Unauthorized Photograph Use

In searching the internet, I found what appears to be a web developer for travel posting photographs on their clients web site without permission. The ones I have found are http://www.creekvalley.travel/photo-gallery/page2.aspx and http://www.minervaparkohio.travel/photo-gallery/page3.php. As you can see, these pages are for different communities, but otherwise look identical. If I found my photographs on these pages, I have no idea how many other photographers have had their photographs stolen. It is interesting to note that these pages bear a copyright, but they do not seem to recognize the copyright of others. My pictures do bear a copyright notation, but that did not slow then down. I have written them using the contact us button as there is no other email address given.

I wish I could give you the main address of the web designer, but I could not find it.

On the Minerva Park page, you can contact the webmaster via that "Have Something to Say About Minerva Park?" cell midpage on the left.

Hank,

That is the same as the contact us radio button immediately above and the contact us link at the bottom of the page. I have already sent an email to both pages. Actually, I expect to hear nothing. I hope that I am pleasantly surprised.

For those who might be interested, I stumbled on a fledgling company that has developed a search engine that finds images based on graphical image comparison rather than by text. Their name is Tin Eye and the software is still in beta version. Its not available yet but you can ask to join their test team and try the beta software (which I did). They are mining the web and building a database of image "patterns" but they have a long way to go till they have enough samples to be very effective. It does seem to work though. I downloaded the browser plug in that allows you to right click on any image in your browser and search for duplicates. While it didn't find a lot of copies that I knew I had posted in various sites, it did find a site where someone was displaying a lot of pictures of mine. He was changing the names and making little stories about how he took the shots. When I looked at his profile I was surprised to find that he was someone I knew! He works where I work and has even bought a couple prints from me. The next day I called him into my office, closed the door and we had a friendly little chat about copyright law, honesty and basic decency. He was very embarrassed and apologetic and removed the photos from his site that night. A couple days later I gave TinEye a try with some photos that would have had a lot more exposure than mine. I went to Marc Adamus' web site and searched for copies of one of his popular photos that had been published. This time the search engine found quite a few copies, many that definitely appeared to be pirated versions because there were no credits or references. If you happen to read this, Marc, it might be a good idea to sign up as a beta tester! Its free and it could prove very interesting for you. Although its somewhat limited right now, it certainly has lots of potential and may make it a lot harder for people to get away with stealing images in the near future.

Gary, that's a great resource. Thanks for sharing it here.

I downloaded it and searched for a couple of my most popular images, and it found them in the few locations I'd posted them online. It searched something like 700 million images in less than a second. Some of my wildlife images were too simple for TinEye to develop a profile stamp, so it didn't search for them.

I'm sure a typical landscape photograph has a lot more unique elements.

That does sound like a great resource Gary. I signed up and received an email stating I would be placed on their private beta waiting list. Did you guys get the same email, or were you immediately able to use the service?

I got the same e-mail, Bill, but got another one inside of 20 minutes that said I'd been approved. It contained a link to go and download the software, which operates as a plug-in through IE or Firefox. There are a couple ways to use the software, but the easiest is just by right clicking on a photo you have up on your screen and select the TinEye plug-in and it automatically searches.

Fred, the names of those travel companies are interesting indeed, but the IP address information for both of them is the same hosting company:

OrgName: Web Hosting LLC
OrgID: LABIT
Address: 350 Tangerine Ave
Address: Suite 4
City: Merritt Island
StateProv: FL
PostalCode: 32953
Country: US

NetRange: 72.35.240.0 - 72.35.255.255
CIDR: 72.35.240.0/20
OriginAS: AS40655
NetName: WEBHOSTINGLLC
NetHandle: NET-72-35-240-0-1
Parent: NET-72-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.WEBHOSTINGLLC.COM
NameServer: NS2.WEBHOSTINGLLC.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2007-12-10
Updated: 2008-03-12

RAbuseHandle: IAC9-ARIN
RAbuseName: IP Address Coordinator
RAbusePhone: +1-321-214-9535
RAbuseEmail: james@labitat.com

