Still, my glare as I rushed off to the metro should have made it perfectly clear what I think of people who do not respect intellectual property protected under national and international law, but more important who show no remorse when they get found out.

And you are once again showing your true colors when you again refuse to accept you broke the national law as well as my international copyright.

Yes, there was MANDATORY conditions expressed on the Flickr page. More than that, even if there wasn’t I don’t need to because the law recognizes me as the copyright holder regardless. However, there was. Firstly, copyright is automatically implied anyway, and secondly the CC terms are clearly labeled there.

Everything on this comments page showed you stole my images and are not man enough to except you broke the law. You are too arrogant when you’re in the service of your monarch/s (Grzo and LTP).

Anyway, you should know all of this already because you are a supposedly a media expert although obviously an amateurish one.

Moreover, your attitude on these comments pages show you more significantly quite a nasty little so-and-so who cares nothing for the rule of law.

I don’t feel brave in front of my screen, huh? Well, it’s true, I feel better I don’t have to see thieves like you.

As for suing, I was never going to sue you. I was going to sue LTP’s campaign and make a complaint to the CEC and OSCE as well. After all, you’re just a minion — a sycophantic minion for your King.

And I lost a client? Woe is me! My god! You mean you won’t STEAL any more of my images!!! Damn! What am I going to do?!?! Really! No, please, you mean you’ll respect my copyright from now on?!?!?!?

You should have done so in the first place.

Go ahead, copy this comments page to the whole world. This is my last post in your blogs. And this is my last word: on the Flickr page there was no MANDATORY condition to contact you before using your photos. And the credit was there. Go ahead and sue me, and I will prove in the court that all this is hype and fake.

BTW, you lost a good client. I am almost sure you realize that this campaign of yours was a mistake, but you cannot admit it.

Bye.

Gee, thanks.

However, what’s the logic here? Because you apologized for one violation, you could then go ahead and steal even more images (and yes, infringement of copyright is theft) ? Is that how the Ter-Petrosian team plan to act now that an apology for the corruption, criminality and cronyism of the 90s has been made?

Like Catholics, perhaps. Confess once, a few Hail Mary’s, slate clean, time to sin again. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

1. I, Aramazd Ghalamkaryan, whenever and wherever I used Onnik’s photos, gave proper credit to him.

I’m sorry, according to both national and international copyright law you MAY NOT use my images without permission. However, they were licensed under Creative Commons and so I say again, you breached that because:

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

So tell me? When did you contact me about how to attribute the images? Who on earth are you to decide what is “proper credit?” They are my copyright and even under Creative Commons it is up to me to determine what is proper and what is not.

Of course, it’s not the first time I’ve seen such arrogance and disregard for the law from Levon Ter-Petrossian’s campaign team and I daresay it’s not the last. Most citizens, of course, will remember that such an attitude defined his rule.

No change there, then.

I was one of those unique individuals who managed to have normal relations with Onnik. But now I see that making noise is more important that the truth. It’s a pity.

Who are you referring to here, Aramazd? Your radical-opposition chums in civil society and the media who are behind you in your attempts at launching a “revolution” if Ter-Petrosian doesn’t come to power regardless of the fact of whether he actually gains enough votes.

Normal relations, hmmm.

Let’s see how they’ve been since May 2007 when I first met you. Well, I interviewed you, wrote about your effective dismissal from the UN and never saw you again until the recent LTP rallies. Then our only contact related to images and usually when my copyright was breached — 11 out of 12 times as I recall — and as comments on this page.

Yeah, pretty normal, I’d say.

Anyway, I’ve framed things in terms of the law. You have not been able to counter any of the breaches enshrined in national or international copyright law or Creative Commons. Excuse me if I snigger the next time I hear one of LTP’s people speak of the rule of law when there was none 1991-1998 and there appears to be none in your circle now.

Funny, steal my images and throw up so many red herrings to get out of the fact that you broke national and international law on those gallery images as well as breach creative commons and without being able to say sorry.

