Stolen Photos

Hi Olga,

You are incorrect on a couple of points..he did have a 5700 as I have helped him set it on a couple of occasions over the phone..the particular information we shared could mean only one thing, that he did have the camera in his possesion at the time we were speaking. All of his menus were in Janaese and together we had to work on setting it to english (believe me it was quite frustrating to say the least)..and secondly he DID post 5700 pictures on these boards at one time and he got killed for it.. (you may need to look a little further, if you care that much..but most of us will remember as we saw and made reference to them)... he, the camera and the images were critized very heavily... He was one of the first ones to have this camera it was gray market..

BTW, If he has erased his pbase you will never find them now..but trust me they at one time did exsist. I remember looking at the exif data. Also the bad pictures now that I think about it may have been due to him not being able to set the camera properly..because he posted the pictures way before he and I set it.

Carmen

OlgaJ said:

[S] Carmen said:

As most of you know, I have had to work with Dennis on the 5700
community..so this is what I feel. For one it has been obvious to
me in our several conversations on the phone that he is very
lonely. He is married, has a home. He has also been forced to
retire early due to illness/disability. He is now required to be
home permanently...so hence the new hobbie of taking other peoples
pix. Now for the old timers; Don't you remember the pictures he
posted with his 5700; they weren't that great?!..so his skills as a
photographer need to be worked on. But I have a feeling due to his
disability he may find it difficult. So lets just drop this attack
and move on...as Cathy pointed out he most likely WILL NOT come
here to offer an explanation..but I think I have shed some light
on it for you.

I am sure he is sorry..but perhaps a little afraid and ashamed to
come into this pit of fire.

We need to pray for him and wish him the best.

Carmen

Click to expand...

Carmen,

While I agree with your sentiment, I just went back to the first
messages, and I'd be willing to bet he never had a 5700. I didn't
find any 5700 photos that he posted, at least not in this forum. He
did post an 885 photo. His one message talked about having a 5000
too. Bought at Bway Photo... As his messages progressed, so did
the cameras listed in his signature. But the 5000 was forgotten
although he claimed he bought 10 each of some adapters for the 5000.

It is indeed sad when someone resorts to making up things just to
"fit in". I wonder if he understands that he would have fit in even
if he didn't have a camera, without having to lie...

I hope he finds a place where he will feel comfortable and fit in
without having to exaggerate or borrow other people's works.

• Olga

Click to expand...

[/S]

Those are some good points.

I can certainly attest to how hard it is to have to withdraw early from ones 'normal' life due to illness. A wide social circle is quickly reduced to immediate family, and total reliance on them for transportation (and sometimes ambulation) is a painfully humbling experience. Not to mention the discomfort from the disease itself. Coming to grips with it is near impossible, and the process of working with it can manifest itself in some off ways (I know my dog is keeping a mental journal of even slightly bizarre behaviour on my part, but we have a non-disclosure agreement ).

Obviously it's not acceptable, but I agree that it is unlikely that anything was done to be purposely spiteful. And it sure would be hard to jump in now and post a response/rebuttal to it. - then again, people can be pretty darn forgiving.....
Ed.

Jim, a lot of your posts don't have any content, just a reply with no text. Just thought you should know...........see below..........and your post, Cappy

JimTanCanada said:

Sid Daley said:

Just got off work and started reading this thread. I'm
aghast that Dennis would do something like this, all the
more reason to restrict your image size to 800x600 max
for web posting..

Shaking my head in disbelief !!!!

Sid

--
Sid's Gallery:
http://www.pbase.com/sid_daley/coolpix_4500
Coolpix 4500 Community:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nikon-4500/
Nikon School:
http://www.nikonschool.com/advanced_home.shtml

Click to expand...

--
Jim Tan

Click to expand...

--
Cappy wonders what color the sky is in your world today?

