Saturday, August 11, 2012

She's Gone Too Far this time...

I honestly didn't think I could get MORE upset at someone

So it looked like today would be a good day.  Maybe not a capping day, but a good day none the less.  I wake up and drink my morning coffee to some television, head onto the computer and read up some news sites and other 'non Caitlyn' material and generally just have a good morning.

I then put my mask on, log into here and start Caitlyn's day.  I check out the activity on the blog overnight (not great, but not bad for a weekend), read a few caps... and then come across Brittney's blog.  She talks about someone doing something underhanded and unethical and points to Victoria Hyde's blog.  I figure that this is the story of someone else 'stealing' another artists caps and claiming them as their own.  And honestly, that would have been enough to piss me off and probably write up a post.

If only it were that clean.

No, what we have here is someone going so far out of line.  Stepping so far past the line of decency.  Someone that makes stealing credit for art that they didn't create look like a virginal angel.

Before I identify this piece of filth I want to cover a couple ways that the TG cap blogging world works, as there are many varieties of TG/CD/TF blogs out there:


  • There are blogs like this one.  I'm a cap artist that makes TG/CD/TF captioned images and shares them here.  I occasionally write on other topics (mainly from questions submitted to me), and rarely I'll post someone else's cap.  When I do post someone else's cap, I give them full credit and if possible a link back to their site.  
  • There are cap aggregators.  These sites or blogs pull caps from all over the place.  The best ones like World Of TG list dozens if not hundreds of blogs that automatically update when new content is posted.  They don't host the caps themselves and instead just provide links to the individual blogs.  Others will actually host the caps, but give full credit and provide a link back to the original artist.  And then there are lazy ones that simply host the caps and give no credit whatsoever.  Last is the dirtier ones that not only host and don't provide a link back, but also act or outright claim that the caps are their own. 
Now so long as the artists get credit, I have no problem with cap aggregators.  A majority of my traffic comes from World Of TG so I can honestly say that my work wouldn't be nearly as viewed if it wasn't for them.  I've talked before about people 'stealing' caps, and even mentioned a blog that edited caps before posting them.  I consider both of these practices to be lower than low.  If you didn't make it.. then don't claim in as your own.  If you edit it... then don't post it at all!

But the examples that I've mentioned and other's that I've seen are doing this for various reasons.  They want to get more views, they want to look better than they are, they may even just want to share other's work to a boarder audience.  But the one thing that haven't done (at least to my knowledge) is profit from their activities.  

There are blogs that will profit from 'their' work.  They put up ads on their site and can get paid for a high viewership, by people clicking on the ads, or by people visiting and purchasing items through the ads.  I find the idea of profiting like that to be distasteful on it's own.  There are VERY few cap artists that can claim a true copyright to their work.  I can't do that, and most caps that I've seen can't do that.   You see, the source material is not mine and I'm actually breaking someone else's copyright by editing their work and posting it.  My only defense is that I don't (and never will) make money off my work and that I give any copyright holder the ability to contact me and ask for their work to be removed.  And copyright aside, I just want to share my work.  It doesn't cost me anything to make these caps beyond my time.  

Sure, I use MS Word and Photoshop (expensive programs), but I already had them long before I made a cap and use them for far more than capping.  So I don't feel the need to even ask for money, let alone put up advertisements in the hope to get some cash.  

I should have seen it coming, but I honestly didn't.  Someone has now taken these two sceezy activities and combined them.  

Andrissa runs several blogs (I'm not sending a single person to any of her blogs with a link).  She hosts some of her own work as well as caps from many artists (that she does give credit to and a link back to their blog or site).  I've never really enjoyed her site though as she plasters it with advertisements.  The ads are along the side, between the posts, and even inside the posts.  It's bad enough that she was hosting other artists work and advertisements at the same time, but she did give credit to the artist so I figured I would leave that to her and the artists that she adds (to my knowledge she has never posted one of my caps.  If she did, I would have politely asked her to take it down).  

