Another case of copyright violation...

[Tania]

... in Reimer Seed online catalog!

Actually I was quite shocked. Not the first time, I guess, as we already had a bad copyright case with Dr. Tomato some time ago. But this time what I thought was a 'reputable' seed vendor' who did it, which is shocking.

My guess is some people (customers perhaps?) might have been sending them the copyrighted photos and they may have put them up on their website not knowing... That's a possibility.

But I still believe it is a HUGE issue when a reputable business uses someone else's pictures illegally, and it needs to be corrected.

I sent them an email today requesting that they remove all the photos they lifted from Tatiana's TOMATObase website (which includes some of my pictures, Suze's, Patty's, and Klaus-Peter's, and Steve's).

They also have a lot of photos from SSE public catalog, Tomatofest, and Tomato Growers. Not sure if they obtained permissions to use the photos from them or not.

I am hoping they will fix the issue asap, and I will keep you posted about the results.

Tatiana

[Heritage]

Tania,

Reimer's policy of offering "FREE Frequent Buyer Points" for photos seems to beg for copyright infringements. Hopefully they will do the right thing and remove them.

Thanks for doing the legwork on this... much appreciated

Steve

[FILMNET]

I was sending them a shot I did, if you help them with pictures you can get seeds from them? I did email 1 file and, not email back to me.

[carolyn137]

Tania, I have never considered Reimer's to be a reputable place. They had sold seeds marked as hybrids which are not, and more. I haven'tbeen to the site since two years ago when they and Baker Creek and Territorial all got wrong seeds for German Red Strawberry from Italy and what was shown in pictures was a ribbed piriform.

Are you going to contact SuZe and Patty and others about it since more than one person e-mailing them might make a difference.

I know that SSE in the past has alowed pictures from the website to be used AFTER being contacted, but I doubt that now. I've never seen pictures from TGS, I don't think, and I don't think that Linda would allow for it and I think the same for Gary at Tomatofest.

I remember years ago Aaron Whaley contacting me about pictures from my book being used at a Canadian website as were some from SSE. The difference is that SSE has lawyers and I don't, to be able to enforce anything.

And there are other sites where pictures from my book have also been used.

[biscgolf]

Originally Posted by FILMNET

I was sending them a shot I did, if you help them with pictures you can get seeds from them? I did email 1 file and, not email back to me.

no telling what you'll really get if you do get seed from them...

[Tania]

Originally Posted by Heritage

Tania,

Reimer's policy of offering "FREE Frequent Buyer Points" for photos seems to beg for copyright infringements. Hopefully they will do the right thing and remove them.

Thanks for doing the legwork on this... much appreciated

Steve

So true! I think the vendors who ask their customers for photos should at least verify that there is no copyright on the pictures they received before posting them. Otherwise they can really get themselves into a big trouble...

I am hoping I will get some response from Reimer on Monday. I am sure this was an oversight on their management part and they would want to correct the problem.

[Tania]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Tania, I have never considered Reimer's to be a reputable place. They had sold seeds marked as hybrids which are not, and more. I haven'tbeen to the site since two years ago when they and Baker Creek and Territorial all got wrong seeds for German Red Strawberry from Italy and what was shown in pictures was a ribbed piriform.

Are you going to contact SuZe and Patty and others about it since more than one person e-mailing them might make a difference.

I know that SSE in the past has alowed pictures from the website to be used AFTER being contacted, but I doubt that now. I've never seen pictures from TGS, I don't think, and I don't think that Linda would allow for it and I think the same for Gary at Tomatofest.

I remember years ago Aaron Whaley contacting me about pictures from my book being used at a Canadian website as were some from SSE. The difference is that SSE has lawyers and I don't, to be able to enforce anything.

And there are other sites where pictures from my book have also been used.

Carolyn, thank you for the correction
I have assumed they are reputable as I have not heard otherwise.

I am hoping they will remove all the pictures asap, as it is a violation of Tatiana's TOMATObase copyright terms and conditions. This will cover Suze, Patty, Steve, Klaus-Peter, and myself. I am not sure if there are any other pictures in their online catalog that belong to Tville members who were not asked for permission - if there are, I will be happy to bring it up with them as well.

If I do not get an answer then everybody's help will be great! Let's wait and see.

