Laurie J. Lundell Gmyrek rips my photo off.....

Laurie J. Lundell Gmyrek rips my photo off..... You tell me and decided. First off you must understand that I have been developing a webpage for the Ward World Museum's Wildfowl Championship in Ocean City Maryland for three years, without any recognition or acknowledgement from the organization.... but thats ok in a way in that I produce a site in the Ocean City Maryland area for all that is 'cool' about our town(s). And the wildfowl championship is definitely COOL.

I have the orginal photo, digitized from my camera, in my camera's original digitzed format.

The photo I claim to be ripped off is from my page: http://www.ce.net/users/coolocea/powell.htm my photo on this page has been enhanced from a cloudy day with the sun puffy clouds you see.

the photo Ms. Gmyrek's is on: http://www.wardworld.net/wwguideindex.htm http://www.wardworld.net/wwguidemain.htm or specificly: http://www.wardworld.net/RPowell_CCc.jpg

NOTE HOW the flags are exactly the same, the camera angle etc etc... I can easily post my original photo that is exactly as the picture Ms. Gmyrek has on her page for the Ward Museum.

Is it a big deal..? well you tell me. After you read what Ms. Gmyrek has on her website selling her work as

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I would agree that it certainly appears to be the same photo and I also noticed that the bottom fith of the photo has been cropped, probably to cut away the photographer credit shown on the orginal picture.

Unfortunately this is a common problem and I sympathise. Having looked at the code on both sites it looks like it may have been saved directly from the site as a GIF, renamed after download and then spliced in.

If you have the proof you claim you could contact her client and send a copy of your proof to them, after all they've been ripped off too. You might also send the same to her ISP, ripping a site is bad form and they may not wish to be associated with it.

Having said that please think carefully before doing this. We all hate being ripped off, but its a hard thing to prove and even harder to get anyone to take action about. You might be better off trying to sort it out amicably with her, after all it could be a mistake caused by a lack of awareness or ettiquete on her part.

Finally, its a good picture and the way its presented on your site has a lot more impact and is a much cleaner image. I hope you don't loose heart over this, enjoy your work and good luck.

I relate to your plight. She is a good gal but has her flaws and her problems as we all do. I don't know when this happenend, but she has had her share of bad luck in the past year. She came to me with job and daughter issues, and I offered her money to help pay bills. Even gave her food from my freezer.

She was hoping to pay me back from her tax return last April, but she said they confiscated it for past due taxes, and I got nothing and she said I don't know what to tell you. That was the last time I heard from her after many times trying... to this day. I hold no grudge anymore,much as over 2 thoudand dollars hurts.

I just don't understand. A friend steps forward and helps another, and gets ignored thereafter!