Quote - After some back and forth we compromised that the sender was the dpt of justice of the local govt amd not the govenors office itself.

Correction: It wasnt sent from any govt related dpt, but an organisation which deals with intercultural and economical matters between the eu and ru. take care

Quote - This is unusual responsiveness, and the only thing I can figure is that because Russia wants to be admitted to the European Union, they're cracking down when caught.

Pat

Hi Pat Actually thats not it, but I was surprised myself to hear some of the reasons why they seem to comply 1) that hoster is involved in various big rip offs. In one case they were so stupid to try to rip content where big european money is involved. Big money that invests in Russia too. Needless to say that they are not amused and can make much more pressure then any of us can 2)another reasons seems to be the family background of some of the posters of some of the ripped off copyrighted material: I cant give details here, but let me say that sometimes kids do stuff which badly crosses the plans of their parents. And this moreso when those parents have political ambitions. It looks to me that the people here just got lucky that this hoster/isp was "on the list" since some longer time already and that coincidentally several floods of new complaints hit more or less at the same time. take care, Valerie

Ok, yesterday several emails and letters went off to the a) siteholder b) the isp and hoster and c) to the russian ministery of interior. After some back and forth we compromised that the sender was the dpt of justice of the local govt amd not the govenors office itself. Content was the list of all the links I could gather here, futher the contents of a huge complaint by a german picture database unrelated to what has happened here. It contained especially a referrer to some informal agreements between russian governement and the european union concerning "intensivation of efforts to limit and penalise infringements of third party rights ..." etc blah blah. hth in some way but dont count on it. cheers, Valerie

Quote - It looks like we have been very busy with this topic.  I was sent an email, through Rendo, from Skyback that one of my images was on this website: http://www.1zoom.ru/see.php?n=43831&js=1&uu=130.7.  It seems like the person we have been discussing is on this webpage  too, but I am unsure.  I have could not locate a name as to who posted it.  They also left my marking on the image.  The site is also in Russian.  

I find this so very dishearting.  It seems the world can be a really cruddy place sometimes.  Let me know what I can do to do my part in getting this taken care of.  I am thankful for those who care enough to let us know about our art when they see it.

Beth

Well to be totally blunt about it. Once material is up on one .ru site, be prepared for it to spread quickly amnongst other .ru sites. Very often they belong to the same people in the background anyway. What we see here is the tiny tip of an iceberg and we are talking about the ripping of art pictures "only". What some of our departments both on state as on federal level have to deal with criminal energy wise with those states (and china!) is downright outrageous. Nevertheless giving up is the wrong answer. In politics exist only interests and compromises and those states want something from us too. So political pressure is the only mean which in some future will show any kinds of tiny results. And yes, I mean tiny. In the long run, everybody who displays whatever with a copyright beneath it in the internet will have to deal with those facts. I believe that in the end, we might have to rethink completely how to deal with copyrights, how to spread or display copyrighted material alltogether and all this might well be the end of most of the free display. Means: you want to see any of it, you got to pay for that. I can say for sure that our biggest phone company is dealing very seriously with industry and politics on how to implement a micropayment system that can easily be used "on the fly" (there exist several ones already, but they still feel they are too complicated). Also, german law puts Tv sets, Radios and Pc's on one level as machines which are apt to recieve and display radio or tv content. This does not only affect Pcs with a tv card, since tv programmes can be streamed and thus recieved via Inet. And a per machine fee which follows a too complicated system to describe it here, is due. Those fees are reinvested into the so called public radio and tv programmes and their internet presences. One idea that is discussed is to offer artists the possibility to affiliate themselves with any big Multimedia Industry Company who in return would defend their rights. To refinance this, additional fees on internet usage, Pc's and websites are discussed. Nothing has been decided, but things are on the move and I fear that a lot of the free display might dissappear if any of us want their rights somewhat protected. I dont say it has to end that way, but I see such signs on political levels here in Europe. just my 2c, Valerie

Quote - I like the idea of disabling the right click, but it just slows them down. Good luck everyone.  Bunny

Hi Bunny Disabling the right click doesnt slow anybody down who really wants to rip a lot of pics. All they need to use is a so called Website ripper or Spyder and that prog will do the downloading of pics for them. Some of those are so advanced that they can resolve any kind of link, non html ones included. In the easiest case and with broadband connects being cheap, they just mirror a complete site on their harddisk and rip it apart there. If you can see it in your browser an automat can rip it, sad but true. cheers, Valerie