I know Onnik is interested in pushing the stats of his blogs, but this is really too much.

No, Aramazd, your arrogance and lack of humility as well as inability to admit you’re wrong is too much. Still, what can I say about increased hits? If that’s the case at least they’re genuine unlike the 60-100,000 people you guys give for LTP rallies when only 12-15,000 turn up.

It’s up to readers to decide based on what’s been said on this copyright issue in the comments section of this post. To be honest, I think only those who support Ter-Petrossian side with Aramazd. Those who care about the rule of law and the respect and protection of copyright do not.

Can’t say more than that, really.

In fact I was and am one of those in Levon’s Team who argues for such a stance. And it is both unjust and in fact funny that I am accused in such a behaviour.

I know Onnik is interested in pushing the stats of his blogs, but this is really too much.

Now read carefully:

1. I, Aramazd Ghalamkaryan, whenever and wherever I used Onnik’s photos, gave proper credit to him.

2. The photo of fists was used not by me, I myself raised the issue of copyright with the designer and was assured that the photo was properly purchased from Onnik and paid for.

3. When Onnik contacted me on the issue of the photo with fists, and though I was not the one who illegally used that phot, I immediately arranged that issue and paid Onnik, and, BE CAREFUL HERE, apologised a number of times, including by phone! Here is a quote from our email communication with Onnik:

“Hi Onnik,

Sorry for a possible confusion: are you speaking about the the new photo with fists on the upper right part of the newly-designed website at http://www.levonpresident.am?
If that’s the case, I was told that you were paid. If not, I will re-check early morning tomorrow and get back to you.”

4. I would apologise once again without any problem if I breached the copyright. And moreover, intentionally. If I stole anything! This is absurd, and anyone knowing me would prove this.

5. And the notion that someone would associate Onnik with LT’s campaign is a very very weak argument. And I am not against being sued, BTW: let the court decide whether photos used in a campaign website mean that the photographer supports that candidate.

6. I am really sorry for this noise about nothing. I was one of those unique individuals who managed to have normal relations with Onnik. But now I see that making noise is more important that the truth. It’s a pity.

Hello, Mr. Krikorian.

My name is Daniel Ohanian and I was hoping you would be able to help me out. I am part of a subcommittee to ARFYOC (Armenian Revolutionary Federation Youth Organisation of Canada) in Toronto, Canada, and we are currently working with an NGO you seem to be fairly familiar with - the HALO Trust. Having heard about this group and their work through I friend of mine, I decided to do some research on them and came across your blog, where you have posted your photographs of HALO workers in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). We are at a point in our work now where we have organised a kickoff event to mark the beginning of our fundraising campaign for HALO; our goal is to collect over $10,000.

So this brings me to my question. Would you allow us to use one or more of the photographs available on your website for our campaign? In the most general sense, this includes: a flyer advertising our event(s); a slideshow promoting HALO; a pamphlet with information pertaining to their NK operation; and as part of an audio-visual presentation. Now, I do not mean to overwhelm you! My intention isn’t to exploit your work. I just want to know how available these photographs are to us, if at all, and what steps you would like us to take in respecting your property.

With thanks on the great reporting you do,

-daniel

Oh yeah. Permission is obviously granted for use because not only do I support this cause, but also because they bothered to ask.

He knows what copyright is, and as the issue of copyright had been brought up before regarding the use of the fist, he should have known full well he needed to contact me.

This is absurd. Really quite absurd.

Not one valid reason has been given for this and it would just take a simple, “I/We apologize. It won’t happen again.” Instead, I get told I should be proud Levon Ter-Petrosian’s team not only broke my copyright but also RA copyright law and the Creative Commons License.

I didn’t mean to imply that you were wrong(you are the owner and you make the rules); only that that the manner of attribution is not clear when you visit the Flickr page for a photo.

However, I think that now has come the time to demand a public apology from Aramazd or I will be submitting a written complaint to the CEC late this evening. Basically, I believe in a country where the rule of law exists. It’s now time for me to protect my copyright and make sure that happens.

