From: "William Robb"
Sort of a follow up on this topic which may be of interest to Canadian
subscribers.
My understanding is that the big box store from Bentonville, the one Sam
Walton started no longer honours copyrights in Canada.
The lab I am in has an anything goes policy that allows the customer to scan
and print whatever they like. All they have to do is click yes on the
copyright ownership screen and they can print whatever they like off our
machines.
I presume, though can't confirm, that this is a corporate wide policy for
the Canadian arm of the company.
William Robb
Probably pretty much the same policy as my employer has.
We - that is the corporation I work for - will not KNOWINGLY print
copyrighted material. We post an electronic notice on the kiosk
informing the customer of this fact and require the customer to "accept"
a statement that they will not print copyrighted material without the
permission of the copyright holder.
But we can't monitor everything someone puts on the scanner at the self
service kiosk.
Put yourself in the place of the poor schlub running the photolab at
Wally-world.
They're probably doing the work of 3 people just keeping the lab printer
running and fishing lost memory cards out the wrong slots in the self
service kiosks. If it's a store with the photolab right next to the
service desk, they're also having to handle customer returns and having
to go be a backup cashier when the line gets too long at checkout.
Add to that the multitude of *IDIOTS* who put in a one hour print order
for the entire several thousand jpegs they've crammed into their 256 MB
CF card and then insist on asking you every two minutes if their prints
are ready yet. And then they want to argue over whether they should have
to pay for every print because "it didn't look like that on the back of
the camera".
On top of all that, consider this ... which is the more likely scenario?
1. Some professional photographer is going to show up at your lab to
catch your customer in the act of copying his photos and sue the
corporation for copyright infringement ...
OR
2. Even though the prints the customer is trying to copy are clearly
watermarked to the point of being disfigured with "PROOF - COPYRIGHTED
IMAGE - DO NOT COPY" in 72 point type across the front ... when you tell
the customer they cannot use the scanner to make copies of that print,
they go ballistic, start screaming bloody murder, threatening you with
mayhem ...
AND YOU GET WRITTEN UP BY YOUR EMPLOYER FOR UPSETTING THE CUSTOMER!
You're between a rock and a hard place as the lab operator.
If the company gets sued, they're going to try to dump the whole
liability in your lap because you "didn't follow company policy".
But if you DO follow company policy and the customer complains you get
written up for not providing good customer service.
YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT IT AGAIN (AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN) WHEN IT COMES TIME
FOR YOUR ANNUAL REVIEW.
It'll be the reasons why your job performance rating is so low that you
won't get even a cost of living increase this year (or last year, or the
year before ... nor any year in the future as long as you work there).
It doesn't matter that your lab has 98% UP time in a district where the
average is 70%.
It doesn't matter that your lab is the only one in the district that's
not a "loss leader"; that your lab actually turns a profit.
It doesn't matter that you have the highest scores in the district on
the customer quality survey.
It doesn't matter that customers call the store to find out when YOU are
working, because they don't want to go to anyone else.
It doesn't matter they you have the ONLY lab that was able to fulfill
ALL of your customer's orders COMPLETELY during the Christmas holidays,
with NO DOWN TIME WHATSOEVER, because you planned ahead and pre-ordered
the supplies so that they were on hand BEFORE the holiday rush.
It doesn't matter that you're the go-to guy in the district when other
lab operators have questions about how to get things done, what policies
and procedures are and how to comply with them.
It doesn't matter that you've got the only lab in the district with a
printer that has all of the papers color balanced so that there's no
detectable color difference between a 4x6, 5x7 and an 8x10 print of the
same image.
No, it doesn't matter. You have bad customer relation skills because
"you made that customer angry" trying obey corporate policy regarding
copyrighted materials.
f...@k 'em.
I don't even bother any more. As long as I don't SEE the copyright, I
don't know about it. If I DO SEE the copyright, the kiosk gets
"accidentally" unplugged ...
Oops! Looks like it's broken. I don't think I can fix that ... I'll have
to call Kodak and see if they can get a service tech out here this week.
I dunno. Last time this happened it took 'em 5 days."
And, if they're stupid enough to send scans that say "Copyright 2008 -
Olan Mills Studio" to the lab printer, I'll put the copyright
infringement notice in the envelope, along with the corner of the print
showing the copyright notice and shred the rest of the prints.
The envelope goes to the manager and the manager can deal with the
customer when they come to pick up "their" prints. That's why they get
paid the big bucks.
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