Oh, then I presume that it is not the picnet at Yahoo, who is a female?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/picnet

Jim Tan

I agree with Carmen I have had many email conversations with Dennis and had always seemed to
be a nice guy ..I dont think he was trying to be mallace or deceive any
one with these photo's although a
email to Nicole would have been my

first move...This being said lets stop the witch hunt ...lets chalk this up as a lesson if you have photo's on
the web and dont want others to
use them then you must protect yourself, even I am guilty of using
someone elses drawing of the pre 5700 image (Nikon's ?) on my pbase

but I do always have a
"All images copyright" at the bottom of each image page
just incase somone trys to sell
any of my good stuff.....

Lets not be soo fast in our accusations ....

I will also say that Dennis does have a 5700 and loves it just as much as we do...

Im sure he is sorry Nicole....

In the imortal words of Rodney King
"cant we all just get along"....

Aloha ,
shapeSHIFTER

[S] Carmen said:

Hi Olga,

You are incorrect on a couple of points..he did have a 5700 as I
have helped him set it on a couple of occasions over the phone..the
particular information we shared could mean only one thing, that he
did have the camera in his possesion at the time we were speaking.
All of his menus were in Janaese and together we had to work on
setting it to english (believe me it was quite frustrating to say
the least)..and secondly he DID post 5700 pictures on these boards
at one time and he got killed for it.. (you may need to look a
little further, if you care that much..but most of us will remember
as we saw and made reference to them)... he, the camera and the
images were critized very heavily... He was one of the first ones
to have this camera it was gray market..

BTW, If he has erased his pbase you will never find them now..but
trust me they at one time did exsist. I remember looking at the
exif data. Also the bad pictures now that I think about it may have
been due to him not being able to set the camera properly..because
he posted the pictures way before he and I set it.

Carmen

Click to expand...

[/S]

Well it seems it is gone now..it may have been his wife..I know he has one of those too. He sent me a check once and it had her name on it and it didn't bounce....for those of you who would dare to ask!!! ^

Carmen

JimTanCanada said:

Oh, then I presume that it is not the picnet at Yahoo, who is a
female?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/picnet

Jim Tan

Click to expand...

Whoever the person is at Yahoo, they are only SAYING they are a female........who would know? A lot of people do this for some reason. I think it's the same person. I've seen people portray themselves falsely as a female........the perception is most of the "guys" here would be more willing to help (i.e. the dumb blonde, "tee-hee" persona).......I've also seen females portraying themselves as male, to avoid references to PMS and the like. One major example of someone who has permanent PMS behavior and is a male:::::::::::hil Askey!! But notice no one ever accuses him of that. Just imagine if his typical response posts were made by a female........she'd be slaughtered ("webmaster" notwithstanding.......LOL). Anyway, I'm sure there's only one "picnet", and his name is Dennis and he is a male! K.

JimTanCanada said:

Oh, then I presume that it is not the picnet at Yahoo, who is a
female?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/picnet

Jim Tan

Click to expand...

--
Galleries: http://www.koo22photos.com/-/koo22photos/default.asp

Cappy

Ya, it's my pride and joy mid-life crisis machine ;



Steve S--D1X-N5700
http://www.pbase.com/sshyone/root&view=tree
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/sshive2/

Greetings all:

I’ve been reading this thread with GREAT interest and some sadness for those people who have had their property misused by others.

There is no question that it would be wonderful to have Dennis come to the forum and tell us what the deal was… But I’m sure that will not happen, or if it does, he is a much bigger person than most of us would be in a situation like this.

The bottom line on this is that even if he came and tried to tell his side of the story there is nothing he could say that would make everyone happy. This is the case because the Pendulum is BACK swinging from one side to the other and we are now dealing with extremes from both sides of the conversation.

Not that these extremes don’t have a valid place in a conversation, but one has to remember that at the end of the day all of us are looking for Truth and it is normally located some place between the two extremes.

To the people who have had their property used improperly…. I’m sorry that this has happened and I guess this is simply the dark side of the media that we have all chosen to use.

