Thursday, February 11, 2010

thou shalt not steal

i was browsing the internet this afternoon when i saw this article "85% of marikina businesses resume operations" at the official marikina goverment website. i thought it was a a short yet interesting subject. very good news indeed. but wait. hmmm, something doesn't seem right. i moved my eyes closer to my monitor and i was devastatingly surprised to see this. what is my photo doing in this website?
i should be honored right? i should be jumping for joy to know that a goverment website like the official marikina website would use a small-time blog's photo and post it on their page. i should be running and screaming inside my room for getting noticed.

NOT. i am not honored, i am not jumping for joy, and i am not running and screaming inside my room for that. because i feel that i was robbed, disrespected, belittled, and awfully betrayed by some big-time web developers that cannot come up with his own photos. some of you might think that it was not really a big deal because they never took out my name on that photo, but it was. they never bothered to email me and ask for my consent. they never even bothered to mention the photographer's name or the blog where they took that photo from.

i already wrote to them after seeing the photo. i just hope that the moderators of the said website would read this and write me an explanation on their take on this matter. this post is dedicated to all the photographers who have been robbed and disrespected.
 


update: february 18, 2010, i visited the office of the mayor to present my complaint letter. i also presented a copy of the same letter to councilor donn favis, the head of the marikina management information systems. i will continue my fight no matter what.

march 23, 2010: finally, i've received a formal apology letter from a mr. ramil nafarrette, one of the web developers of the said website. although, i still didn't feel comfortable reading about his opinion on fair use of copyrighted materials, which i thought was PURE CRAP because this was all about disrespect, i thought that his words were somehow sincere and apologetic. may this occurrence serve as a lesson to every artist out there to be vigilant and protective with your creations. don't let anyone step on you, and always put up a good fight when they try to hurt you.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi wenz, ganda ng mga photos mo...grabe!!! One of a kind tlga.
and i understand what u feel about wat happen... especially kung ganito kkaganda mga shots mo... they should ask for your consent...or they could just put ur name, ryt?... tsk tsk tsk... atleast u found out... kkhiya ang nagnakaw ng pics mo... malalaman ng mrami ang effort nya ng pagnnakaw. hehhehe...

Unknown said...

waaa, unga meron pa watermark ung pic oh, wencel angeles. Good to see u going strong bro! -Harris 2, Baguio (ako bumili ng dvd mo noon featuring sagada hehe)

Unknown said...

Coming from another marikenya, I would also feel bad if this happened to me. I hope you win this fight against those lazy web developers.

biyahengpinoy said...

Thanks Junnette. Your kind words really mean so much to me.

Harris, thanks for dropping by. Nice to see you again. I hope you're doing good.

Isel, I will do my best. Thank you for your support.