We have someone in the UF lists who actually can write and read kyrillic and russian. Here is some interesting info that she gave us, here is her message to the UF list: ********* The poster is named Kris. Here is her web site: www.akakris.igumnov.com . It is almost entirely in Russian. Email on the site is by means of a form: http://akakris.igumnov.com/about?about_send_form=submit On that page, the first blank is for email address. The second is for subject, and the third is for the message. The final blank probably wants to know how you found her, but there are a couple of words I don't recognize. I'd leave it blank. The next item is a button for sending the email. Her web site settles her gender. Her nationality is Russian. She lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. If you click on the link Крис on any thumbnail, it will give you a popup box. You can leave a message for Kris by clicking on the first clickable link. The link to the popup box should work whether or not you have a Cyrillic font. It will look different, but that's all. If you need any more information, let me know. It seems likely that she reads English, because she has been accessing so many English-language sites. I hope this helps. Pat ********* This certainly helps, so lets all thank Pat for her efforts and help! So while I am still collecting links to stolen pictures, anyone who feels like it, can leave that Kris a message ... Also, this akakris.igumnov is hosted by mylifepage.ru. % By submitting a query to RIPN's Whois Service % you agree to abide by the following terms of use: % http://www.ripn.net/about/servpol.html#3.2 (in Russian) % http://www.ripn.net/about/en/servpol.html#3.2 (in English). domain: MYLIVEPAGE.RU type: CORPORATE nserver: ns2.mylivepage.com. nserver: ns.mylivepage.com. state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED org: MyLivePage Inc. phone: +7 905 9567313 fax-no: +7 905 9567313 e-mail: *******@mylivepage.net registrar: R01-REG-RIPN created: 2005.07.12 paid-till: 2007.07.12 source: TC-RIPN Last updated on 2007.03.13 09:18:49 MSK/MSD There seems to be an email form on www.mylifepage.ru. So if any of you discover stolen pics on www.akakris.igumnov.com, it is at www.mylifepage.ru you need to complain. Yet, this one has nothing to do with the art site which contains those masses of stolen pics. It seems to me that this Kris is hosting quite a lot of copyrighted material on her site too, not necessarily from R'osity though. ttyal work calls, need to dash ... Valerie :)

Quote - I had to dig a little further though, and went to find the host server in Moscow by the name of www.agava.ru and/or www.agava.com

Correct me if i am wrong

On the right, it says: Бесплатный домен: which must be something like if some domain name is available, so i put in artfile.ru

It gave me the following info:

domain: ARTFILE.RU
type: CORPORATE
nserver: ns1.agava.net.ru.
nserver: ns2.agava.net.ru.
state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED
person: Palichev Yriy Viktorovich
phone: +38 050 9814481
fax-no: +38 050 9814481
e-mail: admin@artfile.ru
registrar: R01-REG-RIPN
created: 2004.06.08
paid-till: 2007.06.08
source: TC-RIPN
Last updated on 2007.03.13 01:36:05 MSK/MSD

So hope it will help y'all

Good day

Hi Harmen Indeed, thats exactly the info I came up with my last night ( am in germany). Interestingly the phone and fax numbers seem to point to Ukraine, not Russia, but that must not mean much since the format would suggest that they are outdated by long (+38 was the intl access for ex yougoslavia, this has been changed since some time. +380 is Ukraine today, +38 doesnt exist anymore at all, my suspicion is that its mean to read: +380 50 ....). To those who are afraid to write them: get a throwaway email address that you can access via web, not your email program. I doubt that you will get much replies anyway ;-) Y'all can additionally complain at ripe of course. cheers, Valerie

Hi All I am A member of the UF users mailing list. My rl Name is Valerie waves at the Uf list folks I can make the following offer: Since I work for a federal german agency, I have close contacts to the state governors admin. Since Northern Rhenania Westphalia is one of germanies most industrious states, they have vast contacts to the east, especially we have some people working there who speak russian, our legal squad included. If y'all here can gather the weblinks to your stolen Fractals, I am ready to try to get someone to do me a favour at the governors offices and kick the siteowners ass about all the copyrighted material. Do not expect wonders from that. Ukraine, like Russia are at the actual times states where laws get only erratically enforced, if what we have as laws applies at all. Be aware that copyright laws are different to non existent in some eastern countries. I can't say for sure how the situation is in Ukraine and I am not sure if I will have the time to find out. On the other hand Ukraine wants into the EU and so it will have to start complying. So please, if any of you want to take that offer, post the full urls to your pictures on that russian site into this forum so I can gather them and the siteadmin of tha ru site be asked to remove them. PS: As it turns out the server of that site definitely stands in Russia, not Ukraine (I got a RIPE feedback at the first /whois with an Ukrainian tel number). Makes it all just a bit harder ...

