I was very miffed at my experience with the Blogger Police and my first reaction (ok second reaction, because the first was anger) was to remove the offending post and let it go. But.... since it's my blog (mostly) I figure I can complain.
I was send an email from blogger stating that I have broken the copyright infringement laws (according to the person complaining). I was not given a chance to respond and my item was placed into a "draft" category by blogger. I was told that if I did not completely removed the item that further action would be taken against me.
Here is what happened.
I decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking. I saw all over the internet "free to use for personal use" templates and whatnot's I downloaded like a mad woman and started putting my pages together. I wanted to share my progress by putting them on my blog, which I did. Apparently, the "free to use for personal use" comes with a condition: you must give credit to the artist. Well that's all fine and good and I can understand the artist wanted credit. But.... if your an artist and you DEMAND credit be given, then don't make your creations "free to use". Because the demand of the credit is a cost of the item, and thus it becomes NOT FREE TO USE. I did not intentionally set out to insult the artist by not giving credit. I just did not, in my flurry, of downloading stop to note all the artist's of all the items and for this I was basically called a thief. I had one artist actually contact me and ask me, very politely, to please give credit for an item of her's that she saw on my website. I very much appreciated that email and as soon I read the email, I went to my blog and gave the credit that was asked for.
Whoever it was that accused me of stealing her item did not give me a chance to make the correction myself and that is what I object to most. I would have given the credit if I had known who the artist was, or if the artist had given me a chance to correct my error but she didn't. Don't make your item free to use if your going to accuse someone of theft for using it.
I am NOT A THIEF and I don't appreciate being treated like one. If your an artist and you find an item of yours that you gave away "free to use" on a personal blog (not being resold, not having download links, etc.) and you want credit.... contact the blogger, don't send the blogger police after her.
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