Mermaid M stealing famous photos for personal gain

[AniaR]

I was going to put this in the bitch section but I decided to rant about it here. It's been brought up before that Melissa has taken famous photos and photoshopped herself into them. It makes her look like she's doing things she hasn't actually done. It's purposefully misleading to clients, and it's stealing from other artists, along with their photo campaigns. She removes their watermark and puts her own watermark on them. I was ranting about this on FB so I thought I'd rant here too.

Here's some examples of what I take issue with:



The above image is featured on their FB, (https://www.facebook.com/MermaidMeli...type=3&theater ) her youtube, and until I posted my FB rant it was on their website. (I assume she's following my posts about it and took it down) it's one of the first things to pop up if you google her.

This is the original image:


The sad thing is not only is it stealing from another artist, making people think she swam with an elephant... it's taking viewers away from the actual story and cause for this elephant which can be seen here:
http://undiscoveredindiantreasures.b...-swimming.html

She claims to care about animals but doesn't mind exploiting an actual cause for personal gain. :/

Next up is this one:



very clearly photoshopped which drives me nuts. Mermaids have trained hard and worked hard to swim with whale sharks. It's not cool to just fake that. Here's the original



Yeah let's just erase the guy in the photo


Then we have this one:


Which is very clearly photoshopped upon full view, but the website has them all thumbnail. It's from the same series where this one was done, http://mermaidmelissallc.deviantart....ater-275221364 and https://scontent-b-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/...e3&oe=54E9501C

I *do* think it hurts us all in the end when mermaids fake accomplishments. It sets a distorted precedent of what's 'normal' and what professionals should be able to do. I think it harms us all in the end especially when a person gets caught in it, then it reflects on everyone. It's better to stick to what you do know, can offer, and have really done IMO

NOT TO MENTION COPYRIGHT THEFT UGH. Illegal. And intentionally misleading = false advertising.

She's not going to listen to me though, so if it bothers you the way it bothers me consider sending her an email and letting her know her fans don't like her stealing other people's photos and acting like she's done something she hasnt.

[BriannaPixieDee]

This irks me so much. The last example is obviously photoshopped. Hopefully if enough of us give her a good nudge she'll listen and admit doing this is wrong.

I take issue with this for the same reasons you do and I have had art stolen from me to be used professionally without credit. This is unprofessional on so many levels. Thanks for the post I wouldn't have known other wise.

[AniaR]

To summarize:

1) It is copyright theft


2) It takes away from the individual causes by changing the context. The elephant image has a whole series of images and a story about elephant conservation. So does the Whale shark image. To claim to be a mermaid who cares about all creatures, it’s lame to steal from a cause to make yourself look better.


3) It undermines the mermaids who have actually done these things. Mermaids train for a long time to swim with whale shark. It takes a lot of ability. And they’ve all tried to raise awareness about the whales. Then since these are faked, it makes other people wonder if the actual mermaids who did swim with the sharks are faked.


4) It causes problems for all professional mermaids by creating and unrealistic benchmark for what mermaids are capable of. Photoshopping these extreme images makes it look like something standard instead of rare. Oh no big deal, we swim with elephants.
I dont think there’s things wrong with enjoying photoshopping photos and imagining yourself doing something you’ve never gotten to do. But it’s something all together to steal the photos, put your own watermark on them, and present them to your followers like fact. It’s misleading and false advertising. Along with being criminal.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

That's so annoying. What can you do in these cases? Do you sue or ignore?

[AniaR]

The original photographers can file a DCMA takedown notice with her. She can legally be sued for copyright infringement, false advertising but really the original people have to be the ones to do it. I just think it's really lame and I feel like the community as a whole inches toward a lower standard the more people like her pull stuff like this. First it was the fake fans which is so freaking abundant.

[MermaidCora]

I was curious why I could see the photos but never any actual footage of her swimming with the elephant or whale shark... I mean, if I were to ever swim with an elephant or shark I know I would want VIDEO proof!! IDK... can't just go assuming things, but it is strange!

[deepblue]

It certainly doesn't change my opinion of her, but I wasn't a fan to begin with. Hannah does swim with whale sharks, with humpback whales, with tiger sharks and great whites, perhaps Melissa was jealous and wanted to cash in. Perhaps she sees it as a harmless fantasy-creation. It makes no difference as to why she does this, it's really dishonest and rather low. I wouldn't mind seeing her explain why she sees this as all right, only out of curiosity; how can she justify this?