As sceezy as this is, she just had to take it further.  She has now changed the link to the cap so that when the cap is clicked on, it goes to one of her advertisers.  Think about that for a second... when you click on the cap and expect to see it enlarged and ready to view you instead get sent to an amazon site.  If you buy anything from amazon for a while after clicking on that link, you just made Andrissa some cash.  Not because you chose to view her blog. Not because you chose to click on one of the many (MANY) advertisements on her blog... but only because you wanted to view a cap.  

She is actively and knowingly deceiving people into making money for herself.  It's one thing to illegally whore our her own work (and trust me on this.. it IS illegal), but to do so with someone else's art is just about as low as I think a person can get in our community.  

So with a heart full of hate I want tell Andrissa to FUCKING STOP IT!



27 comments:

  1. Caitlyn,

    I have to admit,, my heart jumped in my chest when I saw the GINORMOUS "Fuck You" and the angry, gun-toting Caitlyn, then see MY name as the first mentioned!!!!!

    Thanks for helping Victoria get the word out on this... I'm not into captions to make money, although I don't begrudge those who are.... It just gets my panties in a twist when someone tries to make money from someone ELSE's labors....

    I honestly don't know if she CAN be stopped... At a minimum, I HOPE she loses all of her followers, and I hope places like TG-World stop listing her as an affiliate... I can hope...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with you Britney in that I have no problem with people making money from their creations. But to do so, they should own the copyright to their cap... which requires ownership (or at least permission to use) the photo inside the cap. That right there precludes almost all of us from ever making money from our caps.

      Andrissa has taken that idea of making money from caps so far beyond what is reasonable though that it just sickens me.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the signal boost, and for your own fantastic insights. When this came to light for me yesterday, I was definitely seeing red— and probably looked a lot like your post's header image. ;-)

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  3. Depending on ad source, this is actually against terms. If it were Google AdSense, for example, tricking people into clicking through to ad targets is very very against the rules. Also disallowed is an overly large quantity of ads. If you can find information suggesting the ads are AdSense related, it would be considered a violation of policy.

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  4. It's also against the terms for all of Amazon's advertising/affiliate policies. You can report that she's linking from an adult content site or blog and they will remove her from their listing more than likely.

    The following link leads to Amazon's FAQ page for reporting sites operating outside their TOS. Other retailers will have similar, but since you specifically mentioned Amazon here you go:

    https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/t15/a7?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_i=assoc_help_t15&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_r=&pf_rd_s=assoc-center-2&pf_rd_t=501&ref_=amb_link_126313_11

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello, Britney. I am certain Caitlyn did not MEAN to make money from your labours. It seems to me that you are in the same boat Ian Fleming was once in with Kevin
    McClory when he wrote THUNDERBALL. They eventually agreed to co-author Thunderball, and that Fleming wouldn't use SPECTRE-the SPecial Executive for Crime, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion ever again. My name is
    Stephen Trent, and I suggest that you simply inform Caitltn how hurt she made you feel, ask her if you did anything to offend her, and if she says yes, simply ask her what it was, and when you find out, apologise and put it behind you. It's no use nursing a grudge, because
    that doesn't do anyone any good. Believe me, I know from personal experience. Caitlyn is not a vindictive person.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, don't know your name :)

      I'm not pissed at Caitlyn at all, and CAITLYN is not making any money at all form my labor, or anyone else's as far as I know....

      The FIRST line of my post was a jest towards Caitlyn, the remainder a rant about the Andrissa "situation"... I think my post confused you.... Perhaps I was unclear... Sorry if that's the case :)

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
  6. Yes, several of my caps are on those blogs and it really pisses me off to see it. I suppose the only thing to do is to report to Amazon at this point.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This really pisses me off since I understand personally, because NOT ONLY have I crossed others renders/works but my own being passed off & pawned as some jackasses creation.

    I've voiced my disgust on other sites & blogs on this as well & will continue to if I see more cap thievery..

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. Firstly I would like to say that I agree with everything said up to this point.

    On a quite different note however; I would also like to say I am proud to be even a small (atm contributing only at the haven) part of such a wonderful and loyal group of people. It's encouraging to see so many artists pulling together to protect each others work. :)

    -Raven

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  9. Being Andrissa appears to be gone.

