Wal-Mart Watch: Thou Shalt Not Steal

In November 2007 I shot a number of picture in China and uploaded them to Flickr. I enjoy visiting Wal*Mart and Carrefour stores in China, they amazing places where I can rub shoulders with regular people. In a remarkable transition these huge Supercenter stores are actually located under the People’s Square of Chinese cities. On the surface are huge statues and murals of Mao and the other heavy hitters of Chinese communism, below is the fruit of consumerism and capitalism. The Chinese people vote with their feet. I posted my picture of the entrance of a Wal*Mart Supercenter under People’s Square in Guiyang, Guizhou Province here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37118157@N00/2042161021

In August 2008 Walmartwatch.com posted the article Lest Anyone Forget concerning the unionization of the Wal*Mart Supercenter in Guiyang that I had photographed. The author of the piece, Michael Mignano copied and pasted my picture into his article. There’s really no other explanation for this outright theft of clearly copyrighted material.

The Walmart Watch website exhorts the reader “write to congress”, “tell your friends”, “share your story”. You can contact lots of people but you can't contact Walmart Watch. I tried. You can leave them a comment but you have to identify what kind of supporter you are (donor, volunteer, press enquiry) from a drop down box. I demanded that they remove my picture but they've ignored me.

So, who is Walmartwatch? Their "About Us" page doesn't identify them. I had to trace them through their domain registration information: Their domain is registered to:

 

UFCW INTERNATIONAL UNION

1775 K Street, NW

Washington, DC 20006

Contact them there? Ha! From their domain registration information, here's their email address: Administrative Contact , Technical Contact : UFCW INTERNATIONAL UNION no.valid.email@worldnic.net

So let’s recap; A website that advocates fairness on the behalf of the largest retailer in the United States in an effort to unionize Wal*Mart’s employees steals one of my copyrighted pictures but they hide when I attempt to contact them to request that they remove my pictures. I requested just this on their contact page they’ve ignored me.

On the Ground in Tokyo. Again

It’s too bad that I don’t get to stay in Asia long enough to learn to not offend the sensitivity of the locals. I got off on the wrong foot right away by boarding the train to town from Narita Airport. It had just come into the station. It was the last stop and everyone on board got off so I got on. And was promptly asked to leave by the cleaning lady. It seems that the train is entirely cleaned after every run. I also can never remember to not offend cashiers in Japan. Here in Japan when one pay one is never supposed to place money into a cashier’s hand. That’s why they have a small tray, hands should never touch. I always forget this like the dumb gaijin that I am. Today I found a new way to play dumb foreigner. I had retained a 160Y subway ticket from my last trip here back in late November 2006. I had read that tickets were good for 6 months. Maybe not, when I tried to exit a station the turnstile refused to let me pass and politely told me to see an attendant. I handed in my delinquent ticket where they guys behind the desk immediately noticed how stale it was. I showed them my new Suica stored value card, it’s much like the Octopus card in Hong Kong and it’s new in Tokyo. With typical Japanese efficiency they took my Suica card, deducted 160Y and sent me on my way to get lost again. I spent much of the day hopping from subway line to train line in a futile effort not to be lost. I was trying to get from Shinjuku to Akihabara but theTokyo Metro Map looks like the floor after somebody dropped a pot of ramen. Anybody who knows me knows that I’m colorblind and even in English some of the stations and lines overlap so I never knew where I was going. My Suica card took a beating today. I think I’m just going to drain it at a 7/11 and tomorrow I’ll just buy an all day pass. But that may not work since Tokyo Metro runs maybe half the train lines, the others (JR, Toei) seem to be private or belong to some other municipal or prefectural agency. They all seem to take my Suica though. Because Blogger knows I'm in Japan it insists on giving me a Japanese interface. That’s why it took a month for this page to appear, I couldn’t find the Kanji equivalent of >Publish< on Blogger. But better late than never here are pictures from this whirlwind trip. Great views of Tokyo from the Tokyo Tower.