I wonder how she'd feel if someone started taking all her actual photos and superimposing their head onto them. I imagine she would not see that as harmless.

[Yulia]

This doesn't really have anything to do with her stealing pictures, but I'm sick and tired of
all the googled "cute & funny animals" pictures she spams her page with.

[Mermaid Galene]

She must either have a severe lack of self-confidence or be egomaniacal, or maybe both, to engineer these deceptions and think it's okay.

[AniaR]

I know she's knows it's not okay, because back in the day when she was hating on eric she posted thread sand threads on mer.yuku calling him out on similar stuff. She even made videos calling him out. (he claimed he worked at sea world as a pearl diver for a year which is what she did) She also made videos showing how Eric photoshopped his photos. And I helped her early on in her career with people stealing her photos and taught her about watermarking.

She knows. exactly. what she's doing.

[Prairie Mermaid Jamie]

This is terrible! I never thought much of her myself, but now i just plain dont like her. She should have put some effort in and did it for real herself. Such a shame that these images are associated with her now.

[Mermaid Kassandra]

This is so sad and disappointing!





Anyway Raina all this fake stuff about her stays with her, I mean that in this way sooner or later people will think that everything she does is fake and her business will lose credibility and clients.





This is really disappointing from her...


Also because everywhere on her website she wrote at the end of the page that everything is on that website is copyrighted and no one can take her pictures or anything else without her written permission..... But now I wonder if laws are valid for us why aren't they for you?





This really hurts because I know how much efforts people make to have high standards to be as much professional as possible and respect the others job and then you see people just"taking the easier way" -I don't know if you get what I mean-





I'm really disappointed!

But what we can do to stop this?

I suppose she has a filter for her emails so that she can see only costumers messages, she'll just delete our email we need to find another way (maybe contract the original owner of the photos) because in my opinion if someone is so selfish to do something like that and all the other bad thing she did will not change her/his way of act only for some messages from our community (I don't think she cares much about our opinion otherwise she would have stop to buy fake likes and all that things when Raina found out she was doing it)

[Mermaid Cascada]

I used to be a fan and then I found myself diliking her more and more. I unsubscribed from her YouTube for numerous reasons...Some of the video titles seem like they are written by someone who defiant speak english very well or a five year old. They are so jam packed with different things like: Mermaid swims in lagoon news channel ocean... um what? Repetitive posting of basically the same video. When She and Antonio made their relationship known there were sooo many videos about that and it felt like they were using it as a publicity stunt.
Not only that, but she tags them with a billion things in an attempt to poach more views. If you were to search for a mermaid in Michigan, guess who else is gonna pop up even though they aren't a mermaid in Michigan... It really gets me. In fact their are so many tags unrelated to the topic, Im suprised she didn't tag it with fish sticks or McDonald's or something.
And her logo... her darn logo. Clever, sends a good message but I don't think she's deserving of it. Saving oceans before they become mythical... What are you doing to achieve this? I've seen a couple of things but... no. I think Mermaid Hannah is more deserving of that. And I feel like whatever Melissa has done, it's immediately or eventually used to gain more fame. She doesn't deserve the selfgiven title of best mermaid in the world, especially when you act like one of the worst.
And now this!? Basically stealing... If we were to notify the photographers, how would we go about doing it? She really shouldn't get away with this.

[AniaR]

When She and Antonio made their relationship known there were sooo many videos about that and it felt like they were using it as a publicity stunt.

Those of us who have been around long enough will remember when she faked relationship with Eric... so I have a had time believing their relationship is real. You can still find videos of her and Eric smooching and nuzzling online...

Not only that, but she tags them with a billion things in an attempt to poach more views. If you were to search for a mermaid in Michigan, guess who else is gonna pop up even though they aren't a mermaid in Michigan... It really gets me. In fact their are so many tags unrelated to the topic, Im suprised she didn't tag it with fish sticks or McDonald's or something.

^THIS. The whole reason I was alerted to her copying photos is because I was fixing the meta data on my own website and testing it, and her website kept coming up BECAUSE SHE TAGS MY COMPANY AND A BUNCH OF CANADIAN STUFF. Melissa can't LEGALLY work here, so there's no purpose to that except trying to get more website hits.