Additionally, any further breach of copyright by Ter-Petrossian’s campaign team — or any other, in fact — will result in legal action. I also reserve all my respective legal rights in terms of copyright and Creative Commons licensing with these comments.

I was just pointing out what a reasonable person (as accepted in a court) would have made out of this. The flickr photos do not specify the manner of the attribution - i.e. a person looking at the Flickr page does not know that you have specified the rule of usage in a blog entry.

This is now getting too much. I say again that the CC copyright/license terms are identified on my flickr pages. Everything is clear. If LTP’s people prefer stealing and are so arrogant as not to check, that’s one thing.

If it was a simple mistake then Aramazd should apologize for the unauthorized use of the rally pictures but he has not. You know, I’ve decided, because my images have been used, are being used, or were being used for LTP’s campaign without my permission, I will give Aramazd until the end of the day to publicly apologize.

Otherwise, I shall be submitting my concerns about the breach of my legal rights and the RA Law to the CEC as it pertains to pre-election campaign advertising materials.

I have used one of your photos only once on my blog and gave credit and provided link to Oneworld. I do not see any need for me to apologize.

I was just pointing out what a reasonable person (as accepted in a court) would have made out of this. The flickr photos do not specify the manner of the attribution - i.e. a person looking at the Flickr page does not know that you have specified the rule of usage in a blog entry.

As for commercial use, I think it’s a stretch to consider an election campaign a commercial enterprise. But we won’t know unless a court decides about it.

It’s really sad that the use of the photos has escalated to this. But I guess the Armenians didn’t have the concept of copyright as little as 15 years ago so it’s probably expected.

And yes, you are wrong. So totally, totally wrong, and I should have really taken legal action so LTP’s team can perhaps understand what the rule of law means. Firstly, copyright is implied and in place at the time a photograph is taken. So, you broke copyright.

Secondly, and most importantly, I made my images available for free use by bloggers and other non-commercial sites under the Creative Commons license which is clearly indicated on the Flickr pages. Under that license, commercial sites may not use the images and as LTP is trying to get money from people visiting his site I would say it is likely you could argue the official site is therefore commercial.

But if that’s a case for a court to determine in Armenia, the Creative Commons license clearly indicates that attribution must be made in agreement with me. Look at the page, see the three CC icons, click on them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24674184@N00/2094809333/

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Nobody from Levon Ter Petrossian’s team contacted me about use of my images.and so therefore not only did they break the law of the Republic of Armenia they also breached the Creative Commons license. They also stole my image of the clenched fists and used it for derivative works,

Aramazd said he’d pay for breach of copyright on the website and I agreed rather than make it into something larger. He offered me $100 and I agreed but DID NOT tell me they had already used the images for large posters and then I find out, badges. Actually, the agreement we reached didn’t include additional use and there is no agreement to that effect.

Probably I could sue and demand all other use of that image to cease. I can also sue for damages. Uzogh, I’m surprised you aren’t blogging about this or that a pro-government media outlet hasn’t picked up on this yet. But as a simple apology isn’t yet forthcoming, I suppose it’s a matter of time before they do.

You all could have just apologized and let it pass, but you still refuse to admit the mistake made and the violation of both the law and Creative Commons. Amazing. A taste of what’s to come if the LTP team come to power, perhaps? As Blogian says, regret and an apology would have sufficed, but LTP’s people continue to dig a hole for themselves.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

But the blog entry (http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2008/01/10/2008-presidential-election-in-armenia/) promoting the flickr site states that

“Please note that images may be used on other personal blogs as long as full and proper credit as well as a link is included. However, the images may not be modified or used by other sites without permission”

so anyone who is not a blog writer will have to ask for permission which was not done.

But on the flickr site itself there is no mention of this limitation. Each of the photos only has the Creative Commons copyright. The LTP site has respected the copyright rules as available for the photographs.

Onnik, in order to make sure that your rules are respected, you might want to make them public and available in the flickr profile or in the photograph description.