On Kris ‘n Boy and Photo Thievery

Dear Ate Charo,

First of, Pusa has left a comment on my recent travel blog and since Pusa is one of my cyber-friends, it is only necessary that I visit her blog too. However, the Great Firewall of China has prevented me from paying her a decent visit because at this moment, domains parked at Blogger.com are inaccessible in the Chinese portals. I used a web proxy so I could enter her blog, I was successful but then the pictures are not loading. But that’s not what this letter will be heading to, Ate Charo.

I clicked one link from her blogroll and I was lead to another photoblog - BYAHILO.com. The blog is owned by Enrico Dee. On one of his blog posts, Enrico laments on how your morning talk show - Boy ‘n Kris - has used 3 of his travel photos which was originally posted on his blog. And what fueled his anger was the fact that the photos were zoomed in a way that the embedded watermarks were no longer visible from the TV screen. Of course, a blogger and/or a photographer would know his works at the first site of his material. Even if it was just a split second of airtime or something like that, the owner would recognize it immediately.

And to add insult to injury (now I’m clichéing), your staffs may have been avoiding his calls and ignoring his email messages. Is this how you do your public service? Should the author of BYAHILO.com happened to be Korina Sanchez, Teddy Locsin, Jr, or Kris Aquino would your staffs give the same negletion? Or would you personally order a public apology?

Okay, I may be exaggerating. The owner of the photos may not need that much attention - he only seeks justice and proper credit for his works. After all, those photos ARE (present tense here) his personal property. It may be free for public viewing but does he not deserve a proper recognition?

Blogging for BYAHILO.com,

Kotsengkuba