    -Ezekiel

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    Replies
    1. Still there as of... (checks) right now.

      Delete
    2. Odd. Going from Rebecca's site, I get blog not found. Huh.

      -Ezekiel

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    3. The blog linked to Andrissa from Rebecca's site is no longer there. Andrissa though still has several blogs up and running. If you want the links to the offending sites, Victoria's blog still links there. Sorry, but I still refuse to link there myself.

      And yes, she is still doing this. As I write this, she posted 30 minutes ago... scuzzy link and all.

      Delete
    4. Ahh. Okay. A hydra.

      I am sorry this is happening and I'm reporting what I see.


      -Ezekiel

      Delete
  10. Filthy, disgusting, underhanded. I can't understand how someone could stoop so low! It just make me ahdlsjfsljfkljflsa!@!!! Yeah...


    Though, I must say that as much as it pains me to see you so upset (and it seems to happen far too often), I do enjoy your angry Caitlyn headers. Even when so thoroughly pissed off you put an outstanding amount of effort into your posts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Kyra!

      I still like to have a little fun even when I'm angry. I hate that I seem to be coming off as upset so often.... but honestly ripping off an artists just hurts me. I've had it happen before, and I don't mean my caps. I mean photographs that I've taken with my camera. Things that I can claim 100% ownership of. Someone stole them, and made money off of them.

      So when I see similar actions in the capping community it really turns my stomach.

      Delete
    2. *hugs* That's absolutely awful! You have every right to be upset. I was just lamenting that there are too many things worth being upset over.

      Delete
  11. Glad to see the community come together like this. When Victoria (see Kyra, I'm staying on her good side :p) brought this to light, I knew what she was angry about and I felt "should I be upset too?" But the more I thought about it - I use a lot of photos I uncover from others and I don't want myself to be accused of being a party to this pirate's profit, as it might mean Google or Tumblr coming down one me. Google already removed one cap due to image claim that I couldn't understand

    Thanks Victoria, Caitlyn, et al :)

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  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  13. Didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but with no "fanfare", the banner link for "Andrissa's Blogroll" has been REMOVED from TG Central AND World of TG, as a suggested "portal site" :)

    It's the little things :)

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  14. Thanks for the heads up Britney. I normally hate seeing anybody get torn apart, but Andrissa deserves everything she is getting.

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    Replies
    1. Posted on TG Central, after I informed "Suzy Q" of Andrissa's "extracurricular" activities :)

      " Hiding Ads on Blogs & Taking Advantage of Others Work
      It has recently been brought to my attention that a well known caption blogger has been up to what I believe to be fairly unscrupulous activity on a number of fronts. First of all she has been re blogging the work of other captioners and as far as I have seen has not been giving credit to the original author. Second of all she has been hiding ad links in the code so when people think they are going to see the source of the caption what they are actually clicking on is an ad that will take them to a store of some kind. I am aware that for those that want to earn money from their work there isnt much revenue, however by re-posting other captioners work and hiding ad links in the source code she is earning money on the back of their work and the original artist gets nothing.

      At this point I would like to say that TG Central has never been affiliated with her in any way. I did have banners up but only in an effort to make sure that blogs who had extensive blog rolls were easily visible so visitors could find other blog rolls easily, I did this on my own and without asking her. However due to recent events I have decided to remove all links to her blogs from TG Central. If she changes her ways in future I will consider re-adding her links.

      There is more information available here: http://codexofcorruption.com/post/29181294876/one-bad-apple "

      Delete
  15. This foul creature deserves everything she gets. I find it abhorrent when people steal others work without even giving credit to the original artist for it (happened to me, kicked off a shit storm, they got in the shit, job done, though I think I was banned afterwards!!). Hiding the ads is even more disgusting as this is illegal in more than one country.

    Oh and as for the copyright stuff, whoever made the photo in the first place has copyright, but since they get reposted, copyright is already infringed. What we have protecting our work in Intellectual Property rights, which is just as big a thing to end up in court over. If you're in Germany, IP is protected all the time even if the original source doesn't like it (see the Damnatus case between some German fans and Games Workshop for a prime example of IP over Copyright).

    So death to filthy IP thieves!

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