It's time to bring this up again: original photos used on Altadenablog are protected by copyright, with or without watermark, and are not to be re-used without our express permission.
We bring this up because Patch has several times without permission used a photo we took of the tile mural on the floor of the Altadena Sheriff's Station in 2011 (see the original publication here, and note the angle of the photo and the flash on the point of the star at about 10 o'clock -- that's how we know it's ours). We have reminded them of it more than once, but alas, it doesn't seem to get through to them. It's the top story today.
We have not granted permission to Patch, an arm of the New York City-based corporation America Online, to use this picture. The also have not offered us any compensation to use this picture. They may have gotten it from the Sheriff's Department, who has ALSO used the picture without permission, but we support the sheriff and are willing to let it slide in that case. Maybe we shouldn't have. Patch, on the other hand, is a large out-of-town corporation that is competing with us, a small local business, for the sponsorship dollars of other local businesses. We don't believe in supplying free content to our competitors, obviously.
We've written them several times offline and in their comments in the past, but it hasn't done any good, so we thought we'd let you know.
UPDATE: After submitting an official Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice of violation to AOL/Patch, the picture has been removed.
