GCU Forum - Has anyone been contacted by this person?

Kathy_131728

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #15 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 6:04pm

Thank you Cheryl for the great advice. I have to say...seeing that several were contacted makes me a little leary, but I guess we will all figure it out. That is the great thing about this community--they all seem to work together. I love that about GCU.
Denise, so sorry to hear you were an identity theft victim. That is just awful...so hard to recover from something like that. Sorry to hear you are still working on getting things all straightened out ...
Thank you and Leonide for the kind words. They are appreciated. Fortunately, I have been told (and I choose to believe this) that only my name and number were stolen. It sounds like a number of people were affected. A few things will have to be worked out, but nothing as serious as what you Denise are going through.
Take care--
Kathy

Oops...just noticed forgot to say thanks to Laurie and Lora too!

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« Last Edit: Jan 23^rd, 2010, 8:12pm by Kathy_131728 »

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Sue_132963 Gold Member artist Posts: 1224	Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person? Reply #16 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 6:07pm Yes, I too was contacted by Mike O. Sounds exciting with the Macy's and Target inducement, but I'm not getting overly excited right yet. We so often have bogus 'offers' from our work on GCU... Good luck to all! Sue
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Sue_132963

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #17 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 6:12pm

Denise and Kathy, So sorry about your identity theft issues. Been there, done that. Frightening and a pain in the butt! So frustrating. I wish we could just go back to checks and cash and leave the computer out of our finances... But alas, my wishes are way past being possible in today's world.
Hope you all get it straightened out quickly and easily.

Sue

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DENISE_132110

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #18 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 6:22pm

well they got two of our credit cards. on discover, they caught it at a very early stage and froze it. the mastercard though was not as alert. they added themselves on to our card, changed our address from tn to las vegas and there was over 11,000 dollars charged in korea. thankfully we were not responsible but here we are 2 years later and cannot open an acct anywhere with out going through the fraud dept and a bunch of red tape. you would think we were the criminals here. Angry

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Kathy_131728

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #19 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 7:29pm

Thanks Sue...yes, unfortunately along with the good of technology comes some not so good, but I guess that is life. Thanks for the well wishes.
Oh my Denise that is something...changed your address and everything wow! Yikes...I hope things go better with me. I shall be optimistic until proven otherwise.
One thing I was told and this is good for people to know is thieves often charge a small amount first to see if it works and then come in with a much larger charge, so always keep an eye on things...good thing to know I thought.
Take care--
Kathy

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Laurie_136735 GCU Newbies artist Posts: 44	Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person? Reply #20 - Jan 23^rd, 2010, 7:36pm We do a lot of ordering on the internet, and they vary a lot. Our bank calls us, even on the weekends to check a lot of the purchases to see if we really made them. We always thank them for calling. Does anyone else get calls about purchases from their bank? Laurie
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barbara_133221

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #21 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 4:36am

Hi everyone

,
I got contacted too - and am not very licensing savvy Roll Eyes

.
What does "non-exclusive licensing opportunity for two years" mean???
I want to keep the rights to my designs, especially as he singled out one of my cards that sells well here on GCU - would it mean that for 2 years I could not sell that specific design on pod-sites? Huh

Thanks for info kiss

cheers,barbara

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barbara_133221

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #22 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 4:40am

Hi all,
concerning stolen credit card identity - that never happened to me, but something else happened:
shortly after christmas i got an email from paypal, saying that a company named forgegames had deducted euro 49,90 from my account - thank god paypal saw it was not a legit thing and that i had not authorized the transfer of funds - so they cancelled the transfer and refunded me again - but it did leave me angry - how do criminals manage to find out passwords and accountinformation???? Angry

cheers, barbara

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martin_138364 Full Member artist Posts: 150	Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person? Reply #23 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 8:02am Hi Barbara, Non-exclusive licensing means that you can sell your design else where , but they can also sell it for two years. If it was an exclusive licensing they would have to pay you much more money
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Amy_137576

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #24 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 8:16am

Quote from barbara_133221 on Jan 24^th, 2010, 4:36am:

Hi everyone

,
I got contacted too - and am not very licensing savvy Roll Eyes

.
What does "non-exclusive licensing opportunity for two years" mean???
I want to keep the rights to my designs, especially as he singled out one of my cards that sells well here on GCU - would it mean that for 2 years I could not sell that specific design on pod-sites? Huh

Thanks for info kiss

cheers,barbara

I have not licensed anything, but I have read some about it and joined a Yahoo group (forum) dedicated to it - here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheArtofLicensing/. There is lots of free info on the net. Some tips I learned include: read all contracts carefully, do not give up your copyright, license design for a limited time with dates stated, understand if it is exclusive or non-exclusive use, license for specific uses and have them clearly listed in contract (e.g. giving the right to put your image on cards does not give the right to put it on garbage cans).

"Non-exclusive" means that you can continue to use your own design and/or license it to others for non-exclusive rights. "Exclusive" would mean that only the licensee can use your design for the period of the license. Non-exclusive is what you want Barbara, then you can continue to use your designs as you like.

Personally I would be skeptical if it turns out you have to pay him anything. I will be interested to read about what comes of these offers. Hope some of you will keep us posted.

Amy

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martin_138364

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #25 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 8:22am

In the off line world even with a non-exclusive licensing would come with restrictions, like not selling the image to a competing magazine within 3-6 months. I would ask how and where they are going to sell the cards (if only cards). Could look a bit doggy if they had a store on GCU with lots of other peoples cards in it Huh

, or any other POD for that matter. Also will you be credited for the image on the card, I mean on the card its self.

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martin_138364 Full Member artist Posts: 150	Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person? Reply #26 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 8:30am Personally I would be skeptical if it turns out you have to pay him anything. Amy [/quote] If he wants the licences then it is he that pays you up front.
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Judy_139270

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #27 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 9:41am

I am another one who received an email last night and am waiting to hear what the terms are.

I have a little experience of licensing my artwork. I was approached by yoodoo.com about 5 years ago when I had a website for my fine art paintings and they were just setting up shop.

It has worked out OK, though I've made very little money from it as they only pay about 5% of the selling price for exclusive rights and even less for non-exclusive (I had the choice with each individual image).

I wasn't very happy about the way my images were presented - with horrible borders with text in them! - but I only discovered that when they sent me some samples. And to be honest, I don't think my style was at all compatible with others on their website so I'm not too suprised I haven't sold many. However, apart from scanning and putting my images on a CD to send to them, I haven't had to do anything at all, no marketing, promotion or anything like that, so in a sense it was 'free money'.

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Judy_139270

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Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person?
Reply #28 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 9:42am

Quote from martin_138364 on Jan 24^th, 2010, 8:22am:

In the off line world even with a non-exclusive licensing would come with restrictions, like not selling the image to a competing magazine within 3-6 months. I would ask how and where they are going to sell the cards (if only cards). Could look a bit doggy if they had a store on GCU with lots of other peoples cards in it Huh

, or any other POD for that matter. Also will you be credited for the image on the card, I mean on the card its self.

In my email it said they were compiling boxed sets to sell in Target and Macy's.

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Linda_132742 Gold Member artist Posts: 1796	Re: Has anyone been contacted by this person? Reply #29 - Jan 24^th, 2010, 10:38am In the email I got, 3 different cards of mine were highlighted. I sent a responce stating that I might be interested and asked Mike to send me details. I was notified Saturday PM via email in regards to his interest. Haven't heard anything back from him yet. Linda
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