COPYRIGHTED (it even says so next to each photo!). This stuff pisses me off.

Well, at least these people can’t use the white background excuse (anymore). ;)

So it looks like that we in Italy are not the only ones to have journalists who are not able to do their job :-)

Found contact information for the lady (I think) now, that states she is a ‘philosopher and freelance journalist’. Slash me suggest she does some thinking on copyright, ethics and theft. *still pissed* (<- I take that back.)

Yeah I wonder what her philosophic view is on image theft…

Update: Finally, responce. The pictures were inclosed within a press release send out by the WAB which did not say where they got them. (The Lady enclosed the .pdf press release in the email.) She also says the WAB contact person gave her permission during a telephone call to use those pictures in the paper. Also promising to rectify this *points to issues mentioned below* on her blog and already having e-mailed her contact at the WAB, I can only say that she did handle this correctly and that she is not the one to blame. I am actually the one owing her an appoligy. I’d feel foolish now were it not that the urge to shoot someone from the WAB in-world is stronger than that feeling. *sadistic grin* Bobo, where are you when I need you?

Update: Update: - Do keep in mind that Bobo Dacosta was the same guy that the night before this talk put all responsability for the copyright violation with the newspaper/journaliste stating they did not gave her the pictures. - I’ve talked to Bobo Dacosta from the Wack Attack Barrack who thought it necessary to first calling me a lunatic and someone ranting but not listening. Then he figured saying ‘Yeah, we used them, and as you asked we’ve included that they were yours, but we can’t help it that the lady did not find you interesting enough for her story to mention.’ Great. I can live with not being interesting to RL press, but not with not getting the attribution I asked for. At that moment I asked him to check his own press release: ‘Oh, they are indeed in the appendix and indeed we did not mention you took them.’ Voila! At this point, he must surely have admitted making a mistake, no? The opposite, I was the one to blame because ‘if I had accepted the SL-job of ‘WAB SL correspondent’ as he offered me, all this would not have happened’. Pardon? Obviously me not taken this great opportunity to work for such a reasonable boss gives them the right to forget all about ‘attribution’. Also he could not check on all that the others do so he was certainly not the one to blame. That and the belgian Second Life scene should argue less over stupid issues as CC attribution and help eachother more. I indeed told him they could use all my pictures concerning the Wack Attack Bay as he pleased if given attribution and considered that my share of ‘the belgian Second Life scene helping eachother’. Imho, that lays the responsability of communicating this to his colleagues and making sure attribution is given with him. As he did not keep to his part of the deal ànd called me crazy - in a very none positive way, ‘geflipt’ for those who speak Dutch - I revoke those permissions given. So if you see any of my pictures used by the Wack Attack Barrack in-world or on the internet, please let me know. Even if it takes a transcontinental phone call to be made or a transcontinental letter to be send, I shall file an abuse report about copyright violation.

Vint, if it is a consolation to you, I had already some experience with the credibility of Mr. Bobo Dacosta. It was before the island was oficially opened. And after reading your story, I am beginning to understand his way of doing business.
And let us be honest, if you have a little bit of decency, you don’t call someone “geflipt” (crazy), certainly not when you know that that someone would come out in the open with the story.