On Tuesday, October 10, 2006, Cryptomundo began to receive emails from Mary Green demanding that a photograph that was reprinted here from a Will Duncan posting – which supported Duncan’s pro-Carter farm position – be removed from our site. It has now been removed. Allow me to share the background and emails regarding this exchange. As can be seen in these emails, Mary Green has given her permission for these emails to be posted fully so you all can see what an evil person I am. Intriguingly, her call for the photograph to be taken down has ended up censoring the “evidence” of her own claims.

The backstory begins with an email Green sent along to the Editor on this site, reminding Cryptomundo that her book “has an ISBN number,” and stating that “legally, you cannot use a photograph…without our permission.”

Green also noted: “It’s bad enough you allow such trash to be written about us which are slanderous and will be dealt with eventually, without your allowing others or yourself to post a photograph from this book. You are NOT using this for educational purposes either!”

Trying to take a reasonable tone, I wrote, in reply:

Loren Coleman:

The Cryptomundo site’s use of the stated photograph for the critique of the material cited falls under the fair use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law.

In allowing for fair use of copyrighted material–for reporting news, conducting research, and teaching–without need to obtain the copyright holder’s permission, the U.S. Copyright Law says that fair use is determined in a particular case by considering (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I pointed out to Green that hers was not a “valid argument against the review, critiquing, and consideration of the minor material that was posted allegedly from it.”

I let Green know that if I removed the photo, I would allow my readers at Cryptomundo an insight into why this was happening, of course. I mentioned that: “As it is now, our discussion encourages both sides of the debate and leads to potential sales of your book.”

Green’s reply, giving her response and side of history, was as follows, here given without any edits:

Mary Green:

You go right ahead and spew forth more lies. There are many. I do have a right to ask you to remove this photograph, and you are not falling under any category of the copyright laws, and in fact, you are threatening me if I continue to ask you to remove it. I am simply asking you to remove a copyrighted photograph from your site which is simply nothing more than a blog type situation. It doesn’t attract anyone but those who wish to gossip. It also doesn’t say anything for your character either. Refusal to remove a copyright photograph shows your stubbornness and ill will, as usual, toward any respectful communication between Janice Carter and myself.

Janice was never approached by your brother, Jerry Coleman, yet he says she refused to comply with an interview. In fact, he drove up and talked with her one day in September, not knowing who she was, and talked to the gentleman who was with Janice and when she approached, Janice asked if she could be of some help to your brother, Jerry Coleman, and Bob Coppen, and Gerry Bacon. They said NO. One of the men shook her hand, and they simply drove off, refusing to speak with her.

So post this is you feel is necessary, but I will not be threatened when you are the wrong doer. Just because you don’t believe in our work, doesn’t mean you can break a copyright law by using a fair use act on a blog web site gossip fest, and also make statements about us, such as Cartergate, Follow the money. We are not of the type that wants to sell books just for the sake of selling them.

This may be your motive, using negative and false and misleading statements in order to sell your type of books which are simply words taken from others about their sightings, and not of your own personal experience, and publishing the same thing over and over again.

If that’s the way you choose to do business, fine, but it’s not a very honest way of making a living. That is my opinion of the matter only. If you can make money like that, go for it. I don’t care. I made a simple request to have you remove a copyright photograph, and if you do not wish to honor it, then post this if you like.

I’m sure if I had a photograph posted on my web site without you permission from one of your books, you would raise holy war against me, which you do any way and have since the first time I made my first post on the old IVBC group. You insisted back then that I could not have seen a bigfoot in Tennessee, simply because you thought there were none here.

Please, and I’m asking you kindly, remove a family photograph, which does support our case for how woodsy the farm was back then, as most people look at this case from NOW, and not as it was in 1944-45 and on up to the time Janice left the farm after her grandfather died and her grandmother had to go into a nursing home.

It doesn’t matter about what your idea is on why you think this photograph should be there. I’ve asked for a courtesy for you to remove the photograph because it is not your photograph to use without asking permission to use it from a copyright and registered work. Just because you found it used on the cryptozoology.com forum board, does not make it right for you to reuse it without asking permission.

Don’t tell me it’s not my right to politely request you to do so, because I know it is. I don’t wish to cause problems, but I do not think it serves you any purpose to have it there in the first place. A link to it from your blog to the crypto forum is in better order because you did not ask permission to use it. You knew it was a copyrighted photograph before you took it upon yourself to personally use it without permission. We were not extended any common courtesy for use of said photograph. I have always asked for permission to use someone else’s photographs and writings and I expect the same courtesy to be paid back to me, no matter what your opinion of me is.

I don’t frighten, nor do I scare easily when someone threatens me as you have done in this e-mail. It would leave me with no recourse but to post publicly about your refusal to be kind hearted and honest and remove it when asked politely to do so.

I also know you will edit this and post just what you want this to say, but if so, I will post it all in its entirety before you edited it as many have found that you do in your yahoo e-mail groups, blogs, etc. You may try to make me into some type of horrible person for asking you to remove a photograph belonging to a copyrighted book and its authors. It is just whatever you wish to do, Mr. Coleman. I suppose all of the books I have purchased of yours and support I’ve given you by sending others to you to buy your books was a part of my so called hostility now simply because I asked you to remove a photograph that does not belong to you.

I think Mary Green’s unedited email speaks for itself. I then shared with her my reply, based on information just sent to me by my brother:

Loren Coleman:

According to a new development, Mr. Will Duncan says this photograph is not from your book. Since the photograph was never taken from your book but via Mr. Duncan’s posting, and it is now being said to not be from your book,
this entire communication appears to be unnecessary.

Green replied, not addressing my email points at all but, once again, sharing her tantrum with me via:

Mary Green:

YOU have a copy of my book. There’s no excuse for you not to look in my book and see it is there. Your tone is the one that is dismaying. The number on the photograph are also those in my book. We published that photograph in the book and NOTHING has been changed since then. I suppose your time is so precious to you and not to me. What a waste of a human being you are. This goes along with the untruths from you in the past. Needless to say I will make a point of this in public forums. I am also sending this e-mail to Mr. Duncan. He knows full well this is a photograph 50 Years.

Green need not have threatened me about editing her words, as she does several times in these emails. Her comments, even the ones containing incorrect or biased data, are fully here for all to read.

People can judge what they wish about this interaction. Needless to say, while I was the messenger regarding Jerry Coleman’s investigation, and opening this to both sides of the discussion of the debate – as did occur in the comments section here – it is obvious Green likes to make things personal.

This all is unfortunate, but shows much about the personality of Mary Green, who wants us all to believe she has some truths to tell us about her Bigfoot in Tennessee. If she is so afraid of a published photograph here that supports her position and the discussion it stimulates, what else is being hidden?

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