Texas Music Partners started a blog called TechArts Tuesday, at the end of 2017, to give the public insight as to what STEAM is and how it is being used around the globe, as well as how people are using music and technology. We scoured the web for interesting articles and posted a short description of the article with a link and a picture to let people know what was happening. We did this for free, as an educational service, and to help others understand TMP’s mission.
Now it seems there’s a new bully online by the name of PicRights. PicRights is a “license compliance service” to third-party content clients in North America and Europe. Actually, they created a bot that can search thousands of websites for pictures they deem to have a right to, in the name of their “clients”, whether there is a legitimate reason for the post or not. Some unwitting suspect even received a notification from PicRights about a photo that the suspect actually created and owned.
Well, now they are claiming that some of the TechArts Tuesday posts on our website are non-compliant and are demanding a fee for use without submitting proof that they have the right to charge us anything at all.
This is a predatory practice and while still legal, it is very slimy and they are not at all transparent. This is a company that automates everything and relies on volume to make money. If you reply, you are talking to a bot, not a person.
Consequently, Texas Music Partners had to delete all TechArts Tuesday articles to avoid further harassment, which is unfortunate because our intentions were good and we were promoting the articles in good faith. Leave it to the greedy to mess that up.
We apologize for removing the articles from our website and are looking at new ways to give you interesting information from the STEAM community concerning music and technology.
Thank you PicRights for ruining a good thing.
Here is an article about PicRights, from a law firm
BTW, the emoji is free, with attribution
Mad icons created by Justicon – Flaticon
