The storm is building against Cretaceous Studies...

Our case and momentum against the art thieves at Cretaceous Studies is now really collocking along. To start off with we've identified 70% of the artists whose work was ripped off on this site. So a big thank you to all who took the time to point out an artist or three! Also a huge thank you to those who twitted, Google +ed, Facebooked, or blogged about this case!!! (Sorry I'd try to track down and backlink to as many of you as I could find, but I'm at work with only a little bit of time...)

Progress so far:

1. After discussions with fellow AE administrator and artist rights guru Glendon Mellow, I have decided to directly email Cretaceous Studies, and give them a chance (within a week period) to remove all the pieces we highlighted for which they do not have artist permission (which I suspect is all of them!) OR I would contact all the artists and have them help me contact Tripod to shut down the entire site.

The rational is that while their email and attitude towards art theft was quite irritating, in a way it is a bit extreme to remove all their content without fair warning (really the only content that is just theirs is the writing... most of the other images belong to movie studies or photographers). Please note I said a bit extreme. I'm still perfectly fine engaging in the total shut down strategy should they ignore my reasonable (but sternly worded) demands.

So that email is in their inbox, and I'll be sure to inform you of their response...

2. Now a time limit of a week is fair warning in my opinion as demonstrated by another development on their site...

Cretaceous Studies' new rip off of my photo (original below)

 This new version of my photo popped up on the site since I was last there 9 days ago. I revisited Cretaceous Studies to see if they'd caught wind of our mobilization or not. It seems that overall their oblivious, but someone else seems to have noticed, and demanded either the Tyrannosaur by Joe Tucciarone and/or Albertosaurus is by Jeff Poling and Chris Srnka be removed. To me this is the most reasonable explanation for why a new version of just this particular image was replaced, and none of the others (I found all the other 10 as of yesterday).



My original photo from The Tyrannosaur Chronicles

This demonstrates the unacceptable part of Cretaceous Studies operation and conduct with images. When told to take down stolen work, they only took out the part that was specifically identified as stolen. They kept using the other parts even though they're just as stolen as those stipulated! (In this case my photograph...)

Well that's okay. It means I can be justified in my one week ultimatum. Even if they only take down the 11 images we IDed, I can be assured Cretaceous Studies is out a whole image worth of time on photoshopping for no real gain, as this new version was made in just the last 9 days!
So to the unknown person who demanded the last version of my mutilated and hijacked photo be taken down, thank you! Not only did you correct the wrongs against those other three artists, you've given me a set up for some mild but satisfying revenge of time wastage!

3. Other profile Dinosaur Blogs are starting to take notice and are ceasing the promotion of Cretaceous Studies on their sites. Our friend and member David Orr has removed them from Love In The Time of Chasmosaurs, and we are hoping any other sites that might have them in their blog rolls consider doing the same...