Dear Elyse
She couldn't even spell my freaking name right!

Firstly, I would like to say that I am deeping offended by your insinuation that my email was a personal attack on you as an American at a very sad time in your history. You must surely appreciate that there is absolutley no indication on your website as to who the owner is and because this is a very serious matter I would have still sent the email if the owner of the site was a single person or a large corporation.
I never made that insinuation only that it was not exactly great timing and it's nice to know she can't make the distinction between a single person and a larger corporation. It stil baffles me that she only mentions this Esquire photos and not the other images that I have on the site taken by Lorenzo Agius. I don't think she has even looked at my site or cares too.

I was contacted by Ewan McGregor's publicist who is concerned by the amount of people who are asking Ewan to autographs pictures that have been downloaded from your website. When the same image appears on mass for signing, the publicist knows that these pictures will usually end up being sold by unofficial sources. Unfortunately, even if you carry a disclaimer you should have been aware that people would download these images and therefore infringe copyright even further. (His publicist visited every official and unofficial website and yours is the only one that has posted these images.)
First of all, I wasn't the first site who posted these images - a few others posted them first. So whatever... and it's news to me that Ewan has a publicist. Her reason for contacting me in the first place doesn't ring true. I posted the images on September 2. And not even two weeks later I got her email and the one from Esquire. How, in that short amount of time, did masses of these photos get sent in to Ewan? And how could the publicist even know they were from my site when I don't put my site's name on any of my scans?

I understand that you have set up this site to promote Ewan and that you are not doing it for financial gain but you should be very careful when reproducing other peoples material.
Yeah, it doesn't seem she understands this or see how this could damage Lorenzo Agius' reputation as being a serious jerk. I have not heard of any other photographer who has attacked a non-profit fansite before.

In regards to obtaining copyright, I think it's quite obvious how this could be done. If you had called the publication they would have put you in touch with the photographer/agent. You say that you have obtained permission in the past, so I can't understand why you didn't in this instance. In future I suggest that you either obtain permission from the photographer or you install a download bar on your website. If people are that desperate to obtain the pictures they can either buy the magazine or contact Ewan's official website.
And it's quite obvious how the publication would not give someone like me the time of day. I have been waiting for responses for weeks now after contacting a production company and a clothing store to find out who to get permission from to post images on one of my sites. Nothing seems to be working. I don't want to post things and get in trouble but the majority of the time, they don't care about fansites like mine that make no profit and only promote the publications in the first place. There is NO official site for Ewan and people from Mexico to Chile to New Zealand do not have access to this magazine. That's why I freaking scanned them in the first place! I have serious doubts that Ewan's management are behind this... I think this is coming from Esquire. I have not heard from them yet. But I just don't care. I'm anger. I'm upset. And I'm scared about my site if Ewan's people are behind this. What's next?

As Lorenzo Agius' agent, I am his official spokesperson and responsible for protecting his work. If I had been contacted prior to the posting of these images it might have been possible to come to an arrangement but due to the nature of the discovery of these images I must insist that you remove them immediately.
It would have been possible to come to arrangement if I freaking paid probably.

If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesiate to call me on 020 XXXX XXXX.
Yeah, I'm really going to call freaking London! How could this matter be discussed any further when this person has already made up their mind and does not seem to realize how this is done for many celebrities and how images that Lorenzo Agius took of Nicole Kidman or Cameron Diaz are up on some site somewhere. Are they really going to go after every single site that does this?

Regards

Vonetta Baldwin
Yeah... regards my ass! I'm so angry. I'm trying really hard not to let this doubt myself and running the site. I don't want to give up my site. I don't want to stop running it and allow them the satisfaction. I don't believe Ewan is behind all this. I'm wondering if I should write his agent a letter about the handling of this matter... it may not do any good. And I pray this is not just the beginning.

Art Director
Esquire Magazine

Thank you for the threatening email. It was much appreciated in the wake of the tragic events on Tuesday. It really made my day as a young American woman who has been running Ewanspotting.com making no profit from it for the past 6 years. Ewanspotting.com is not run by a company but by one single individual.

