In which the Whingers support 100% the Royal Opera House clamping down on copyright infringement

We would like to make it clear how important it is not to use a Royal Opera House copyrighted picture such as this one…

… without permission. They quite rightly get very upset.

We feel it our duty to point out that this kind of flagrant abuse of copyright is tantamount to theft. The images are the copyright of the ROH and they alone are entitled to determine if and how they are used. These images are for the sole purpose of sending out to the press willy nilly in the hope of some free publicity.

So if you are thinking of putting an image like this…

… on your website, please think again as you are doing untold financial damage to the Royal Opera House which this year has to struggle along with only £28,294,806 of public money from the Arts Council of England.

As a respected opera blogger like intermezzo you may think the publicity you generate and the business you send in the direction of the Royal Opera House is of more value to them than the filching of a couple of pictures to illustrate your posts about their productions but Mr George Avory, Head of Legal & Business Affairs at the Royal Opera House will put you straight on that.

He has quite rightly sent threatening emails to Intermezzo pointing out her evil, wanton criminality and making threats to ensure that the ROH gets its pound of flesh: “Within the next twenty four hours from the date/time of this email, the Royal Opera House will inform your website hosting company of this situation and will consider appropriate action to protect our valuable copyright”.

To be honest, we think that hanging would be too good for intermezzo. Broken Britain we say.

In fact, close the whole Internet down, especially Twitter which is a-buzz with the story. Tear it all down now and stamp out this stupid Streisand Effect.

Please show your support for the Royal Opera House at this difficult time by contacting them. Or you email Mr Avory at george.avory@roh.org.uk

Blowings off: twittering away in Edinburgh

Well, of course, as usual, the West End Whingers were way ahead of the rest of the pack on this having followed the second act of Gone With The Wind via Twitter from the comfort of a nearby hostelry rather than actually from the auditorium.

But, even so, we are thrilled to see that Lyn Gardner has picked up the Web 2.0 micro-blogging baton and is twittering her way through the Edinburgh Fringe so that we don’t actually have to go. Very thoughtful. But unnecessary as we weren’t going to go anyway.

Sadly she doesn’t seem to be doing it quite right – no blow-by-blow commentary from the actual performances, but it’s early days.

Anyway, we mustn’t be too harsh. Good to know that the critics are embracing the beastly internet thing.

You can follow Lyn on Twitter here.