Hey folks. I did wrong.
Carlo - I've sent you an email, but wanted to apologize to you in public here, where I learned of your work.
I work as a programmer at Shopify, since two years ago when my previous employer was acquired by them.
As part of training, we each had to set up a test shopify store to kick the tires on. "Hey, I'll make a bass store!" I thought.
I love the look of your designs, so I took some of his photos and added them to my store, along with my favorite brand of strings, and wrote some copy about fine handmade instruments from Cataldo.
I made several thoughtless offenses:
I didn't ask permission to use your name, brand, or photos.
I didn't make it clear it was a test site, it looked real enough.
And I must have flipped the switch that made the store public.
I don't think my own name appeared anywhere, so it wasn't even clear who was responsible for this.
And then I just forgot about it all for nearly two years.
Until today when I got your (more polite than necessary) email, I presume via the site contact form, asking why your basses were on my website.
Carlo, again, I'm sorry. Your basses are beautiful. I've admired them for years. If I was a luthier and saw my work for sale on some random site I'd never heard of, I'd be very upset for sure.
I'm sorry. I should never have used your work like that.
My intentions were just to have some fun while learning how to set up the shop.
As I said by email I have already shut the site down.
Note for the bass outpost:
I want to say also that Carlo did not ask me to write this. I did so because I value this forum and Carlo's contributions to it and felt that this was the appropriate place to admit my errors in public.