I have a few questions for you before I remove the offending images that you say are copyright of Esquire. I understand and respect that both Esquire and Lorenzo Agius, whose agent also sent me a threatening email, hold the copyright to those images. No permission was given to me to post those images on my fansite as I was not sure how to go about asking for permission. Is it even possible to ask permission now? If I posted all the proper copyright information with the photos, could they remain on the site?

Over the course of running my fansite, there have been times where permission has been given to allow me to post images. The majority of the images however, on my site, along with the online community of fansites for various actors and celebrities, have been posted without asking permission as I have stated in my disclaimer. The vast majority of fansite owners do not make any profit from their sites. The goal is to promote their favorite actor or singer and in turn promoting the buying of publications that contain features on those celebrities. When visitors to my site see such beautiful images, they rush out to find the magazine. I frequently get emails of thanks because people would otherwise not know to track down issues of magazines.

Is it just my fansite that is being targeted or are other fansites of actor Ewan McGregor, that have posted these beautiful images so fans from around the world can enjoy them, also being contacted? At a time like this, for many people, viewing such gorgeous images of Ewan McGregor, is a welcome relief from the horrific events that have occured and are being beamed to us in photographs and on TV.

Does Esquire's lawyer plan to send me a formal letter of complaint or this is only coming from the art director of the magazine?

Does this threat of legal action extend to other photographs that have appeared in Esquire or is this solely regarding the Lorenzo Agius images?

While your threat of legal action has been noted, please be aware that I run this website as a hobby, to not only promote the career of Ewan McGregor but to assist fans around the world who have trouble finding magazines or information. I do not make money from this site nor do I have a large income from my job. I use my own spare money to pay for the cost of hosting the site because I enjoy helping fellow fans in need. In other words, there would be little to gain monetarily in legal action against me.

I would appreciate it if you would get back to me regarding this matter. I would like to hear your comments and any further information before I remove these images.

Thank you,
Alyse Pozzo
webmaster of ewanspotting.com

U.S. retaliation could occur at any moment, and when it does the likely targets will be sites in Afghanistan, where Western aid workers have already fled.

Afghan leaders have denied any involvement in the attacks by bin Laden, and Friday warned of revenge if the United States strikes. Moreover, clerics with the ruling Taliban on Friday urged Muslims around the world to unite against America.

From AP:
"We've all lost people, we've all lost something,'' said Richard Weiss of the Laborers International Union, which bused hundreds of hard-hatted volunteers to the site. The union, which represents 16,000 workers in New York City, also donated boxes of respirators, masks and work gear.

"We didn't do it as union members,'' Weiss said. "We did it because we are New Yorkers and human beings and because we just wanted to help.''

In New Orleans, a TV station's on-the-street fund drive for victims of the attacks picked up $300,000 in cash in less than 24 hours - and the money was still pouring in. Children came with coin-filled piggy banks, and more than $1,000 was sent from the Guste public housing development, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods...

In similar spirit, The Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis, the nation's second-largest foundation, pledged $30 million, the largest sum the endowment has ever donated to a relief effort...

Other pledges from large corporations poured in: $10 million from General Electric Co., $10 million from Microsoft, $10 million from DaimlerChrysler, $5 million from Amerada Hess Corp., $3 million from Hewlett-Packard Co., $2 million from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and $1 million from MGM Mirage Inc., the largest hotel-casino owner in Las Vegas....

Students at McKinley Thatcher elementary school in Denver wrote letters and drew pictures to send to New York students.

One 8-year-old boy wrote, "I hope this picture makes you feel better. I will make a beautiful picture for you of the mountains so you can see what Denver's mountains look like."...

Pop diva Madonna resumed her regular tour schedule Thursday in Los Angeles, asking for a moment of silence for those killed and injured and pledging the proceeds from the show to help victims' families...

In Lake Forest, Ill., Abbott Laboratories, the second-largest U.S. supplier of hospital products, sent a convoy of supply trucks to New York and Washington-area hospitals. The company also arranged to send blood donations from Illinois in refrigerated trucks...

"This is more than a donation of time, or effort,'' said Walter Schaub, a volunteer firefighter from New Jersey, who drove from Columbus, Ohio, after his plane was stranded there. Slumped on the sidewalk, sweat and exhaustion pouring from his face after a day in the rubble, he gratefully accepted a bottle of water donated from a local deli.

"This is part of a brotherhood.''