This week's rant is about the polite bitch. You know what I mean... You try to be as nice as possible to someone and all you get for your efforts is a lecture on how you're a fuck-up and you should be more like them. BAH!!! Bullshit!!! I'm tired of people up on their high horses, acting all condescending.... if you're going to be a bitch then be a BITCH! A no-holds-barred straight up BITCH. Coz either way you do it - you'll still be a bitch at the end of the day. but at least if you're straight up about it - people will still like you....
   Case in point. I was recently searching the web for some graphics for another site I'm working on. Now MOST graphics sites I've been to you just right-click and save the image, if you link to them and give them credit is optional, they just don't want you to use their URL as a link to the image. (in other words use your own storage space!!) Recently I've been to sites where they ask you to register with them and put a link back to their site on every page you use their graphics on. (linkware...) That is totally reasonable to me - I am against plagiarism of any kind, and hard work deserves proper credit!!!  
    Well I found this one site (which will remain nameless although it was run by a woman, and no - I'm NOT using any of the images in question.) and I found a few images that looked as if they would fit in well with my site's theme. So I right clicked and saved them. (three images total... one was a button to link back to her page!!) That's when I noticed a small notice stating NOT to right click the images, but to send a request for a zip file. Well OK - oops... So I emailed this webmaster IMMEDIATELY and told her that I had saved said images. As a matter of fact - here's a cut - n - paste of the entire thread....

  My first message:

Hello (name withheld)

Might I compliment you on your most excellent website!!! Ok well I was wondering if I might use the '(name withheld)' set - Me and a friend are setting up a celeb. site starting with the mummy. We had already decided on using a set from (name withheld) but it didn't include back and forward buttons. 

Here is the page - its in the works and not finished, (only links that work right now are the RICK, MAIN, and BIO buttons.)

https://www.angelfire.com/celeb2/hornygurlz/brendan.html


on my personal site there's a page called Troy's Fantasy art. If ya check it out there's a JavaScript I embedded that prevents right-clicking on that page. I will be glad to send you the script or give you a link to it - it helps prevent your graphics being lifted without permission... coz I actually grabbed 3 off your site (from temple walls...) BEFORE I saw the rules :) I didn't use 'em I just grabbed 'em... I will not use them without permission.!! Anyway like I said let me know if you want the script - its super easy to put in and will save you some headaches... :) 

Anyway once again Kudos on a EXCELLENT site - I will probably set up a link to your site whether I use the graphics or not!! :)
Thanks for your time
Jenn H. 

  So she replies:

Dear Jennifer,
No, the "norightclick" JavaScript does not work very well. Yes, it discourages right clicking, but anybody can simply save an entire page, with its html and its graphics with a simple click on "save as". Thanks for the kind intentions, but its a drop in the ocean, unfortunately, since there seem to be tons of people who, like you, don't even read the most glaring notices. 
In any case, thanks for the compliment. No point in sending the zipfile for (name withheld), hunh? You probably already got what you needed


   At this point I'm like HUNH??? Those GLARING notices weren't very glaring as I recall, besides I was looking for GRAPHICS - not text!!! Besides - usually when one wants to keep track of things like that they make their sets available in downloadable zip files!!!... But I (diplomatically) responded:

(name withheld),
Well yea I did get the ones I wanted to use, but like I said I didn't want to use them with-out permission. Had I seen that (the glaring notices.. :)...) first I wouldn't have gotten them that way .....
:( I'm sorry :( I hope I didn't upset you by being a dumbass... :)
I know the no-click isn't perfect - it was just a deterrent suggestion :) :) I'm sure you've been doing this alot longer than me!! :) I know It must get pretty frustrating at times tho to find people out there who just take your stuff and use it as their own - I am a firm believer in credit where credit is due. So I'm just confirming that it was ok to use the images. I am having trouble figuring out if you were very mad that I grabbed them first, but that's why I told you i did... didn't mean to break any rules :(
Later!!
Jenn

  Ok - so I apologized, right?? I'm not perfect...  and I tried to do the honorable thing, right?? But this is what she sent me, and thus the title for this rant - The Polite Bitch:

My chosen form "deterrence" is stated as a polite request which is hard to ignore. It is a request that is, in fact, all over my website in one way or another. Anybody surfing my site and going from interface to interface would have to ignore that request over and over and over. It would mean that you ignored it on page after page and also took the designs without reading the Terms of Use. So that's kind of a good test of attitude towards the modest resources I supply. I suggest you always read the Terms of Use first in the future.

The first test of whether someone will honor my very reasonable Terms of Use is whether they honor that polite, but glaringly obvious, notice about how to obtain zipfiles of my linkware designs in the first place (although it is repeated in my Terms of Use and pretty hard to miss). Of course, anybody who wants *anything* on the Internet is able to get it by one means or another. But whether they do that or not tells the tale. It's absolutely okay with me if people *don't* like or want to use my designs, but because of the extremely large volume of zipfiles requests (from people who did read and followed my request) I respond to, I automatically deny use to anyone who does not follow my polite but ever-repeated request. Giving me a little side lecture on how to manage my website, while they are telling me that they did not follow my polite but obvious request . . . this doesn't help either. 

No, you do not have my permission to use any of my designs. Characterizing my response as anger would be inaccurate, however, not to mention missing the point. If I got angry about this sort of thing, I'd be angry all the time. So I just point out the obvious as articulately as I can. Over and over and over. In the long run this seems to be quite effective in restoring to me a small sense of control over my hard work. 

This is a pretty good statement of my position, though, and I save these little explanations and send them out in automatic emails. That saves me a ton of typing.

        OH....    BITCH......
  Now first of all - my little 'side lecture' was a fucking SUGGESTION!! This is all still new to me, and The site I had normally been getting graphics from HAS such a (no-right click) feature - and It sent me looking for the Terms of Use. So take the suggestion or don't - I could really give a shit. And like I said - the page after page of requests to request the file all in all weren't THAT obvious....All in all they were quite small. 

  It's not normally my style to complain about how someone runs things, but in most cases where you interact with people in any way certain social skills are needed.... I got a fortune cookie that sums it up pretty nicely...

 'There is no mistake so great as  that of always being right...'