Assert your copyright

If you are a photographer, be it professional or amateur, the images you create are yours. Only you can allow someone to reproduce them in print or on a website, or anywhere else. And it helps to know a bit about the law that protects those rights, which you automatically have. In this case, it is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, in the United Kingdom.

Recently a friend was looking for a conservatory and found a "local" conservatory provider. They were not actually local but they had a database-generated page that implied they were. On that page were some interesting titbits of information the Woodbridge area, including a photograph of nearby Rendlesham Forest (shown, left).

My friend emailed me to say that the photograph looked very similar to one of mine. I had a peek and found that is was indeed very similar. So much so, in fact that it was more than similar, it was one of my photographs! And to make it even more cheeky, the image could only have been taken (stolen) from one of my websites.

Although it is definitely not a requirement of the appropriate law, it will obviously make it easier to support any claim you have, if any of your published photographs already carry the copyright notice, in the Berne Convention format, which, in my case would be    Copyright © 2009 Linn Barringer.

When I find a case of my photographs being used without permission, I write a letter to the company asking them to either remove my image, or pay for the privilege. Obviously, in this instance, I expected the response to be the former rather than the latter!

As an aside, it can sometimes seem difficult to write to a company if their website does not show the company's physical address - apart from being against UK company law, I usually won't deal with a company who won't show their address - I always wonder why they won't, which makes me suspicious of their motive. Anyway, after a quick search on the Companies House website I was able to quickly find their postal address.

My letter to the offending company (the offender might, of course, have been their web design company) had the desired effect. My image was taken off and replaced with another, presumably of Rendlesham Forest - although I didn't recognise the spot... and hopefully from someone who had given them permission. Yes, of course they had. They wouldn't just "borrow" someone else's photo again, would they? Would they?

Anti-plastic bag day

Saturday 12th September 2009 is the first international plastic bag free day.

Since someone started the idea to rid the planet of thin film plastic bags, I've been doing my bit most of the time. But I'm sure it would be even easier to be completely supportive if our government took the Irish approach and taxed the bags almost out of existence.

While plastic bag use in the UK has dropped by a reasonable 26% over two years, the rather more successful Irish solution resulted in a 94% reduction in use. They didn't have to ban them, just made people think about whether they really wanted to pay for them. A bit like the "polluter pays" rhetoric from the UK government.

There's a website promoting the whole anti-plastic bag crusade, called Abolish Plastic Bags.

If you Google anti plastic bag you will find plenty of references to the subject, including a pro plastic bag group funded by (surprise, surprise!) Exxon Mobil and Dow Corporation.

It's probably not realistic, nor even reasonable, to ban or stop using plastic bags because they do have many practical uses. But would it not be reasonable to make an effort to significantly reduce our use of them, and particularly take care in the way we dispose of them, instead of them lining our roadside hedges with fluttering tatty bags.

Pay to stop them praying?

Today I received through my letterbox a card from a church in Woodbridge offering to pray for me. That might seem a reasonable offer but as an atheist, I find the whole concept of prayer and worship distasteful and, frankly, ludicrous.

I am very happy for others to believe in what they want to believe in but I am not at all happy for them to force their views or irrational practices and rituals on others without invitation. I consider their card an unwarranted and certainly unwanted intrusion.

However, the extreme irritation it caused pales, when compared with the announcement on the card that church members were going to visit my house and interrupt either my working day (10.30 -12.00 noon) or our private time at home in the evening (6-7pm) on some unspecified date next week.

The card added insult to irritation by asking that if I did not wish anybody to call, I should telephone the church to stop the visit.

In the words of the Catherine Tate character Derek Fay, "How very dare you?" They ask me to telephone them to stop them doing something that they will otherwise do, without my invitation or permission.

No I would not. That is absolutely unacceptable. I do not, ever, want believers to attempt to force their beliefs on me and then ask me to spend money to stop them doing it!

I might consider turning up at their church, uninvited, and explain to the gathered followers why I consider them to be brainwashed, weak-willed, pathetic people. Maybe they would be outraged. Perhaps they would "pray" for my "soul." Either way, I think it would be an unreasonable way for me to act. And I see a very strong parallel with the way the church acted in sending these cards.

Are Traffic Lights Always Green?

Today is a big day for road traffic. The schools are back. The school runs are up and running. And today of all days, the main traffic lights in Woodbridge, Suffolk were not working!

You might think this would make the traffic disaster even worse. But no. As predicted by me for years, the pointless addition of traffic lights at the junction of Lime Kiln Quay Road and Thoroughfare only cause traffic problems and increase pollution; they do nothing to improve traffic flow. How often have you seen traffic sitting at a red light with no traffic going through the green lights?

Councillor Cocker has been concerned about the air quality around the junction for some time. It is obviously caused by queues of stationery traffic that were never there before the traffic lights were installed. These queues often reach right back to the other pointless traffic lights at the junction of Quayside and Hamblin Road.

These traffic lights should be removed and replaced with a single or even double mini-roundabout. It would save the electricity, save on maintenance, keep traffic moving, clean up the air, and reduce fuel wastage. The traffic lights might be green some of the time but mini-roundabouts are greener, permanently.

But what about pedestrians? First, many pedestrians totally ignore the “red man” signs that are intended to stop them crossing. They use their common sense and judgement to cross when the road is clear. Secondly, it would be possible to leave pedestrian-controlled lights in Lime Kiln Quay Road, which would be left at “green” for traffic and only changed to “red” when a pedestrian needed to cross, not simply at a timed interval.

There is a precedents: About twenty years ago in Brentwood, Essex, a complex mis-aligned crossroads at Wilson's Corner had traffic lights. The day they failed, the usual long queues of traffic on the four approaches dissipated. The responsible authority was bold enough to listen to the grapevine suggestions that the traffic lights had been causing the congestion, not alleviating it. They installed temporary, experimental double-mini-roundabouts and the traffic continued to flow reasonably and "fairly" – allowing the volume of traffic to automatically adjust priorities. And the multiple-mini-roundabouts are still working successfully today, with far higher traffic volumes than twenty years ago.

Come on Woodbridge/SCDC/SCC – get our traffic moving again!