North side of Dorchester Road between Rugby and Marlborough Roads, Ditmas Park West (not “Ditmas Park”)

In their Neighborhood Watch feature today, LifeStyler – “offering tips to young adults in order to promote financial responsibility and fiscally responsible lifestyle choices” – interviews neighbors Ben and Liena of the Ditmas Park Blog:

We turn our attentions to Ditmas Park, one of the three Flatbush historic districts that feature beautiful Victorian houses and a low-key, family-friendly vibe. We spoke with Ben and Liena of Ditmas Park Blog for their takes on one of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets, and how it is also in a state of change.
– Neighborhood Watch: Ditmas Park, Jeffrey L. Wilson, LifeStyler, 2008-10-22

Are we really such a secret, anymore? Victorian Flatbush was featured in This Old House, for the gods’ sakes, over the summer as the best place in the U.S. to buy an old house in an urban area.

Since they make a point about “historic districts” – which, in NYC, means landmarked and protected by law – I have no qualms about being a stickler for geography. Presumably, the three historic districts they refer to are:

• Ditmas Park
• Prospect Park South
• Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park, which is one district comprising two adjacent neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, LifeStyler chose to illustrate the interview with photos mostly from Ditmas Park West, which is lovely, but not landmarked, and is not part of Ditmas Park. They lifted all the photos from Flickr. They used three of my photos in violation of all three terms of my Creative Commons license:

• non-commercial use (they have ads on their site)
• non-derivative (they cropped the photos to fit their page layout)
• attributed (they only provide my handle on two of the photos, and only one of them is linked to my Flickr site or blog)

Only one of my three photos is from Ditmas Park: a photo of a vegetable stand on Newkirk Avenue.

Kim’s Market, 1521 Newkirk Avenue, Ditmas Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn

I have no time to investigate, but I suspect the other photographers licenses were violated as well. For the record, they are:

• Flickr: aimelaine
• Annie Bowerman (Flickr: anniebee)
• Clyde Adams III (Flickr: clydesan)
• Dave Cook, Eating in Translation
• Mike Sheehan (Flickr: finstr)
• Flickr: red penny

I’m not providing any links to LifeStyler’s Web site. Why should I? They didn’t link to any of their folks whose creative content they ripped off.