“As I complete my retirement from RIM, I’m grateful for this remarkable experience, and for the opportunity to have worked with outstanding professionals who helped turn a Canadian idea into a global success,” said Jim Balsillie.

Also out are Software CTO David Yach, and Jim Rowan, COO, Global Operations.

The moves come amid continued turmoil at the company, which is aiming to transition from its current BlackBerry operating system to a new QNX-based one similar to that used on its PlayBook tablet.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said that he has identified lots of strengths in the company since taking the helm in January, but cautioned that “notwithstanding these strengths and opportunities, the business challenges we face over the next several quarters are significant.”

Even as it continues to work toward delivering phones based on the new operating system — and on server software to manage rival smartphones — RIM said it is also looking at other options, including “partnerships and joint ventures, licensing, and other ways to leverage RIM’s assets and maximize value for our stakeholders.”

The company reported sales and earnings below an already chopped forecast issued in December. Analysts had projected a brutal quarter, although Thursday’s numbers were below even their consensus figures.

Adding to the gloom, RIM said on Thursday that it “expects continued pressure on revenue and earnings throughout fiscal 2013,” and said it will no longer offer specific earnings guidance, “due to a desire to focus on long-term value creation and the current business environment.”

Canada’s Globe and Mail had reported on its Web site that high-level departures had begun earlier on Thursday.

RIM said it shipped roughly 11.1 million BlackBerry smartphones in the last quarter, down 23 percent from the prior quarter, along with 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

Today, Daryl Lang of PDNPulse, a blog from Photo District News, reported that it contacted more photographers whose pictures were used in the popular Web 2.0-mocking video by the San Francisco-based singing group, the Richter Scales.

Four of them responded that they also did not like the use of their work one bit, some objecting to the credit given, others to the non-payment and still others to not being asked for permission to use their photos.

Some objected to all three issues, all of which have to do with “fair use” under copyright law.

“I’m totally against the unauthorized use of my image,” said Ramona Rosales, whose picture of TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington was used in the video and who said she was going to ask that the photo be removed, to PDNPulse. “I was never asked permission nor have I received any compensation for its use; furthermore I don’t feel it is justified simply because they gave me credit.”

As BoomTown reported last night here, the Richter Scales posted a new version of its “Bubble” video after photographer Lane Hartwell had the first one taken down from YouTube, because they used a picture she took of Valleywag’s Owen Thomas without her permission or payment.

In Version 1.1, the singing group added a full list of credits, which were also on the video. They also replaced the Thomas picture with one of me.

(At its start, the video also uses a quote from BoomTown’s video interview with investor Peter Thiel, which you can watch in its entirety here, which BoomTown has since approved of.)

After the second one went up last night, Hartwell said she was still sending the Richter Scales an invoice for the first version of their video, which uses Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” as the tune in its parody and has been a viral hit on the Web.

I emailed Rosales for further comment, and will update this post when I hear from her.

About the new comments from other photographers quoted by PDNPulse, the Richter Scales’ Tom Shields said: “We have not heard from any other copyright owners regarding our video. If we do, we will attempt to reach resolution with them, hopefully in a civil, private conversation and not in the blogosphere. We are not trying to make a point, or looking for a fight, we’re just a bunch of hobbyists who like to entertain people.”

Ironically, Arrington–in a series of not-so-entertaining exchanges with another commenter, blogger Shelley Powers, in the Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram’s blog–felt Hartwell was wrong.

So, until this video also gets the copyright hook, here’s the new version of “Bubble”:

[Updated with Richter Scales comment.]