Hi All I am A member of the UF users mailing list. My rl Name is Valerie waves at the Uf list folks I can make the following offer: Since I work for a federal german agency, I have close contacts to the state governors admin. Since Northern Rhenania Westphalia is one of germanies most industrious states, they have vast contacts to the east, especially we have some people working there who speak russian, our legal squad included. If y'all here can gather the weblinks to your stolen Fractals, I am ready to try to get someone to do me a favour at the governors offices and kick the siteowners ass about all the copyrighted material. Do not expect wonders from that. Ukraine, like Russia are at the actual times states where laws get only erratically enforced, if what we have as laws applies at all. Be aware that copyright laws are different to non existent in some eastern countries. I can't say for sure how the situation is in Ukraine and I am not sure if I will have the time to find out. On the other hand Ukraine wants into the EU and so it will have to start complying. So please, if any of you want to take that offer, post the full urls to your pictures on that russian site into this forum so I can gather them and the siteadmin of tha ru site be asked to remove them. Here some additional infos about that site: THIS could be seen on one of their first screens in the fractal section: +++++++ Балаболка: выводить по 15 убрать )) прально делает)) красоту надо повсюду распространять)) Оставил(а): dima komaroff, в 23:03 Дэнис извращенец...зачем голых баб в девок присылаешь , я это дэлитую... Оставил(а): sparco, в 22:59 dddddddddddd Оставил(а): бык, в 22:58 Dear DonaKuka! Inform full links of your works on AF. They will be removed. Оставил(а): Крис, в 22:29 Крис,на те маю асю,а то так я там ненайду.394673677 Оставил(а): Илюзия, в 22:18 Оставить сообщение в балаболке:(только для зарегистрированных ++++++ A whois of the site turns up this information: % By submitting a query to RIPN's Whois Service % you agree to abide by the following terms of use: % http://www.ripn.net/about/servpol.html#3.2 (in Russian) % http://www.ripn.net/about/en/servpol.html#3.2 (in English). domain: ARTFILE.RU type: CORPORATE nserver: ns1.agava.net.ru. nserver: ns2.agava.net.ru. state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED person: Palichev Yriy Viktorovich phone: +38 050 9814481 fax-no: +38 050 9814481 e-mail: registrar: R01-REG-RIPN created: 2004.06.08 paid-till: 2007.06.08 source: TC-RIPN Last updated on 2007.03.12 01:01:05 MSK/MSD That Telefone Number is weird: +38 doesnt exist anymore. It was ex Yougoslavia but those have been changed to +381, 382 .... +380 is Ukraine nowadays though, that would fit best with a .ru domain, if at all. Its possible that they really mean the number to be +380 50 98....

Looking at it from a photographers view, I would suggest this: The car/dog/tree/cows ... need to be disengaged, especially the tree looks a bit weird in relation to the car. Same goes for the Route 66 sign, it is to close to the car. You could resolve this in changing your camera angle or moving some of those objects or even removing some of them. The easiest way to resolve it would be to put the tree/cows a bit more to the right and backgrond, just where that rectangular object is on the grass or maybe even a bit to the back of it and then possibly move that dog a bit so there is no collusion between the tree/cow and dog. The dirt road, the rear wheels have already been addressed, but I think i found another minor problem with the arm of the driver which could use a slight more angulation towards the car at hand level. It seems to stick out a bit unaturally now. I would remove the lightning or postwork it more. Shots of lightnings look wayyyyy different ;-) Finally, most important, the light: Storm skies - unless you are standing in the middle of it - almost always show some distinct graduation from clearer/fairer parts to darker parts close to the storm front itself. I would try that out, if you can, it usually adds quite some "drama" to the scene. Apart of this, I like your idea a lot, nice render too :-) Cheers, Valerie

Oh yeah! ;-) Works much better already then the first posted version . Dunno, but maybe playing around with the "jet" (smoothen it versus unsmooth like now, make it a tad larger or thinner) could enhance the effect, but I am really not sure if that would be needed anymore. Possibly a little camera tilt (like described above) would enhance your point. I would remove the steam though so to stressen the "imaginative" statement of your picture (= not trying to make it look too real) Like it lots and lots and more and more :-) Cheers, Valerie