RNOCHandle: MAM82-ARIN
RNOCName: Morris, Manley Alexander
RNOCPhone: +1-954-769-5915
RNOCEmail: manley@corp.theglobe.com

RTechHandle: IAC9-ARIN
RTechName: IP Address Coordinator
RTechPhone: +1-321-214-9535
RTechEmail: james@labitat.com

OrgAbuseHandle: IAC9-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: IP Address Coordinator
OrgAbusePhone: +1-321-214-9535
OrgAbuseEmail: james@labitat.com

OrgNOCHandle: IAA21-ARIN
OrgNOCName: IP Address Administrator
OrgNOCPhone: +1-321-214-9535
OrgNOCEmail: jason@labitat.com

OrgTechHandle: MAM82-ARIN
OrgTechName: Morris, Manley Alexander
OrgTechPhone: +1-954-769-5915
OrgTechEmail: manley@corp.theglobe.com

OrgTechHandle: IVA6-ARIN
OrgTechName: Valdes, Ivan
OrgTechPhone: +1-954-296-2403
OrgTechEmail: ivaldes@coreroute.com


You could contact the admin and inform him about this issue.

Thanks Steve!

Bill - My TinEye approval took over a week, so they don't always happen that fast...

Thanks for the information on the hosting company. I found that they have a working web site, but the like to Contact Us has a Cold Fusion error. Luckily, they also have a email address listed and I used that.

It seems that they found a lot of my pictures from an old web site associated with an ISP that I used to have. I am surprised that the site is still active. I will fix that soon.

Fred, you could also send them a certified letter snail mail.

Thanks Steve. I will see what happens in the next week and go from there. Since I discovered this last night, I ought to give them a chance after the start of the new week. I hope that no one else is caught by these people.

Fred (and all others),

Did you notice that these are hot linked from the original sites? When you put your cursor on the image it shows the URL they are pulling it directly from. One of yours is at:
http://www.prolynx.com/fstearns/independence_pass/Lake-Creek-Valley-3.jpg

So, not only is it being displayed on this site they are stealing your bandwidth to do it. I don't know how much administration you can do with your web site provider, but there is a way to disable hot linking. You should talk to your provider.

Duane

Duane,

Thanks for pointing that out. I had not noticed. Actually, the bandwidth is not important as that was my with my old ISP. I changed ISPs last November. I have contacted them and requested that they erase the files on my old web site as I no longer have access to that site. My new site has a huge amount of memory available and an equally large bandwidth as well. However, I would like control over who uses the bandwidth. I will double check on the way to disable hot linking. I think that I have hot linking disabled on my new site. Now I will have to wait and see if Sitestar clears out my Prolynx site.

You should go look in the NPN Photo Marketing Forum here and read the article listed as "If You Sell an Image". There is an advice answer well suited to this written by Walter Rowe. At the bottom of his answer he list various legal books we should probably all have. He also has an url to a photographer lawyer who it appears has successfully sued an infringer. All should go to her site and read what happened. She has a $12 Million judgement in her favor because the infringer used her photos of several high end houses in advertising the houses. You need to read her blog to see why she received (yet?) $12 Million. Looks like if this travel company had any sales while your photos were being used, then you have the same kind of case as she did!!!!!!!! IF nothing else, then you might be able to "settle" for an entire new camera body and complete set of lenses! hahahah But seriously, it sounds like you have a solid claim.

Troup

ME again. After looking at one of the pages with all those images from different sites, you might be able to get all those folks together in a class action suit against the company. Certainly one of the photographer's who has had his images "lifted" by this company KNOWS a solid lawyer who could do the footwork on this!

Troup

Tnhanks for all your help. I got an answer for both sites advising that they would remove my pictures, if they knew which ones they were. You can see how many opictures they had and how many are directly marked with a copyright. Oh well. I sent them the info. Then I had a sudden thought. I could get back to that old site after all. I had it programmed into an old FTP program on an old computer and it was still open. That site is now empty! My current site is set up so that it cannot be hoit linked, or at least I think it is. I will have to check that one soon.

Thanks especially Troup for the link to another thread on this site. I will definitely check that out! I need to learn more about Copyright Law.