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Home  Latest News Member is kicked off website for un "caring" attitude
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Member is kicked off website for un "caring" attitude |
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
A short while ago we here at Balloon Twisting had to revoke membership to one person of this website, for their inapropriate behaviour. This is the first, and I hope, only time we will need to do this.
Mr Graham Lee, who runs the "Care & Share" balloon days, has recently been proving that he is anything but caring and sharing when it comes to balloon twisting. A photographer member of this site, posted photos from an event at which he had provided photography services for, on both his website, and also into his own photo gallery on balloontwisting.co.uk. Mr Graham Lee came across these photos, and decided that he did not want a couple of the photos of him published on this website. He contacted me, and I replied telling him that he would need to contact the copyright holder and request that they be removed. This he did, and the photographer assured Mr Lee that he would remove them when he got a chance. Mr Lee, wanting instant results, was not satisfied with this outcome and so came back to me insisting that I remove the photos. I spoke to the photographer and he told me he had agreed to do so, and would be taking them down as soon as he had a moment free. I replied to Mr Lee to tell him that the matter was being dealt with.
Apparently this was not enough for Mr Lee, and he proceeded to write a letter to The Magic Circle, which both he and myself are members, asking them to throw me out of the society for publishing photos without his permission. The society, of course threw the case out, and said that it had nothing to do with them and it should be dealt with between ourselves.
The photos were taken down as promised by the photographer, but not before Mr Lee had caused as much damage, agrivation and stress possible to all those involved. The way he dealt with this matter was very un "caring" and completely without any sharing.
The strange thing behind this, is that the photographer is still publishing the offending photos on his own website, available to be viewed by any visitor to the website, and has not been hounded, or asked to remove them at any time. The photos on balloontwisting.co.uk are private and only viewable by people who are members of the site. It would appear Mr Lee's actions were a direct attack aimed at balloontwisting.co.uk
Mr Lee insisted that the photos were his copyright, even though he had not taken them himself, and that he had not given permission for them to be published on this website. The irony is, that if you attend one of Mr Lee's balloon days, you will be taught, if you wish, all sorts of models by Mr Lee, and other attendees, the majority of which were not created by either Mr Lee, nor the people attending the day. It would seem that the whole reason for the days is to encourage people to steal ideas from people who are not present, who make their living from selling designs for balloon modellers, and without any permission from the copyright holders. In affect, piracy, of other peoples hard work. He is violating their copyrights without a thought to the damage he may be causing. I wonder what Mr Lee's justification is for doing this and calling it a "caring" day !! Maybe it should be renamed the "uncaring and piracy" day?
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