More photo theft!

xshayx

In June I found my photograph of the Dublin Convention Centre being used on www.northstarhotel.ie without my permission. Numerous emails, letters and phone calls from me to NSH went ignored.

December 2nd - Final letter was sent threatening legal action if invoice for use of my photograph was not paid.
December 6th - Photo has been removed, no contact from NSH.
December 16th - Still ZERO contact from anyone at North Star Hotel.

I wish I had the time, energy and money to take this further, but I don't.

I find it more disgraceful that they didn't have the decency to reply to any of my contact with them, than the actual use of the photo.

Kenny Logins

It was removed and they're now ignoring you. I can't see where you want this to go..

daveyid89

Where did they get your photo? Was it copyrighted? Are you a pro - photographer?

xshayx

Kenny Logins wrote: »

It was removed and they're now ignoring you. I can't see where you want this to go..

I'm pissed off that my photo was stolen and I've been ignored for 6 months, nothing wrong with a bit of discussion about these things and letting photographers know what companies are doing this. They could replace my photo with another photographers photo. If we all kept are mouths shut about what companies are doing this sort of thing, it will just happen more and more...

daveyid89 wrote: »

Where did they get your photo? Was it copyrighted? Are you a pro - photographer?

They got it off Flickr, where it is copyrighted, (once you take a photo it is copyrighted as far as I know) and is available for purchase through gettyimages with the link on the flickr page. I don't know if I'm a pro, but I do have photos for license through a number of websites.

sineadw

Photos are copyrighted, full stop, unless you specifically release them, it doesn't matter where they got it or your status as professional or otherwise. It's theft.

daveyid89 wrote: »

Where did they get your photo? Was it copyrighted? Are you a pro - photographer?

PCPhoto

xshayx wrote: »

I'm pissed off that my photo was stolen and I've been ignored for 6 months, nothing wrong with a bit of discussion about these things and letting photographers know what companies are doing this. They could replace my photo with another photographers photo. If we all kept are mouths shut about what companies are doing this sort of thing, it will just happen more and more...


They got it off Flickr, where it is copyrighted, (once you take a photo it is copyrighted as far as I know) and is available for purchase through gettyimages with the link on the flickr page. I don't know if I'm a pro, but I do have photos for license through a number of websites.

if it was available to purchase through flickr (via Getty) I would have set Getty on them instead of contacting them.... they are much more agressive and get their money (and might have even shared a bit of it with you)

DaireQuinlan

PCPhoto wrote: »

if it was available to purchase through flickr (via Getty) I would have set Getty on them instead of contacting them.... they are much more agressive and get their money (and might have even shared a bit of it with you)

There's a difference to 'being available to purchase (or license) through Getty' which you can just enable on your flickr stream, and actually having assigned exclusive rights over to Getty which means they make it available through one of their licensing schemes through their collections. In the first case it's just an option that people can click which then subsequently involves Getty.

xshayx

Totally should have passed it off to Getty, where its available for license (rather than a request to license via flickr)

smash

PCPhoto wrote: »

if it was available to purchase through flickr (via Getty) I would have set Getty on them instead of contacting them.... they are much more agressive and get their money (and might have even shared a bit of it with you)

No they don't. If a photo is removed then they stop caring.

PCPhoto

yeah but passing it off to Getty means that you have little control over it....you effectively give them the rights to use/sell it. (thats my understanding of it)

EyeBlinks

How much do you want for it ...say €100.

Get 20 lads to go in with you .... 20 pints please ..... down them in one ... and off you go......:pac:

Kenny Logins

xshayx wrote: »

I'm pissed off that my photo was stolen and I've been ignored for 6 months, nothing wrong with a bit of discussion about these things and letting photographers know what companies are doing this. They could replace my photo with another photographers photo. If we all kept are mouths shut about what companies are doing this sort of thing, it will just happen more and more...

I think you're right to name and shame, but in this case I don't think you'll get anywhere with them. Personally I'd have named and shamed from the outset, their Facebook page would yield a quick response I reckon.

AnCatDubh

smash wrote: »

No they don't. If a photo is removed then they stop caring.

If Getty had already cop'd it, they would most certainly care. It don't matter if you didn't put it there, if it is now no longer there, if you've said a few novenas that they might go away. They will pursue and with vigour.

I have been on the advising end of a Getty disputed image with an organisation for just that sort of thing (for the record I wasn't responsible for the use of the disputed image, just offering opinion to some legal folk who were dealing with it). The organisation genuinely (in so far as I could tell) had no idea that an image had been lifted and used on a web site belonging to them and the web page was long gone before the initial contact. Infact IIRC, the entire site was gone. Such a point is no defense (and imho rightly so). But Getty had record of it, and a screen grab of the image being used, and aggressively (as PCPHOTO suggests) they were pursuing with the full vigour of what they could throw at the organisation. Legal people involved from the off. No Mr. Nice Guy present. And essentially, they will seek full licencing cost of the image and an unauthorised usage fee. It gets expensive when it all starts adding up.

(incidently, i did wonder was the taking of a screen grab violating the organisations copyright on their web page creation however, for another day, another forum)

In xshayx's situation, I'm not sure they'd be interested as they haven't had the initial contact / sighting / recording of the offending image. But who knows - times being tough, etc...

It doesn't excuse the hotel in question but mostly hotels don't design their websites. The web design company should be called to account for their actions of illegally using images (infact they should read my piece on creative commons from yesterday to get a few pointers ). The hotel most likely were paying x amount for getting the job done without particular caution as to what images would be used. The web design company fulfilled the order with the assistance of illegally obtained image(s) presumably in the knowledge that they were illegally obtained or at least culpable in some respect. That is entirely shocking for a web design company. The buck stops with the hotel being the owner, but my blood would be boiling for their web design company.

Sorry for your trouble xshayx. I hate when these things happen.

swingking

Is there a definitive method of knowing if your photo is being used for illicit purposes?

OP how did you come across that this particular hotel was using your photo. Did someone let you know? or is there another method?

Thanks

xshayx

I was looking at my flickr stats, and looked at google results, mine (from flickr) was there along with mine again on their site!

I've found others beforebeing used using tineye.com

Hugh_C

There's also a plugin for Firefox called something like "who stole my pictures" or something like that (away from laptop at the mo) which will search in google images for you and elsewhere, although its generally a tiresome process to get anything other than irritated.

I recently discovered an image of mine used illegally in the University of Hawaii Music School and although they claimed it was an intern who "acquired" the pic and had no idea it was copyrighted, they seemed to think they'd done nothing wrong. I'm almost tempted to publish the email exchange.

Effects

Publish it.

tricky D

Hugh_C wrote: »

There's also a plugin for Firefox called something like "who stole my pictures" or something like that (away from laptop at the mo)

It's exactly that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/who-stole-my-pictures/

includes http://www.tineye.com

smash

AnCatDubh wrote: »

If Getty had already cop'd it, they would most certainly care. It don't matter if you didn't put it there, if it is now no longer there, if you've said a few novenas that they might go away. They will pursue and with vigour.

Over the years, the company I work for have had 15-20 different letters from Getty about using various images on websites. It was as a result of a lazy contract designer and every time a letter arrived we just replaced the images and never heard from them again.