What?

[poliphilo]

One of my friends- a person I thought extremely sympathique- has been caught stealing other people's photographs and posting them as their own. Within the past couple of hours their journal has been deleted.

Many of the filched pictures came from this site http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/France/photo100850.htm

I am shocked and disappointed.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God.

I share your disappointment. And I can't answer your question.:(

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Upon due reflection, I think the answer is "ego".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And being shown up like this must be ego-shattering.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Yes, extremely wounding.

I agree with you and Jackie that I wish she hadn't felt like she had to disappear, that this could be forgiven.

But I think the last thing she could bear right now would be forgiveness.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I expect you're right

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I saw a post in the photo_grrls community, that someone else had a website with photos that were stolen from community members and others. None of mine were on that site. I don't know if I should have felt relieved or insulted, lol

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is a kind of back-handed compliment to steal someone else's work. I hadn't thought of it that way.

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I know...I felt kind of insulted, hehe

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I will miss her, and I wish she had offered a chance for conversation. I think she is devastated.

She is probably very young, and she seemed like a very kind, rather ingenuous person.

I thought she was a marvelous photographer! And she may be--she says she also uses her own photographs.

This makes me very sad. Her father's ill, and she's in trouble, and she's cut off any chance to talk.

Wow.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

That's more or less how I feel. Very sorry for her. She was evidently a bit sad and a bit lost. I can't summon up much of the righteous outrage. Livejournal is after all a compensatory activity; it doesn't surprise me to hear that some people go more in the direction of fantasy than others.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a masquerade. We are all wearing our best faces. And some of us are wearing faces that don't belong to us. It makes me wonder if any of my other friends are perpetrating a hoax.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

(I was able to send her an email through LJ.)

It's all too easy to build a person who's not true. I am much more conflicted and complex than the personality I present on LJ--here's one: I have terrible stage fright, which breaks my heart because I love to sing.

And that's just one.

I've been thinking about this: why do I want people to read my stuff? Because it feels like a friendship.

If I were to pretend to be somebody else, someone younger and more beautiful (with a charming, fake photo of myself) and maybe with a Ph.D, I'd have to sustain a pack of lies that would inevitably be found out, because underneath the festooning I'd still be me, worrying about driving in heavy traffic or frowning into the mirror, hating getting older.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well done- about the email I mean. I must look into sending one myself.

Yeah, it does feel like friendship. When something like this happens I realize how much emotional investment I've made.

I started off with a mask on, deliberately blurring my gender and giving nothing personal away- but I soon got bored with that. Now I find LJ is very much about sustaining relationships.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I started off with a mask on, deliberately blurring my gender and giving nothing personal away- but I soon got bored with that. Now I find LJ is very much about sustaining relationships.

I used to be quite active in a newsgroup (and, when spammers and trollers took it over, many of us came here to LJ--a good move), and I made good friendships there. It still amazes me how much this computer connection means to me.

We'd have all these tempests in teapots on our newsgroup--one hostile, sort of crazy woman kept taking us to task. We all dreaded her Eye upon us!

Then one of us would get sick, or have a family crisis and we'd all rally around. Inevitably, we'd get real addresses and send cards. I've even sent birthday presents and get well presents.

One of the women in the newsgroup, HomemakerJ, has corresponded with me since I first got my computer, in the early days of the Internet. I've watched (via monitor) her son grow up from junior high until now he's the father of two twin girls.

Often, when I'm reading or writing comments, I like to pretend I'm sitting in someone's kitchen, and we're just talking. My noisy family still does that--we gather in Mother's kitchen and talk about everything! Sometimes (as in the case of my Democrat sister and my Republican brother) we yell!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have a friend in New York. The friendship started when I reviewed some books of hers for a poetry magazine and then emailed her to say I'd done it.

It grew from there.

We now email one another twice a day and exchange gifts etc- but we've never met- and probably never will.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

OK. I've emailed her. I hope it gets through.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I will miss her too. She was unfailingly kind. She would graciously acknowledge every post and comment.

[aftertorless.livejournal.com]

I always wonder that, as well, particularly if I've grown fairly close to the individual. Why would anyone claim another's words, images, thoughts, as their own, without at least citing the source? Is it blatantly malicious? Do they aspire to a quality of work that they don't think they can produce, yet want to? It's confusing and sad, really.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's malicious. I think it's about prestige. There's a fable about a crow who sticks peacock's feathers in his tail. Having slept on it I've reached a stage where I just want to reassure her and say, hey, it's not so bad- and I'd still like to be your friend.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

hey, it's not so bad- and I'd still like to be your friend.

I feel the same.

The sad thing is that she felt, apparently, that she had to provide gorgeous photographs to have readers. I found her gentle, kindly writing (with its faint French accent) delightful. And she always wrote back, and read my posts, and was very courteous, always. I'll miss her.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping she may read some of these posts and comments and be encouraged to return.

Wanting to be Liked

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Self-esteem, most likely, played a part. We all want to be liked, to be loved. We all want people to think we are brilliantly creative, fascinating, amazing people. Sometimes, we forget that we really are such amazing beings and we feel that we aren't worthy, and thus we scramble about, trying to find a way to make us seem "better" so that more people will like us and want to talk to us and be our friend.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a shame. Yeah, I think all of us LJers are to a greater or lesser extent asking for love.

The person in question appeared so sweet-natured, so caring that (on reflection) the miappropriation of a few photographs seems neither here nor there.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Unless they are your photographs. She's opened herself up to lawsuits up the wazoo.

I know, typical American thinking.

But sometimes intellectual property is all you have.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm just a wishy-washy liberal.

If it was my stuff that had been stolen I would send a stern letter, but I wouldn't prosecute. Not in this instance. If she had been trying to make money out of the pictures it would have been different.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's just us LJers. I think all of us, when you get right down to it, want to be loved. We want to know there are people out there who care about what happens to us, who hold us in high esteem, who respect us.

I don't know what it says about humanity today that we all seem to be desperate for love. Something is missing, somewhere, methinks...

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The old communities- in which everybody had their alotted place- are breaking up, and we're having to build new ones. That's my guess anyway.

I like it that the communities that develop through the net are largely without constraints of nationality, gender, age etc. We seek out like-minded people who- under the old order- we'd never ever have had the chance to meet.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I've been on the Internet since 1980, which is nearly half my life. The Internet is firmly integrated into my social life; I don't remember a lot about how it was before then.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't wake up to the possibilities until the late 90s and still have some of the zeal (and innocence) of the recent convert.

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

What will happend when you become disillusioned and move on?!:)

She said, tying two unrelated threads together...

Re: Wanting to be Liked

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good question.

Writing is what I do. That hasn't changed since I was in my teens. And right now LJ seems like the place to be doing it.

I feel like I'm taking part in a fascinating experiment. I mean the blog is a new form. We're the first generation to be working with it. I can't see myself getting bored with it any time soon.