Comments on: When the media steals your photos

By: Arun

Arun — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:13:39 +0000

All said and done, the photos themselves seem like a gross violation of the rights of the people in the pictures. I wonder how any of them feels about having their pictures posted all over the net. I come from a research background and I am into photography myself. So I very well understand the issues with plagiarism in general. I think as photographers and human beings we should spare a thought towards the rights and dignity of others.

By: Denver Photographer

Denver Photographer — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:21:28 +0000

It’s amazing that all they are offering him is 125 pounds. That’s a slap in the face.

By: Thomas Semesky

Thomas Semesky — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:15:46 +0000

A good post with some interesting tips.
Thanks

By: Prashanth K S

Prashanth K S — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:23:17 +0000

Been there, not done that. I had a similar incident happen to me thanks to a speciality photography equipment chain in India called Pixetra. There is an yearly event called Bird Race and during one such race I had photographed a Pipit in a field. Of course I had blogged about this and put it online in one of my photo albums.

However, I was browsing through Pixetra’s website one day and I happened to notice a photo that looked remarkably similar to one that I had taken. I did a lot of comparisions with my photo and it turned out to be exactly the same including a hardly visible streak of an OOF blade of grass in front of the bird.

I promptly wrote to them about this. I didnt want any compensation, but I would like to be credited for my photos that they publish on their site. Nothing happened. In another few months the site underwent a redesign and the image was taken off.

Such is the case in India. Nothing in the judicial system will protect the rights of individuals. Had I gone to court, I would have perhaps still been running around trying to get the case closed.

Regards.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:57:11 +0000

Add “Times Of India” and a bunch of other Indian newspapers who publish photos without any regards to the copyright. Stealing is so common in the newspaper industry here.

By: eni

eni — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:23:51 +0000

thank you for this!

By: Mei Teng

Mei Teng — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:00:32 +0000

Good post and thanks for the advice and tips.

By: Aman

Aman — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:00:25 +0000

People also steal my content from my website and claim as their own!! Such a bunch of losers!

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:27:37 +0000

http://tineye.com/ is the website MattPreston is thinking of. I’ve already discovered some of my own pics being used elsewhere.

By: Aleksandra Szablowska

Aleksandra Szablowska — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:30:06 +0000

Very helpful indeed, thank you for this article.

By: Maciej Dakowicz

Maciej Dakowicz — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:29:05 +0000

The case has been resolved. The Telegraph apologized for this incident and offered me a fair compensation. The whole situation has been handled by them properly and professionally. I am glad it has been resolved quickly.

By: vicky slater

vicky slater — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:52:07 +0000

my daughter had one of her images copied by an artist (paints) and used as an album cover.
we found out after friends saw it on amazon.
after advice and a flurry of emails we settled on £350 for this one off usage.
they could have had it for £50 if they’d thought to check ownership and ask permission.
and yes i kept calm outwardly but it was pretty blood boiling at the time.

By: Matt Preston

Matt Preston — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:23:48 +0000

Interesting article. I think in this digital age copyright infringement is a fact of life to some degree. It’s good to know there are things you can do about it pretty easily that are effective.

I believe there’s a new search engine that can compare an image to millions it has trawled the internet and seen. It’s main objective is to find copies of your image on other websites. A nice idea but how practical this could be in tracking copyright infringment? Who knows.

By: one way photo / Mark

one way photo / Mark — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:49:17 +0000

Very interesting article… I guess he was lucky in a way that it was the Telegraph that stole his photos and not a less scrupulous newspaper. At least they tried to make amends when they realised the mistake.

By: Darron Mark

Darron Mark — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:32:30 +0000

Been reading up on this… The best way (and the free way) is to drop a phrase into your IPTC file info, that way when you do a trawl through the web you’ll be able to find it.

By: Naveen Roy

Naveen Roy — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:01:51 +0000

No software, just some luck and some ego – hehe, name searching on Google to see how popular my images are!

By: Darron Mark

Darron Mark — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:59:23 +0000

To Naveen Roy, what software were you using to track down your photos? Is it expensive?

By: Naveen Roy

Naveen Roy — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:32:12 +0000

Wow, that was fast! You have already located what image was used without permission. Thanks for stopping by my photo stream. Let me know if I can do something…..

By: Naveen Roy

Naveen Roy — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:09:09 +0000

Thanks for the article man! I have recently seen 2 news sites use my image for articles without my permission. They had just mentioned my name below the images. One in Australia, one in the US. Both prominent media conglomerates. Sent them mails, they took it down. They had already used my image for more than a month. The Aussie one offered a paltry $25 – AUD! And even asked that if I agreed, it gave them rights to use it on their site! I said that I thought my image was worth more than that and closed that topic then and there. The other came back with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and said that since they are a news site, they can use images like mine! What can I do?

flickr.com/naveenroy

By: DMFoto

DMFoto — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:53:14 +0000

You won’t believe this, but I spent about an hour today trying to find out what the term was (NTD), so that I could send one to a former client. I wanted to revoke any rights to my images as they’d used them in a new format of website without referring to me as the original author as was our original agreement.

I basically saw red mist, and emailed them asking to remove all the images used on the site (they were all mine) within 24 hours or I would seek legal advice. Got an apologetic email back, saying that if they listed me on the images as the author would that be okay… I had to concede that this was better than nothing I suppose. But I’ve saved this post for future use… Thanks

Great blog by the way…!

By: Declan

Declan — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:15:33 +0000

The problem of newspapers printing photos without credit is unfortunately common in Ireland.

Offering their “usual fee” for photos after they are caught was standard and it seems to have created a culture of “take a chance, use the photo and if we are caught 50% of the time we will still have saved 50% of our photo budget with the ones we didnt get caught for”.

Often the photographer backs down and takes the standard fee in the belief that they dont want to burn their bridges with potential customers.

By: Jacqueline

Jacqueline — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:18:40 +0000

Same thing happened to me with a local newspaper. They took a photo of mine off Flickr and used it on the FRONT PAGE of their Entertainment Section – almost full page! I called my lawyer, gave her the details (and a copy of the newspaper) and she is dealing with it. They haven’t offered anything yet, but we will follow through if only to let everyone know that you can’t just take pics off the Internet and use them!

By: Haje Jan Kamps

Haje Jan Kamps — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:30:32 +0000

Hey Daf – wicked photos on your website!

To your question; It’s the publisher’s responsibility to ‘clear the rights’ (as it’s known in the industry) to any images they use, so send the bill to the magazine. It’s then the magazine’s problem to sue / otherwise re-claim any money they pay you from whoever supplied the image to them.

If this happened to you, get some legal advice – In the UK the citizen’s advice bureau can offer some help and are free!

- Haje

By: Daf

Daf — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:27:47 +0000

Oh have a question relating to this + maybe sending a bill.

If a Magazine publishes images of yours without permission – but it transpires that they were supplied to them from a 3rd party – who should you send the bill too – Magazine or the 3rd party?
I guess Magazine but thought I’d ask.

By: Daf

Daf — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:11:54 +0000

Top stuff – a subject that I often see on forums.
Especially like “First off, calm down”. He he. yes I’ve been guilty of storming in once or twice.