Yeah, you won’t see me angry quickly. I may be grumpy sometimes, but most of that is more out of fun than anything else. But these buggers have really done it now. I’ve been paying for a ‘Premium Site’ since 2002, that’s EIGHT YEARS. I figured I could make a few bucks of some of my photos at the time, and put up (among quite a few others) the picture you see here. You can – or rather COULD – get it on a t-shirt, a coffee mug or a cap. I sold, errrmmm… maybe FOUR of them in 8 years. Whatever.

Out of the blue came a mangled email from CafePress telling me ‘a’ picture was suspended because <insert some vagueries here>. So I replied to please send me the entire e-mail. Returned were more vagueries, but now it became clear that one or the other picture apparently was getting their nickers in a knot. No mention of precisely WHICH picture, NOR what was wrong with it. It took me two MORE emails to get a somewhat clear answer.

Now, if ANY of you thinks that putting said picture (see on the left) of a 50-year old aircraft, from a factory that closed back in 1968, owned by a public flying club, is depriving ANYONE from REAL MONEY, or is in any other way an infringement on copyrights………  then you should go live in the US (if you not already do so). I sure as heck haven’t encountered such behavior on this side of the pond… yet!  But chances are that our society here too will turn into a place where the ONLY thing people seem to be after is to SUE each other out of money for no particular reason, just to feed the lawyers… instead of work. OR to downright steal each other’s work.

This is what I call, and pardonnez-moi le mot, anal retentive! I would use stronger language if I had been brought up to. What a load of BS !

And no, I am not going to write to the Avions Jodel, relatives of the original designers, who now sell the old building plans to home builders. I don’t think they would expect me to, I most certainly do not think I am legally obligated, and I even think they and all other Jodel lovers, would be glad to have the plane distributed on coffee mugs and shirts…….. especially with 0,2 copies per year !!! (So you can see, I am not upset becasue of loss of money, other than the monthly payments to CP… it is a matter of principle!).