Bit My Tongue For a Long Time.

Good Morning Friends:

First of all, let me apologize for this post upfront. I have been biting my tongue about this issue for a very long time, but after waking up this morning, and having a look at my stat counter, I can no longer keep quiet! I will try to make this as short as possible.

Image Theft ~ it urks me to the bone. Now, I know that it's bound to happen, even though I have a copyright blurb on my sidebar AND I watermark my photos. I wish it wouldn't happen, but it's a given in this electronic world. I wonder if the people who are stealing my images realize that I can see each and every download through my stat counter?

Well, anyway, people have been stealing images from my blog for years. But the most recent incident really hit home when I realized that, not only is this person a fellow artist, but the images that this person downloaded were very personal to my individual style. I woke up to find that fellow artist had downloaded an image of my daughter's hand from my tutorial AND a personal photo of my grandmother and aunt from the same tutorial. Needless to say, I will not be doing anymore visual breakdowns of my work on my blog.

For those of you who are familiar with my collage style, you know that hands are a signature. I'm not saying that no one else can use hands in their work, but why on earth can't they take photos of their own?

I guess, mostly, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed to know that another artist, another collage artist, would steal images ~ any images, not just mine.

So, with all that being said, there's nothing I can do about it. I run my entire business through the electronic world. I can't stop posting photos. It's part of what I do. I can't shut down my business simply because I'm irked. But ~ I did need to get this off my chest, and I know there are lots of artists out there that have the same problem. What I will have to do, is make sure that the photos I post are low enough quality so that when the folks who steal them want to use them, they'll be too grainy. So, what this is going to mean for me is an even longer process to get the photos from the camera to the blog. Another step. Sheeessshhhh, it already takes forever to do all the cropping and watermarking.

To the person who stole MY images....please, think before you right click!!

Kim
Gerushia's New World

P.S. To all my fabulous and wonderful friends and readers...please forgive my bitterness. You all know my heart and I'm not usually ugly. But this event really shook me.