I'm confused........is someone using our photos to sell their chameleons?
Are you positive that it was a pic of a Screameleons Cham... This was the reason I was going to head in there, If they are advertising like they are selling Screamer lines, and we know they are not... They should be called on it. And if Screameleons gave them permission to use the shot... I am sure we would have heard about it from them by now. I am by no means going to go in there and threaten them with anything whatsoever... I am curious about the situation though. I am going to act like a newb potential customer...and ask all the questions someone looking to buy a cham should... and see what comes of it. If they are using Screameleons photo... It really is between the two parties and none of my buisness... But I will point this out to Screameleons, and let them deal with it as they wish.
Two people on the forum now have bought Chams from them, that have been possibly misrepresented... And from the sound of it they both paid $300 for young Chams that have mystery Locales... Personally, I think that a dealer like that in the Market deserves to lose buisness.
Just because they are a "pet store" does not mean they should be excused from all accountability with how they sell their animals.
How they practice buisness is their choice... They could sell anoles as panthers for all I care... But I reserve every right to observe there buisness practices and warn people away from them if it is warranted.
You guys remember on may, i was ranting about Orphan Works acts that was approved by the senate?
This is an unfortunate example of what that law caused.
Under the old copyright laws, Screameleons have the ultimate rights on all their photos. and, Yes, the lawsuit can be pursued if the company refuse screameleons "cease and desist" request.
But, now, under the new law, everything is a fair game.
Especially, if screameleon does not submit the photo to the copyright congress and pay yearly fee to keep the rights of the photograph.
Not doing that causes the photo to be "orphaned."
Sadly, the shady company then can copyright the photo to the government and in return sued the real owner of the photo for using it commercially.
So, one way to reduce that is by smackdabbing a huge "screameleons" watermark on top of the chameleons, rendering the photo to be useless for anybody else. The only downside to that is the watermark might be a bit "ugly" since it gets in the way of the pictures.
As you can tell already, this law brings disasters to artist and photographers.
We are currently fighting for this law to be abolished.
I agree with Kat and SoCalison, in this case, since the government no longer protect copyright, the only thing we can do is not to support the shady company with our money. Good thing about reptile community is the fact that reps are very important.
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