Dear Amritsar,
I love my cat, Mistress Mewsli. Like my favourite breakfast cereal, she keeps me regular; when I'm late feeding her by as much as 3.746732 seconds, she makes this adorable/horrible face and lets out a screech that could break car windows for three blocks! Needless to say, as a good mommy, I take photos of her when one of her moods takes her and post them on the Internet.
The other day, to my utter amazement, I was walking down the street - that's not the amazing bit - I do that all the time - I need to get places, and I can't drive since - well, you don't need to know the body count - it will be in all the papers soon, anyway, and, umm, what was I talking about, again?
Oh, yeah. The other day, I came upon a billboard featuring one of my photos of Mistress Mewsli! To my - you know - utter amazement. It was an ad for pocket AK47s, and seemed to imply that Mistress Mewsli - gulp - was too ugly to live! I thought that was harsh. They couldn't use the photo I took - my photo! - mine! - without my permission, could they?
Apparently they could.
I use the Web site Instaputzit to make my photos public. Apparently, they have changed the terms of use of the site so that "we can now sell, trade for barter, make fun of, trash or otherwise dispose of the photographs which you post to our Web site - hereinafter referred to as 'The Devil's Own' - and there is nothing that you - hereinafter referred to as 'The Sucker' - can do about it. We laugh maniacally at your impotence!" I'm no lawyer, so the subtleties of the language may have escaped me, but this doesn't seem right.
I haven't been this angry about something since they cancelled Firefly! I mean, seriously steamed. Properly perturbed. Insatiably irate, even. Is there anything I can do about this awful angrification?
Skelton
Yo, Skells,
Amritsar felt she was too...civilized to answer this question with the intensity that it deserved, so she passed it along to me. If you will just give me a moment to get into character... <spritz> ahem la la la la brrrrrrrrrble burble burble burble ahem ahem </spritz>
YOU MUST NOT, WILL NOT, CAN NOT ALLOW THIS TO STAND! GO DOWN TO THE OFFICES OF INSTAPUTZIT WITH A BASEBALL BAT OF YOUR CHOOSING AND WREAK BIBLICAL, HULK-LEVEL VENGEANCE ON THEIR SORRY PATOOTIES! LEAVE NO COMPUTER MONITOR UNSMASHED, NO BUSINESS CELLPHONE UN...SMASHED, EITHER, NO INTERIOR GLASS WINDOW UN...UMM - INTACT. AND, AS YOU ARE LED AWAY FROM THE SCENE OF CARNAGE IN HANDCUFFS, SMILE HAPPILY AT THE COLLECTED PAPARAZZI, SECURE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT A BLOW HAS BEEN STRUCK AGAINST THE CORPORATE HEGEMONIC FORCES THAT WOULD USE YOUR CAT PHOTO FOR THEIR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES. A SMALL BLOW, TO BE SURE. A PATHETIC AND LIKELY INEFFECTIVE BLOW, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, A BLOW THAT WILL LIKELY GET YOU A STIFF JAIL SENTENCE AND BANNED FROM FUTURE BASEBALL GAMES. STILL, A SAD, PATHETIC BLOW...FOR FREEDOM!
Okay. That felt good, didn't it? Now, let's get real.
You don't own a baseball bat, and, if you did, your kid in little league would never forgive you for getting shards of computer screen permanently stuck in it. Besides, since you started getting twinges in your shoulder that your doctor has diagnosed as the onset of bursitis, you tend to pull off your swing, producing 27% less destruction and an astonishing 73% less terror. This solution is clearly not for you.
If I may be so bold, might I suggest that there are several image sharing Web sites and cellphone apps that you can use instead of Instaputzit? Yes, yes, I understand that moving all of your images from one site to another would be a pain in the ass, but at least it wouldn't be a pain the shoulder. I'm sure your doctor would appreciate that.
The Tech Answer Guy
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: there's nothing wrong with a civilized response to uncivilized behaviour. If I took out a club (caveman, not baseball, because that would just be barbaric) and beat everybody who annoyed me about the head and shoulders with it, there would be nobody left not clutching their pain-addled crania for a radius of several miles. Then, who would make my morning latte?
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: The Tech Answer Guy did most of the heavy lifting for this column, so he figures he should be the one to have the last word. This is not being territorial, it's a matter of simple justice. He's just saying...