Carolyn,

If there are any websites that are using pictures from your book, it is easy to deal with - you can report the copyright infringement to their hosting service provider, and they will take the website down until the issue is resolved.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by Heritage

Reimer's policy of offering "FREE Frequent Buyer Points" for photos seems to beg for copyright infringements. Hopefully they will do the right thing and remove them.

Steve, while that might be part of the problem I suppose, I have a feeling (a rather strong feeling in fact) that Reimer darned well knows they have several photos on their website that infringe upon copyright. Not to be argumentative, just sayin', more or less.

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I have never considered Reimer's to be a reputable place.

Agreed. I recall back in '03 and '04 (at least) when several were having problems with them. One place the problems with Reimer used to come up frequently back in the day was on the peppers forum on Gardenweb. The regulars/experienced pepperheads knew the score. At the time, Reimer had a lot of pepper offerings, things that were hard to find elsewhere - but unfortunately the stuff was frequently either no or very low germ, and folks that let them know or complained about it got some sort of ridiculous excuse response to the effect that they must not be starting the seeds correctly or something along those lines.

There have also been a few threads here in the past about Reimer re problems. Here's one worth reading which references / links to their Garden Watchdog history:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=205679

The older pages (5 & 6) of the Watchdog comments (http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/...681&offset=100) are especially worth reading as it shows they socked up to post positive comments about themselves and got caught + some links to wayback machine for those old GW pepper forum posts are posted in some of the comments. Like for example:

http://web.archive.org/web/200308140...210929710.html

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Are you going to contact Suze and Patty and others about it since more than one person e-mailing them might make a difference.

Dunno about Patty and others, but I already knew it was a problem. I've already contacted them 2x this year so far to tell them to remove various photos of mine.

No response the first time, but they did at least remove them. Second time, they were using some other images of mine (new copyright violations, not the same ones from the first time) and I asked them to remove those too. Some they removed, others were not removed. Again, no response or acknowledgement whatsoever of the email I sent.

So, this makes the third time (at least for me) and as of 2011.10.03, they are using the following photos from me w/o permission. And honestly, considering it is Reimer, there is no way I would have given permission even if they had asked:

Akers WV, Brandywine Platfoot, Burgundy Traveler, Chapman, Japanese Oxheart, Todd County Amish.

[Chris_NH]

If harm can be shown over their use of photos, then absolutely seek compensation for that loss. Otherwise, to be honest, I find getting bound up over what seemingly amounts to very little a bit silly.

[Tania]

Here is a response I got this morning. No 'thank you', 'hi', or even 'sorry'.

Customers submitted them to us and there wasn’t any copyright on the photos, so we were unaware of the fact.

We removed the photos from the website.




Reimer Seeds
www.reimerseeds.com
striving to be the choice for all your garden needs

I have not checked yet if all the pictures are indeed removed.

No promise that they will not do that again in the future.

I am disappointed.

This does not show honesty and integrity.

There is no a person name behind this writeup.

[Tania]

Btw, this was the list of pictures I asked them to remove:

- Purple Brandy
- Stump of the World
- Sara's Galapagos
- Lime Green Salad
- Rutgers
- Brandywine
- Brandywine Tomato (Platfoot Strain) (Suze)
- Burgundy Traveler Tomato (Suze)
- Ceylon
- Dorothy's Green (Klaus-Peter)
- Great White ( Heritage Tomato Seed )
- Mr Underwood's Pink German Giant (Patty )
- Todd County Amish (Suze)

Suze, I just sent them another email asking to remove the three other photos of yours that I did not notice before: Japanese Oxheart, Akers West Virginia, Chapman.

I also asked how they check the submitted photos for copyright violation.

[Tania]

Suze, thank you for the links.
I reviewed the Dave's Garden watchdog ratings for Reimer and the old threads at Garden Web, and it looks like they have had some problems.

[Heritage]

Tania,

Thanks for the update. I see a few more of our photos on their site so will also email them.

Steve

[Heritage]

Suze,

Thanks for the history. Seems like a strange way to run a business.

Steve

[ScottinAtlanta]

Folks, is it possible to insert a line of text in the copyrighted photos (bottom right or left) with the copyright statement? Too bad it is needed, but it can greatly reduce theft. Most photo software allow text to be saved on top of a photo.