Hello everyone, The ferret community is a fairly tight one and thankfully pretty vigilant when it comes to ferret issues. Two very kind individuals e-mailed me in the last few months to alert me to the unauthorized use of two of my copyrighted photographs for products manufactured by third parties and auctioned on eBay. In one case it was a ferret mousepad and in the second a ferret button. We also recently had someone scan one of our ads and use some of the photographs for their own advertisement, another direct violation of copyright! The unauthorized taking someone else's work is essentially theft of property and the federal 1976 copyright laws take a very hard line on violators. When I spoke to both of these manufacturers, I was told that they were sent the photograph by another person and I have no reason to disbelieve them. Unfortunately, that does not absolve them of the violation. It is their responsibility to find out whether or not they can legally use the photograph for their own purposes. It is also illegal to represent another's work as your own. Sending a photograph to a manufacturer for use, when it does not belong to you, is also a violation of copyright. It is also a violation of copyright to copy a photograph by making a copy via illustration, then producing an item for sale. Another violation is to make and sell a third product from the original-- such as matted pictures or placemats from our calendar photographs. Knowing these rules ahead of time can save thousands in fines and penalites, plus the cost of litigation. Please pass the word that all of The Ferret Company's photographs are protected under the Federal Copyright Law. If you see anyone or hear of anyone intending to use them in any way, please let me know immediately. If I can stop it before it happens, there's no damage done. If not, I will have to consider some form of redress. You will see some new products using our photographs from a third party sometime this summer because I recently licensed some of our images for a new line of ferret gift items. The gift line is called Grin & Ferret and you will easily recognize them because the logo is one of our photographs as are the photographs. Each product carries our copyright prominently. (We will have these for review and purchase on the website http://www.ferretcompany.com as soon as we receive samples). I really appreciate the support and vigilance of the ferret community. Thanks for helping out. Sincerely, Jeanne Carley [Posted in FML issue 2675]