The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Groupon.com is illegally using my map “DC Stencil” for a Facebook advertisement
|| 8/10/2009 || 6:09 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Screen grab from Facebook showing my map DC Stencil being used without my permission -- click to see full size

Click the Screen Grab to see the full-size image

About 15 minutes ago I visited my Profile Page on Facebook and noticed a familiar map of mine was being used without my authorization:

DC Stecnil by Nikolas Schiller - created August 22nd, 2005

My website’s Fair Use policy states “For any intended commercial use of content on this website, I request that you contact me so that we can arrange appropriate compensation.” There was no effort to contact me before using my map in the advertisement and had they chosen to contact me, I would have requested some form of compensation. I decided to report the advertisement to Facebook:

Screen grab from Facebook showing my map DC Stencil being used without my permission and my message to Facebook as to why the ad should be removed-- click to see full size

Click the Screen Grab to see the full-size image
(Yes I am aware of the grammatical error!)

I also sent the company, which I am purposely not linking to in this entry, a polite cease and desist e-mail asking them to either take down the advertisement or pay me and I sent out a tweet linking to this entry. Maybe I should pursue further action? Let’s see how they respond…

UPDATE – A few minutes after I sent my Tweet, I received the following responses:

Twitter replies about the illegal Facebook ad

Later in the evening I noticed that they merely changed the graphic and kept the original ad:

Screen grab from Facebook showing the same ad with a new graphic-- click to see full size

Click the Screen Grab to see the full-size image

Makes me wonder if they are using someone else’s image illegally?

UPDATE – This morning I received this e-mail:

So I get to BUG him about a $10 coupon after my copyright was violated? That ad was probably seen by thousands of people! What a crock.

UPDATE – August 12th, 2009 – I decided to do some sleuthing and found that the image that Groupon.com replaced my image with was also a copyrighted image! Using the website TinEye.com I was able to eventually trace their current image to this blog entry. I contacted the copyright holder and he said that he had not given them permission to use his photograph either….

the wildlife of an idea
|| 3/16/2008 || 4:47 pm || Comments Off on the wildlife of an idea || ||

[Youtube Link]

French creative agency, Callegari Berville Grey, took a popular viral video of African water buffaloes valiantly defending a newborn calf from lions & a crocodile and anthropomorphically reassigned the roles of nature to that of an idea in our modern workplace.

The final and overarching message is that we should all struggle for our ideas- whatever they are. Like a raisin in the sun whose seeds have found their way to moist soil, ideas and their subsequent dissemination face many perils along the way from conception to execution.

Related YouTube Entries:

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DC Lenz #3
|| 2/8/2005 || 10:22 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Thank Spacing Imaging for providing me with that image. Its the same image that I used in the “site map” and on the newly formed intro page. This time I used the fact that the source image had limited resolution (1280 x 1024 pixels) and I multiplied it a total of 36 times to achieve a larger mendala. The lenz was the same size as DC Lenz #2, as well as the same backround layout. This is one of my favorites, but the pixels are owned by someone else. :-(

Last week at the ESRI Federal GIS Users Conference I picked up a MASSIVE print of Las Vegas, Nevada and this week some of my friends began discussing the possibility of going to Las Vegas this spring. The Digital Globe print has all of the mega resorts and even a perfect zenith over the Luxor. I, however, do not have any plans to go there. Its a place I want to go to when I have a lot of money to blow.

So it turns out that the guy who gave me the dinars was actually an ROTC Guy who is studying law in DC. He is currently “undeployable.” I think once he graduates he’ll be off to the front lines. God speed soldier. Bring me back more worthless money that shows the price of liberation.

view detail of the center:

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: