[johnmflores]

I've had one photo in particular stolen so many times that I decided to write a story about it....

The Story of a Photo (AKA Google ≠ Free) | johnmflores

[6BQ5]

Wow! This brings a new meaning to the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. You made an awesome photograph and the first thing people do with it is steal it. Sorry to hear it.

My employer (not photo related) fights this everyday. Once you release something to the internet you lose all control over it. Legal protections mean nothing when information is being spread and smeared all over the place. The damage is already done.

[alamo5000]

I have to admit that I have used and shared many photos on my facebook but almost always I give credit to the photographer. The only exceptions being when I cannot find or identify who that person is. And in that case I put up the disclaimer 'photographer unknown'.

Then again many of the people on my facebook are avid photographers themselves so my sharing more like consists of 'wow, look at this guy's (or girl's) work!' Several of my friends are in the fine art community so we all share and like each others stuff.

One guy who I chat with every now and again is a French photographer who I met online. When he first started he had 200 or so people on his facebook... now he has the max... 5000. I won't take all the credit but I know he's gained at least several hundred if not more followers through my sharing of his pictures.

In my mind there is a difference between pimpin' and stealing

[DeadJohn]

Sorry about your photo being used without permission. Do you think it's made its way into any stock photography collections? If yes, that makes it even worse because some companies might be paying the wrong person.

[Doundounba]

Wow, amazing story, though not exactly in a great sense, of course.

I've experienced this on maybe at most 1/20th of the scale you're describing, and it's still irking. And I agree with you that it's doubly irking when it's a commercial, for-profit entity that just out and out steals your work... Sometimes it's not even obvious who to contact. As, for example, when the World Meteorological Organization - a UN organization no less - steals one of your snowflake macros in a twitter post! And since they are a non-profit, all that was needed was to give credit appropriately, as required by the Creative Commons license that the shot is published under! And for some reason - perhaps because a lot of people follow the WMO - this photo has also now been stolen by both commercial and other non-profit entities. I've managed to get some of them to remove it and/or give credit, but here's a commercial online vegan fashion magazine using/stealing the same shot. (In this case they're nicely linking to my Flickr page. But I'd opine that this is a commercial use, so not permitted by the license. They didn't contact me.) Am I going to run after everyone and anyone that does this? I don't know...

Here's the original from my Flickr stream, BTW...

[chemtech]

I read your post with interest and horror. it really highlighted the risks involved in this age of social media that so many of us use everyday. I am so sorry your work was stolen and abused in this manner.

[aurele]

I've had one photo in particular stolen so many times that I decided to write a story about it....

The Story of a Photo (AKA Google ≠ Free) | johnmflores

That's just sad ... That is the kind of things that really pisses me off.

[stevebrot]

I have only had to make one take-down request (tumblr), but I know several people who have had their work flagrantly pirated including one who saw her photo as an inspirational poster on facebook!


Steve

[panoguy]

John, do you use Tin-eye?

[mholford]

I've had one photo in particular stolen so many times that I decided to write a story about it....

The Story of a Photo (AKA Google ≠ Free) | johnmflores

Wow!

I thought it cheesy when someone stole my website design and copied it, but that definitely takes the cake. (The whole website content including the bits giving the history of the owners (me) and applied it to their own business....)

Great photo by the way (but you already knew that). But it really is making me think about how much I put on social media.

[magkelly]

This is why I seldom put the images that I intend to sell on the internet on forums or on social media sites. When I do I usually use watermarks. No, they're not full proof and yes they're ugly, but it's about all I can do. I've had two photos of mine used sans permission commercially and I've had one stolen and claimed as someone else's work. He just slapped a filter or two on it and made a post card art thing out of it, but it was mine, a photo of MY cat no less. The two commercial instances were recent and I sent them take down notices. They complied. What gets me is that they got them from my photo storage site apparently because that's the only place they could have gotten them from. I've got that folder set to private but apparently that did me little good.

[AggieDad]

I understand your pain. However, as someone once said, "If you are getting it for free, you are not the consumer, you are the product."

[promacjoe]

I understand what you're going through. I've had some of my work stolen. But it was not used as advertisement, They were actually printing it and selling it as their own art. They even took the time to removed the copyright information from it.
There is only a couple of things you can do to prevent it.

1: don't post to the Internet. But if you sell your work, that does not stop someone else from posting it to the Internet. It also does not put your work out therefor others to see and maybe give you some business.

2: don't post large images on the Internet. Post just large enough so they can get the gist of the picture, but not large enough for it to be used in advertising.

3: make up a small Discrete logo that you can put on your image. Something that may not be noticeable unless you are looking for it. a watermark can easily be removed in Photoshop. But a discrete logo that they may not see is much more difficult to remove. this may not stop them from stealing your work, but it will give you a good identification mark so that you can prove that it is your work in court. also make sure you document it in every way you can.

If you post your work to the Internet, even if it's on a private secure location, there's really nothing you can do to prevent someone from stealing your work, I've heard stories of companies getting paid to allow other companies to copy private documents on cloud servers. In fact some companies will tell you if you posted on their server/website they have the right to use whatever they want for what ever they want. In some cases It's really one-sided. that is why I only post selected, low-grade photos here. or anywhere else on the Internet,

it's easy to let a wildcat out of the bag, but it's much more difficult to put a wildcat back in the bag.

I hope you don't have any more problems with this, but I would not bet on it.

[Rondec]

It is a sad state of affairs.

There are a lot of folks out there who somehow believe that everything on the internet should be free (for them anyway). Movies, music, and photos. All of this ignores the fact that someone took their time and skill to create the content. Great photos, like yours, John, don't just happen. They are the result of preparation (carrying your camera with you), knowledge, and a good eye. The fact that you post it to Flickr shouldn't make you lose your rights to control what happens to your photo.

I don't particularly have any photos worth stealing, but at the least, it seems reasonable that folks should ask for permission before using a photo -- even for a not for profit group.

[clackers]

I was part of a workshop with one of Australia's premier sports photographers, and he has to pay an annual retainer for a global firm that uses image matching technology to find unauthorized use of his images.

He's most disgusted by very big companies doing it who should know better - usually some employee under deadline pressure who hopes if he reproduces without royalty a picture it won't be noticed.