Hey Guys,

I have been brushing up on my different dog breeds. There are two that I thought I would share here. These are both iphone/ipad aps.

The first is called 'Dog Breeds?' It is a 'guess this breed' game. As I have been brushing up on my pedigrees, I have found it very useful. NYC is "Pedigree Central." Everyone has one, and it has been helpful to me. Is it a perfect ap? No. For example, nothing is shown to scale...so what is the difference between a miniature schnauzer and a schnauzer? Also, the images are not great...though the gods honest truth is that I have been doing really well with it. LOL, does anyone else have trouble with terriers? I have a real hard time guessing the different breeds of terriers.

Another ap that I REALLY like is called, "Pet Hub." It is currently an ipad only ap (I believe). It is almost like an electronic medical record for your pets. It keeps info for identification tags, vaccinations, medications, misc. notes, vets, etc. It also has a weight tracking tool and lots of room for photos.

I saw a new TICA ap today that I may download for the felines. I don't do many cats, and certainly not pedigrees, here in the City. However, it seems like a fun ap to download.

Anyone else have any good pet aps that are worth the download?

James

Don't know of any off hand. Sounds interesting though.

As high tech as I can be, I am decidedly low tech when it comes to things like texting and apps. So, I guess I am saying I am no help

Not much for cat people. The few apps out there are kind of cheesy. I've bought a few just to check their images, apparently the App store doesn't check to see if images are licensed because I have found Apps that are using stolen images, some have been mine :-(

I have used Cat Piano to get a subject's attention during a shoot.

Hey Preston,

I was wondering about that. Do you think this gives you the opportunity to reclaim damages?

James

Damages - perhaps, if you have registered the work with the copyright office, and if you want to roll your dice on attorney fees, and if the developer has any money to actually pay. If you haven't registered, you can't get damages just a normal usage fee.

Actually, you can register AFTER an infringement within certain limits.

Also, a letter from your attorney may be enough to get them to pony up. You just have to decide how far to take it.

Has anyone here actually ever tried to reclaim damages on stolen photos? It seems to me that aps like this - particularly given their relative scarcity, are potentially big money makers for the writers. i.e. if you look up dogs or cats, this is what comes up....and there aint much.

You might want to talk with Jim Garvie, I think he has had to handle situations like this before. I think that the fact that a photo has not been registered with the copyright office is secondary. If you can prove it is your photo, and it is an ap (certainly if you downloaded it, you have proof), it would be fairly easy to find out how many copies have been sold and therefore how many times your images have been stolen. Yes? Or am I making this WAY to simple?

James

James, yes, I have dealt with it. You asked about damages. I'm not sure about the exceptions that Jim Poor mentioned, but in general you need to register before the infringement to recover damages (a penalty). You should always be able to recover usage, but the thieves will argue for a very low usage fee. Going after these jerks is not a financial reward, but it does help protect your work.

Since this has come up, let me ask everyone about Apps that simply provide links for web access. They find stable web sites and write an App around linking to the photos on the site. I encourage you to look at a copy of "Dog Envi" for the iPhone. Jim G and Julie can probably find some of their photos being used (or delivered) by this App. At least it looks like their stuff to me. I consider this theft, but I'm not sure of the legal technicalities. Comments?