Detours off Britta Blvd

Last Marauders Map update for awhile I hope! Someone tried to bid in the last 5 minutes of my auction this morning, so my folded map sold for $22.06 plus $1 shipping - wow! By yesterday morning eBay had shut down both of the auctions by that guy, and so far he hasn't listed any new auctions...hopefully he'll just give up now seeing that I'm now a member of eBay's Verification of Rights Owners program with the handy-dandy electronic version of the Notice of Claimed Infringement form...his last auction was shut down in about 24 hours, so eBay did take quick action from my emailed form which was nice.

I'll be listing a new folded map on eBay each week, always with the instructions to contact me if you'd like to fold your own for free instead...as long as you agree to my copyright terms of use, of course! :)

All's well that ends well I hope!

Current Location: Brittahytta
Current Mood: pleased

I got some comments today from previous entries, and they've relisted my map, carefully taking their own photos & saying just "created by a Harry Potter fan" not themselves. What they don't realize is that US copyright laws do not require the copyright owner to display a copyright notice to claim copyright, so they are still in violation since I did not give them license permission for resale. I guess the only way to handle this is to sell on eBay myself to get out the word to that audience.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320014385094

At least this protects eBay buyers for knowing what they're getting when they happen to search on all Marauders Maps.

Irony: the time it takes to read my website & bother to post comments to my blog calling my friends & me "gay" & accusing me of not having a life sure doesn't seem like that person has a life of their own, does it? ;)

Now to hopefully enjoy the rest of my weekend...

Current Location: Roseville
Current Mood: *sigh*

I thought it was over, but no...I don't think I'm going to waste my time with a reply. I feel really sorry for the kid who has a father like this, encouraging to plagiarize for money.

I am the father of William (12 years old) and find your two letters to him quite breathtaking.
I am very proud that at 12 he had the enterprise and intelligence (things you dont have)to obtain your map
(free download, no copyright) and try to make a small amount of money. If you had more than a couple of brain cells you would have done the same.
Harry Potter is a childrens book. It is fantasy. It is not the most important thing in the world.
Get off you self obsessed backside, sell your silly little sports car (like who wants to see pictures of a million selling car anyway???!!!), go out and GET A LIFE WOMAN!!!!
If Ebay ask me to remove it I will. I will not be dictated to by a small minded Billy no mates.


Does he even know his son ended the auction already? I just looked and didn't see any new auctions for that eBay username at least. I don't even understand some of his attempted insults. Sounds to me like he feels the need to knee-jerk attack me for anything he can think of, probably because he knows he's really in the wrong. Hopefully this will be the last I hear from them.

Current Mood: sad

To continue the saga from yesterday afternoon about how someone was claiming my painstakingly-hand-drawn Marauder's Map as their own AND trying to sell it on eBay...As of last night, the high bidder had retracted his bid, so he must have gotten my message, and I got a reply from the other bidder thanking me for the info & asking when my next party will be. :) As of this morning the auction had ended with "The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale." I had this in my inbox this morning.

Hello I am sorry for any trouble I may have caused you, I realise it was your own brilliant work and not mine. I hope you accept my apology and I wont do anything like this EVER again.
Sorry
W

Maybe he is 12, but I really hope he has learned his lesson. We're already planning on a password-protected downloads section on britta.com, with an expiring password system so no one can just post a link with the password anywhere else. Then it's a matter of what content can I sell and what is just available for free, but people have to contact me to get the current password. That still won't prevent people from reposting content elsewhere after they've downloaded it, but at the login I could have a "terms & conditions" agreement that no reposting allowed and for personal use only, no resale. Not sure how much that would help, but we'll see...

Current Location: at work

Frustrating!!! Someone is claiming my painstakingly-hand-drawn Marauder's Map as their own AND trying to sell it on eBay! :(

My friend who is sysadmin of our joint webserver only found this on eBay because the person tried to hotlink images directly from my website, which show up in his logs and display the jarring-on-purpose "don't steal from www.britta.com" images he made. What is worse is from the questions toward the bottom of the listing, someone obviously thought he was me & was complimenting him on my party webpages AND he took credit!

Yeah, serves me right for offering it as a free download online I guess, but my intent was for the benefit of fellow HP fans for their personal use, and I have had countless emails from all over the world from appreciative fans. It only takes one person to ruin the whole thing. The seller did reply back to me, saying...


Hello
Im sorry if im being rude but I came saw your website when I typed up Marauders map on google image search and i saw your website pictures so I clicked on it and saw you where showing people how to make your map. I clicked on the free download button and made your map as shown and as imonly 12 i asked my dad the owner of the ebay account if i could sell it. As there was no copyright on it, it seemed like a good idea.
Iam sorry I realise how angry you must be as i can see how much effort you put into it.
I am sorry
W


I don't care if he's 12 or not (I don't really buy it) but no © on the page doesn't imply permission for resale, let alone claiming credit. What a jerk. I hate that I feel violated for trying to be nice to other HP fans who have enjoyed my hard work and my willingness to share. I'll spare you my reply to him. I did clear it with two friends before I sent it & they didn't think it was too harsh. ;)

Of course there are limited things I can do at this point, since I did willingly post it for free. I did report the listing to eBay as misrepresentation and theft of intellectual property, but I doubt they'll do anything. My original email to the seller requested he take down the listing, but you can see he didn't say he would. I messaged both bidders directing them to my website and not to buy from the seller. I updated my map webpage this afternoon, removing the downloadable map & including a note why, but anyone who already downloaded it will still have it on their computer, so I can't prevent them from reposting it. A friend who has some copyright experience thinks I can claim copyright for my art pieces that are "inspired by" prop replicas as parodies, so I will look that up, so that's why I've said "copyright" for now. The inside is definitely all my own artwork, but the front is almost exactly from the DVD, so it's a mixture.


Now that I'm finished getting that off my chest, while digging through the logs to see who else is linking to my map page, look at what we found:

Some squeeing from unknown fans on some forum

Someone who gave me full credit, but reposted all my content since he thought my site was down for good
(during typing this, he's already replied to me & changed his page back to referring to my site directly - now THAT'S Netiquette!)

...and last but definitely not least in the humor category...

A Google search for "origami diagram squid" (page 2)

HAHAHAHAHA! Makes sense though, since I use all those words on that page...including the Giant Squid who appears on my map! ;)


On that note, back out into the blazing heat for my drive home from work...hope everyone is staying cool!

P.S. One thing I've learned this past week is that www.britta.com is more popular than I realized! I got quite a few "oh no, what happened to your website?" emails, including some fears it was gone forever, and here we thought a 4-day outage would probably slip by unnoticed. Lesson learned now, so we'll figure a way to post a "temporarily down for maintenance" notice next time we need to do any server work! Since it's that popular, gotta get my AdSense working on some pages & see if I can earn any money that way... ;)

Current Location: at work

Just had to post my success...due to nagging by complete strangers so I guess you could say "popular demand" the first how-to page is online before any of the rest of the website is anywhere near ready...yes, it is the Marauders' Map. Amazing how just a little commment at the very end of my Year Six party FAQ has had strangers asking about it already!

http://www.britta.com/hogwarts/Year6/prep/map.html

Now for some sleep...

Current Mood: sleepy