swisskiltbear's photostream  

Note: If you share nothing, don't add me as a contact or friend. Flickr is for sharing, not leeching! If you add me as a friend, but share no photos of your own, I will NOT add you.

Just an average gay male (Waaaaay over 18!) in a wonderful very open relationship, bearish, inked, love kilts, live in Berne, Switzerland.



A note to those who would like to blog or otherwise use my photos:

Most of my photos used to carry a Creative commons License to allow blogging and other fair, non-commercial use, unfortunately, I had to change that and all of my images are now "All Rights Reserved" again and may NOT be used without my PRIOR explicit permission! (Explanation for this follows below.)

Despite this, please do feel free to ask for permission to blog my photos or use them on another website. As long as you are not making commercial use of any of my work or use it in any racist, gay-bashing or otherwise discriminatory or derogatory context, I will be more than happy to allow you to use my work.

Why did I take my work out of the CC?

Most of my photos used to have a Creative Commons License, but I am sad to say that I felt forced to go back to "All Rights Reserved" due to the way some of my photos were used.
A german language, ultra-right wing pseudo-religious hate site, a bit like the religious version of the Klu Klux Klan or the Nazis, was using a few of my photos from the Amsterdam Gay Pride Canal Parade (Gay Pride Amsterdam 2003) as illustrations for the very derogatory hate articles against the GLBT community. To add insult to injury, they even properly attributed the photos to "Flickr user swisskiltbear". Fortunately for me, that very set they were using photos from was never in the Creative Commons, while other Gay Pride sets were. As it turns out the owners of that site just thought that all of my photos must have been in the Commons, so I sent them a DMCA takedown notice, with which they partially complied by taking one photo down and leaving the other one up. I am still fiercely trying to get the other photo off their site and any reference to me.

The website in question bills itself as the one of the largest catholic german language news site. I will not post a clickable link but they are @ www[dot]kreuz[dot]net

If the were located anywhere in Western Europe, they would have been shut down long ago, as a lot of their content violates a number of laws. They are gay bashing in the worst possible way, denying the holocaust, using NAZI insignia on the website and often openly simpathize with NAZIS. They also otherwise discriminate against pretty much anyone who does not fully agree with their narrow, twisted little minds.

Most editors and posters on the site would face criminal charges for felony racism, felony holocaust denial and other assorted hate crimes her in Switzerland and also in Germany.

The only way they can continue to spew venom and preach their brand of bitter hate is to hide behind a non existent Association in the US, which apparently doesn't even exist,as according to the US Postal Service, the address "could not be verified".

More than ever, I now firmly believe that there is a serious problem with the First Amendment of the US Constitution. These days it mainly seems to provide a safe haven for racists, Nazis and other Extremist groups that can freely spread their hate, Insults and open calls for violence which would have them shut down and land them in jail anywhere else, all under the protection of the US constitution.