Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
This picture of a wheelchair tire was taken by me in 1999 using a really terrible digital camera and I took the picture holding the tire in one hand and the camera in the other. The picture was taken in my back yard just a couple of months after I got in the airless tire market by starting a website. After I took the picture, I painstakingly cropped out the back ground and uploaded the picture and named the tire "the Shasta Wheelchair Tire". And to this day, we sell maybe one or two a month. Not exactly a big seller because it is an OEM type product. The shape of the tire is actually good for ease of movement and this tire is found on less expensive wheelchairs.
What makes this so interesting is that so many people use the Air Free website images and illustrations to sell product and all these "pirated" images are done so with out our permission. If the webmasters of these websites would at least acknowledge where they got the pictures then the website visitors wouldn't be confused.
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Normally manufacturers take their own pictures and allow distributors to use the images to sell. Air Free took its' own pictures and supposed manufacturers in the US and Asia use Air Free images, confusing people because the manufacturer to distributor informational chain is broken. Air Free took its' own pictures of almost everything it sells using its' own camera and studio. Manufacturers, distributors and retailers who sell airless tires are using Air Free images and illustrations to further their own profit motives and the Air Free brand is diluted. Manufacturers are supposed to have their own pictures to share with distributors like Air Free, not the other way around. If a company like Air Free wants to take its own pictures and or use manufacturer supplied ones, then a company like Air Free is entitled to use either. The manufacturers of Airless Tires however, are not allowed to use the images off of a distributors website unless there is an agreement, and certainly not if no acknowledgment is made as to where the images or illustrations came from.
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For example: it should be clear to a website visitor that images on a retailers website may either be supplied by a manufacturer or by the retailer. Simply going to the manufacturers website will assure the website visitor that either the supplied images are being used or if the retailer wanted to, supply their own. This way the customer knows that the retailer if they took their own pictures has possession or knowledge of the product and if the retailer has manufacturer supplied images, then the assurance is that the retailer has the manufactures permission
There are a lot of Air Free images on a lot of websites. For that we should be congratulated. It is not often that a small company like Air Free with practically no resources has what the leaders in the industry do not have, and that is pictures of their own product.
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To the Asian companies that use our images, "Hey we'd love to do business, but can't you take your own pictures?". And what makes this so bizarrely comical, is that some of the offending websites are "watermarking" our images as if to claim ownership of them. To the American companies that use our images, "Hey we'd love to do business, but can't you take your own pictures and quit confusing people?".
Until manufacturers and "rouge" websites take their own pictures or use manufacturer supplied ones, Air Free Tires will continue to make the assertion that because we get copied so frequently and so blatantly, "Air Free is the Undisputed King of the Internet"
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