A Tale of Stolen Cheezels

The following is a letter I sent to The Age:

 

To whom it may concern,

Recently, The Age online posted a great album on the Essential Kids section, entitled “What did your childhood taste like?”  This appealed to me, so I entered the online gallery, found at this URL:

The gallery starts with the first of 54 pictures, depicting a chocolate milkshake.  This picture was credited to a “Kimberley Hasselbrink”.  Delicious!, I thought, as I hurriedly hovered my mouse over the right-hand arrow.  Whatever could constitute the next 53 delicious morsels (om nom nom nom…)?

 

As my finger gracefully clicked down upon the mouse button, I saw with joy, that picture 2 of 54 depicted God’s gift of cheezy greezy nomminess, Cheezels. Delicious!, but hmmm…. Deliciously familiar, thought I. The caption underneath the image belays the truth – “Best eaten off every finger”, alas no credit.  To whom could this image of calorific goodness be attributed?

The answer, kind sir, c'est moi. Jo.  The original image, which I took using my own iPhone almost three years ago, is located on my blog here.

I feel that in lieu of the journalist forking out for a packet of Cheezels and tapping one of The Age’s photographers on the shoulder, a quick romp through Google image search delivered MY image.  Two more clicks, and you could have seen the origin of the page.

I am disappointed with the lack of professional ethics and courtesy shown by The Age.  I feel that best practice should demonstrate a sense of fairness and reciprocity involved in the online (and real-life) world. If I used an image from The Age without permission AND for purely commercial purposes, I’d have lawyers staving my fancy-pants front door in.

I respectfully ask for one of two solutions to this issue:

1.       1. The Age removes my image from the website and issue a formal apology; or

2.       2. The Age continue to use my image WITH the addition of a reference to the origin, i.e. www.chickensbees.com

I feel that the latter is far more practical, reciprocal, and continues to provide a wonderful product for your readers.

 

Kind regards (and significantly more Cheezels),

Jo

 

 

 

I eventually got a reply via email:

 

Hi Jo,

 

We are very sorry that in this case our producer did not seek permission for image use nor provide proper attribution. I have now added your website to the caption and counselled the team on proper use of images.

 

Thanks and regards,

 

The Age

 

 

 

 

 

I'm calling this a big win for the little people!

 

 

Have you had things stolen from your blog?  How freaking good are Cheezels?