As most of you know I've been working on the PoliceWiki for a few years now. In my efforts to make it THE best website about The Police I only show copyrighted images when the copyright owner approves.
Sometimes I even buy a series of copyrighted images and present them for free.
In the past few months I noticed that not everyone here considers copyright violations to be wrong. There are several individuals and Police fan pages here that just take pictures from somewhere on the Internet and post them on their own pages - or on group pages.
Some were taking pictures from the PoliceWiki. This is stealing. If they had asked I would have loved to let them use my pictures - with a credit. But no one bothers. At least everyone I confronted has taken my / Wiki pictures off their facebook pages.
Jose from Peru has created yet another fan page with the same ignorance to other's copyrights - The Police Files. The few photos he stole from the PoliceWiki have now been removed. My comments have been erased and I have been blocked from his page.
Now I've read one of his posts on a Spanish speaking Police forum where he insults two "Police experts" of throwing shit and stuff at him. The "Police experts" expression doesn't need the irony - because Craig and me really know our stuff. Whereas Jose clearly doesn't.
I'm sad to see that Jose doesn't recognize his own faults. I'm also sad to see that people I know and like don't care about all that and "like" his page - or other fan pages that steal images. All that enthusiasm about the band is great, but the carelessness of all people involved troubles me.
- please don't steal - not in real life and not on the internet
- at least don't steal from the PoliceWiki
- don't "like" people that steal