On a lighter note… remember that having someone take something without the proper permission is normally not a very good situation…. But it has happened because you people are so DAM good at what you do. If you were more like me, there is not a person in his right mind would want my work.... (Just kidding)

So depending if you are a (1/2 full type person) or a (1/2 empty type person)… one can look at this as a travesty…or as a complement. But once you stop the pendulum it will end up being a travesty and a compliment.

This has been a bad situation that gave us all a wake-up call… So now let’s get back to doing what we like to do best…. Taking photos.

--
Cheers...
Doug B.
E5700

Nicole said:

Hey guys - Have you noticed that people are taking your photos off
your PBase gallery and putting it in their own? Or even worse, off
your personal site?

Click to expand...

I have had that happen to me on WebShots, when I requested those people with my photo to remove it, all but 2 complied. At my request, Webshots "Deleted" their entire collection. That was the end of that but, one kid still had my photo of the World Trade Center as his personal web page, he says that because he changed it more than 15% it is now his artwork. I told him if I find his car I'm taking it and I'll paint 100% of it, then by his own standards it will be MINE!
I just don't understand why anyone would want to claim someone elses work.
--
Michael

I have had dealings with Dennis and the 5700 Club in its early stages. I was the one that posted that you could no longer enter the 5700 site because it had reached its page limit the first time it was shut down in July.

I was told it was none of my business, which it was, I was one of the first to join and one of the first to delete my membership. I was chastised for posting instead of emailing Dennis, personally, which I did and when no response came, I wanted to make sure that no one would waste their time going to the 5700 site so I posted to NTF.

I researched the business model of Community Zero and made Dennis aware of the parameters. He blatantly blamed the page views on people "OUTSIDE THE USA". Making me wonder if he was a bigot. He asked that I post a message saying it would be up the first of August and their would be no problem.

I did this and told him I would no longer be a part of the 5700 community, that instead of seperating we should stay together, meaning here at the NTF.

He then began, knowingly, promoting the 5700 community. When it shut down in August he was infuriated that Community Zero could possibly be operating in a "slight of hand" format. He mislead a couple of particular people whom I won't mention. When Sid came to him for help starting the 4500 community one of Dennis's counterparts mislead him with false information that I prefer to believe was given to that person by Dennis.

I was hurt, upset and in dis-belief. I had been treated like a piece of dirt and I thrashed out.

In March I was in a near death accident that left me lying in 3 feet of snow, bleeding from the head and paralyzed in the right leg. I was not found for 3 1/2 hours. 7 months later, 2 operations and steel in my back, I can walk with a cane, I have no feeling for temperature on my right side and I have dead spots in my right leg and back. I have a lot to be thankful for. Whence my time to be on here. Imagine how excited I was to find a board, a community that shared an interest that I was famaliar with, to be trampled under foot and made to feel like an outsider that had no business even trying to belong. I have no sympathy for his present condition as the use of an excuse for behaviour that he has portrayed.

I have mixed feelings about everyones statement. Keeping true to my promise that I posted a short time ago, all I will say is that it is sad. Sad that someone would steal anothers property, regardless of the persons intent........stealing is taking something without permission......sad that there are people in our society that believe people should not be held responsible for their actions, even to the point that they remark and criticize others that do want them held responsible. Sad that someone has soiled this community with doubt, mistrust and anger and discension amongst ourselves.

TO DENNIS: if your reading this and I am sure you are. I never liked you and I never trusted you, especially after our first dealings.......I know you'll do it all again and I know you can't help your self. I also know you wanted to get caught. You wanted sympathy and you got it from some. You wanted anger and discension amongst us which you succeded in. You are jealous of what we, as a community, have here and what we are. You tried to build your own empire with the 5700 Community and failed. So you attempted to destroy this one. It is not my place to judge, so I won't. But my friend, it all comes around in the end.
Have a nice life..........Dennis
Cappy

--
Cappy wonders what color the sky is in your world today?

