Protect Yourself on Flickr

Ladies,
We have had a rash of people stealing your photos on Flickr and making use of them! I have spotted your images being used on Etsy Shop banners, MySpace Backgrounds and uploaded to other Flickr accounts without the proper credit being given back to the artist.
We must protect ourselves!
If you're going to use Flick--here are 2 ways to help protect your photos and images.
You can block any user and you must set the proper license for your photos.

Blocking a user is a must. If someone adds you as a contact and they have no photos available to you, no profile information and they just mark your pictures as favorites--they are probably working on copying you or ripping off your images.
I had a user come through and mark 3 pages of my photos as favorites. I blocked them.

Just move your mouse over the person's icon picture and a drop down menu will appear--click on the last option "block".

A new page will open that says...


Next, set your account to post pictures with "All Rights Reserved"


This will protect your images from being saved as targets to someone's desktop.

I hope this helps!
~Sadie Lou

Christmas in July!

July 25th is coming this Friday!
I will be listing some One of a Kind ornaments as well as a few surprises! Make sure you tag your Christmas creations with the following tags:

cssteam
csst
christmas
july

That we can find your special goodies and promote one another!
Here are some inspiring photos!

Featured Seller: Little Pink Studio

Nobody packages quite like Cerri of Little Pink Studio. I am one of those consumers that is all about the packaging. An example would be my make up--I will buy anything that BeneFit puts out because of the Retro Packaging. They know who their target audience is and they design their look around it. It's just smart business.
Cerri knows what I'm talking about! Not only is Cerri a great seller of beautifully packaged supplies but she's a talented artist too!
You can visit her Flickr to see photographs of her lovely creations and you can also visit her Blog to see shop updates and posts about Cerri's life.
Cerri just launched her new baby into the World Wide Web and she did an amazing job! Here's the link!
Little Pink Studio
Enjoy!!

A Word of Wisdom Concerning Flickr

Hi Ladies!
So as many of you know, we are all blog buddies and Etsy Friends as well as we are Flickr Contacts.
I see many of you on Flickr and it's fun to stay on top of all the lovely creations you photograph and then list on Etsy.
However,
I see some of you in direct conflict with Flickr's community guidelines and Terms of Service.
I want to share this information with you to spare you the heartache of having your account removed from Flickr's website. They have a warning in the guidelines that state very plainly:

Here’s the deal: In most circumstances, we like to give second chances, so we’ll send you a warning if you step across any of the lines listed below. Subsequent violations can result in account termination without warning.

Here are the 2 violations I see most often from The Cottage Style Street Team:

• Don’t use your account to host web graphics like logos and banners.
Your account will be terminated if we find you using it to host graphic elements of web page designs, icons, smilies, buddy icons, forum avatars, badges, and other non-photographic elements on external web sites.
• Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes.
Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account. Any other commercial use of Flickr, Flickr technologies (including APIs, FlickrMail, etc), or Flickr accounts must be approved by Flickr. For more information on leveraging Flickr APIs, please see our Services page. If you have other open questions about commercial usage of Flickr, please feel free to contact us.

So if you feel you might have violated those two guidelines, then I suggest you go back through all your photographs and make the changes. Many people just link to their shops or blogs in their profiles.
I hope this has been useful info for you!
~Sadie Lou