And her logo... her darn logo. Clever, sends a good message but I don't think she's deserving of it. Saving oceans before they become mythical... What are you doing to achieve this? I've seen a couple of things but... no. I think Mermaid Hannah is more deserving of that. And I feel like whatever Melissa has done, it's immediately or eventually used to gain more fame. She doesn't deserve the selfgiven title of best mermaid in the world, especially when you act like one of the worst.

I took issue with the logo from the start for those reasons. Also a lot of her claims on her website I know to be untrue. She hasn't been a mermaid as long as she claims, because in Christmas 2010 I was helping her try to get her own mermaid tail when adam martyn stole money from her. She didn't get a tail of her own until 2011 through MVD. Prior to that she'd been occasionally hired through Eric and didn't own a tail and was one of his 'models'. There's also a bunch of poorly worded claims about her tails being the only safe ones for being around kids and in the water. There have also been parts of my book duplicated in her blog and the sudden appearance of the word "merwrangler"

Honestly, I helped her with another mermaid, get started. I know a lot of stuff and I have trouble talking about it all online because if I post everything I know, it just makes it look like I've got it out for her or am picking on her. So I hold back and hope that other people will see what I already know. But for this particular issue I just had enough.

And now this!? Basically stealing... If we were to notify the photographers, how would we go about doing it? She really shouldn't get away with this.

I've tried getting ahold of the elephant guy but I can't find his specific contact, and I don't know who took the whale shark photo- the articles associated with it aren't English.

[Mermaid Kassandra]

I saw also a picture with a big pool made of glass in front of a house where she photoshopped herself inside that pool like she took a picture of her on one of her tanks and then put it on the glass of this giant glass pool.

What we can do to help you to stop all this nonsense Raina?




@mermaid cascada
As for her relationship with Antonio I don't know what to think because she said that she found out to like him when a friend in common confessed to have a crush on him and suddenly mermaid Shannon and her two tails(who worked with her also when Eric hired Melissa) disappeared from Melissa's company.
Now this makes me think that Shannon was the friend in common and what she did to her is.... Playing with her feelings, they were supposed to be friends.

But at the same time from what I've heard Antonio doesn't live with Melissa (that's strange because how she depicted their story and all the tv thing it seemed they were inseparable).
Moreover she would have told him something about all that tv interviews and what she was telling to the world about their relationship and he could agree only in two conditions in my opinion: 1 only advertisement for the company, 2 they really are in love but still want to use this for something (honestly if I love someone I would never use him to make my company look better)....

I really don't know what to think about her...

[Mermaid Cascada]

Honestly, all the stuff she's doing is adding up... I really hope she gets what's coming to her. It really frustrates me that she's about to get away with all of this... *sigh* Perhaps we should report the photos and videos to YouTube and Facebook, for copyright? I doubt she has permission to use them as seeing she doesn't give credit and the other divers are completely removed from the picture.

Edit: Another thing that I just have to get off my chest, is why did she start suddenly condemn SeaWorld and start being an advocate for seeing ocean animals in their natural habitat rather in captivity, yet she still has the videos of her being a trainer at SeaWorld and other aquariums (swimming with animals in captivity)? Is that just because it's more appealing to the public to say that? Why didn't she say it before the documentary Blackfish became popular. I may be being harsh but that feels like a publicity stunt too. If you felt that strongly about it wouldn't you take the videos down?

[Mermaid Galene]

It sounds like she's unscrupulous through and through. Yuck.

[Mermaid Kassandra]

She won't take the videos down because it's still advertisement.
Everything she's doing now seems to be only for the seek of fame and that's all, nothing related to what mermaids really do and saving the animals.
Actually that's quite sad to see how she started and how she developed... A really bad development... I'm so sorry for this! I really liked her when she started.

But yes I agree with you if she really felt it that videos wouldn't be there anymore.

[deepblue]

I shared the basic info on my page, and am glad to see the one friend I have who'd had her page liked has unliked it. Really, most people don't want to invite more low integrity into their lives.

[Mermaid Kassandra]

Raina you said that she copied full parts of your book this isn't stealing like for the pictures she photoshopped?
Can't you do anything for that?