Larry Berman said:

In all the time I've been posting to this forum, I've always
recommended adding a copyright as a text layer to each image posted
on the web. This is a perfect example of what can happen when you
don't do anything to protect your images.

What you can legally do is contact the host and have the client's
account pulled. Here's a page we've created describing what your

Click to expand...

What I don't understand is why anyone would be offended if someone
likes your pics, collects them, and displays a best of the best.
This isn't a money thing we're talking here.

I think you're all nutters!

--
cheers!

Gunn

Cappy said:

I have had dealings with Dennis and the 5700 Club in its early
.

Click to expand...

Thanx, Cappy

I'm new around here but not new to photography, electronics or digital cameras. I for one am done with this thread but, I offer any help to any person who wants to better himself or his photography. (Ladies too, of corse)

Michael

something about your own images! If someone is stealing them that usually means that they are incredibly good! LOL

what a silly person, though..stealing images.....jeez

regards

Brent

I love it.......
Askey suffers PMS behavior....LOL!!!!

koo22 said:

JimTanCanada said:

Oh, then I presume that it is not the picnet at Yahoo, who is a
female?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/picnet

Jim Tan

Click to expand...

--
Galleries: http://www.koo22photos.com/-/koo22photos/default.asp

Click to expand...

LOLOL

wonderful!

brent

[S] Carmen said:

Carmen

JimTanCanada said:

Oh, then I presume that it is not the picnet at Yahoo, who is a
female?

http://profiles.yahoo.com/picnet

Jim Tan

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Jim Tan[/S]

Cappy said:

I have no sympathy for his present condition as
the use of an excuse for behaviour that he has portrayed.
I have mixed feelings about everyones statement. Keeping true to my
promise that I posted a short time ago, all I will say is that it
is sad. Sad that someone would steal anothers property, regardless
of the persons intent........stealing is taking something without
permission......sad that there are people in our society that
believe people should not be held responsible for their actions,
even to the point that they remark and criticize others that do
want them held responsible. Sad that someone has soiled this
community with doubt, mistrust and anger and discension amongst
ourselves.

Click to expand...

You've said EXACTLY what I've been thinking. I find it more than a little unsettling that some people have the attitude that we should try to understand this behavior and go so far as to pray for this individual. I mean, come on! I'm all for looking at both sides of things, but that is far too extreme. You have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise you'd have thieves, rapists, murderers, etc. running free because afterall, "they have problems". (Yes, I'm being extreme to make a point - let's not make excuses for people).

Just so you guys are clear about what went down - When I found my photos (before I posted anything in this forum), I sent Dennis a message asking him to take them down immediately because he had not gotten my permission to display them (most of them were taken off my personal site, not pbase, by the way). He had the opportunity right there to apologize, but he didn't. Instead, he actually took those photos and made a new gallery called Butterflies and dumped them in there. To me, it was almost as if he was taunting me! So I sent him ANOTHER message and told him to DELETE them, not just move them. Once I saw his image count go down and my butterfly photos disappear, I sent him a third message asking him to take down my contest entry as well. Around that time the image count began to INCREASE as if he was uploading MORE photos, no doubt taken by someone else. So I sent him two more messages, one noting that I saw that he was uploading more photos, and another telling him I thought that he should stop what he was doing because he knew it was wrong, and he should do the right thing. Shortly thereafter the galleries started disappearing (either by his hand or PBase, I'm not sure), but not the actual photos (which are most likely still there).

The whole point of my message in this forum was to alert others to this situation. If you're going to post my work publicly without permission, I'm going to let the public know what you're doing, and I'm going to do my best to stop you from doing it. I don't know Dennis personally, nor do I want to after this incident. I know all I need to know.

P.S. I'm aware that things like this can happen, does happen, and most likely will happen again. But am I going to pray for the person doing it? Don't hold your breath.

--
Nicole
Nikon Coolpix 885 & 5700
http://www.pbase.com/halo969