The Other Side of the Story
· May 15, 08:48 AM
The Art Thieves over at Only-Dreemin are scrambling to defend themselves. Here's their letter they wrote to a blogger:
Many thanks for asking for our side of the story rather than simply offering more death threats... In August 2006, we were contacted by "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD" a company based here in London, they offered to show us some imagery, that they stated would be high resolution and we would have sole reselling rights. We were visited by a salesperson from the company and we liked what we saw Anyway 2 weeks passed, emails were sent back and forth, basic research was done by us to enable us to resell them and then the paperwork was signed and a considerable amount of money was paid (£3000.00) by us , for us to start selling these images in the form of canvas prints. 6 months later we had a letter from a law firm in Iceland, stating we were using someone's images, we Googled the claimants name, lo and behold we found we had been duped! As requested, we immediately removed the images from the internet and destroyed any copies of the images we had. We emailed the law firm to state we had dealt with these requests and to apologise to their client. We took legal advice, they told us say nothing more than we had, not recommending we contact the claimant and tell her what had happened, by the way we were very keen to do that, but we were told to avoid all contact. In the meantime we started our own investigation into the above company's contacts and sources but have since found nothing more because the telephone doesn't get answered, mobiles are permanently off and emails are getting bounced back, it seems we were conned too. As Rebekka has now decided to make this public, we can set about explaining to her why this has happened and of course, to apologise.Wow. Poor them. One problem with that defense, though: Their defense: "In August 2006, we were contacted by "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD" a company based here in London [...] basic research was done by us to enable us to resell them ..." One problem with that research; it takes no time to check online and find out on Companies House (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk) that the company does not exist. Since when is ignorance a valid defense or excuse? "Jeepers, Officer, I didn't know it was a crime to Drink and Drive. Honest, I didn't!" Jerks. Art Thieves Via RustyLime.com
Labels: flickr, only-dreemin, rebekka, theft