Hey! That's my Photo!

So, someone else has (had) stolen my work, again…

This theme is becoming all too much of a frequent occurrence, and it’s deflating and frustrating when someone steals one of my images and posts it as their own.

It’s not only dishonest and deceitful, but potentially damaging to myself as well. The nightmare situation is that someone else sees the work, and thinks that I’ve stolen from the “thief”.

A few weeks back, I was alerted to the fact that someone had stolen one of my images, and posted it on their Flickr Photostream, without credit to me, the owner of copyright and the creator. It was taken from my Flickr Photostream, and posted under this users account, without even removing my watermark or my EXIF info! Where did they find my work, and the others they had stolen? Someone out there on the web had posted about 30 remarkable photos of Iceland, and we were all on it:

30 Amazing Photographs of Iceland

Not only was my work ripped off, but around 30 other photographers’ who had all taken images of Iceland. So who was “The Thief”…. Seemed to be an Icelandic local who obviously had no care or regard for any of us, repeatedly offending and ignoring emails and PM’s to kindly take down the work. And appaulingly, this person was trying to promote a tourist business within Iceland for tours. Not very professional in the least.

After around a week of trying to get this user to take down my photo, have him delete every comment on Flickr where I had told him and anyone who viewed the work, that he was a thief and it was my image, I finally set about contacting the other photographers from the originating blog post.

Angered I was that this guy kept using the work, deleting my comments and even going to the hassle of cropping off my signature in the final few days, I was a photographer scorned, and a force to be reckoned with. I spent all night writing a DMCA Takedown request to email off to Yahoo! Services, Flickr’s host agency. I submitted this and waited. Two days passed, no photo removal and no word from Yahoo, I was getting desperate.

I must give a massive massive credit here to the guy behind www.picturedefense.com who has fantastic resources on what to type, what content to inject and how to get companies to take notice of your formal request.

I tracked down another photographer whose work had been stolen, thanks to the power of the internet, he wasn’t hard to find. I sent him links to his work which had been ripped off, hoping that he too would launch a DMCA and get this guy in some proper trouble. Little did I know, over the course of an Australian night, the other photographer had posted the links on his site, and his thousands of fans had spammed the thief, who had then removed all images.

Around 10am the next day, I woke up to find that he had removed content, and Yahoo! Had emailed me to say that they couldn’t find the offending content on their site. I politely told them the offender had removed the offending material and that no further action was required. Turns out the power of an angry mob can get the job done, just got to find the right mob…

If anything, next time I will let natural justice take its’ course. I would have much rathered the DMCA takedown shut down the users account, rather than have him delete the offending content. I’m tired of wasting so much time keeping tabs on those who’ve stolen from me, to make sure they never do it again. After all, my image is still on their computer, and that makes me nervous.

Some had questioned my anger over pursuing this guy, stating that “since my logo was still on this work, most people would be able to figure it out”, but if someone steals from you, claims your work as their own, you don’t just sit back, you fight it, it’s your time, money, blood and tears!

In other news, well, not so new, but un-announced to this blog, here’s another great accomplishment, to get onto a list with such high company: 15 Inspirational Landscape Photographers on 500px

I’ve also recently gotten some of my Iceland works printed through InkFX Printing on Queenslands’ Gold Coast. The quality of the canvases has blown my mind, and I’m so very highly recommending any Photographers get their work printed through this lab!

So apart from all of this, what have I been up to?

Photographically, not much. My beloved D700 is very much a retiree, but I have yet to replace it with a new model. I’m still trying to get out there and get some new images.

I’ve been re-processing older shots, and still sorting through Iceland images. I’ll leave you with one of the new Iceland images:

‘The Beautiful Escape”