MicrostockGroup

Ok I've reported the issue to the Yahoo Copyright Police

I just went to the link Kone provided for the stolen image and I get:

This member is no longer active on Flickr.

Looks like we nailed another one.

I left a comment as well

Good point __ but why not? In particular with Istock's exclusive content, like yours and many others, why is the issue not being addressed? Heroturko openly boasts about the sources of many of the images.

Sure but Kone and others had been reporting it five weeks ago. Someone finally took notice or Giuseppe knows the right buttons to push and get results. Thank him. Maybe people with a pro account get noticed.  

Unfortunately the photo is out in the wild. Some may be legit buyers and some are Kone's own shots on agency pages. Makes you wonder doesn't it?

http://www.tineye.com/search/0722437ac1fa22f1c9053cf0b142040268a2ebbc

My pleasure to help!
I told you I know Flickr very well 

Have you found a best-selling image of yours on one of these sites? Maybe that's the difference. Once it happens to you, the threads that show on the board have a little more interest.

It's not that I never cared before...with having to work a full-time job to pay a mortgage, I don't usually have all day to sit and cruise the boards and play detective, even for my own work. Sometimes the threads float to the bottom before I even have a chance to see them. You can believe the Image Sleuth section is going to be noticed by me a little more now.

In the past couple of days I have spent hours on this, hours that could have been used to make real money. But this is costing all of us money, too. If someone needs help, you can be sure I will do my best to help and I would hope others would help me, as they have just done.

Maybe it just takes everyone looking out and helping everyone else on this matter.

OK off my high horse now. 

Hi cclapper,
That is the way we should all do, this is where this forum is really helpful, as team we are more powerful.

Kone

I noticed a few images I recognized from istock. I have emailed the owners to let them know.

You'd think flickr would be more strict about this, but I guess they have no control over who places what on there if the person says they are the copyright holder. It seems to be happening more and more.

I will try to remember that in case I need to use it in the future. Hopefully I won't.

Yes I have found more than one of my best selling images packaged up with similars from others in one nice downloadable themed chunk on HeroTurko. But that is but one portal to a spiders web of mine of countless thousands of such bundles including many complete discs from getty and corbis etc etc. That they have not been able to stop this over many many years would indicate to me that I would be wasting my time trying to do anything about it. Before rapidshare and torrents from the mid nineties onwards every photodisc, Digital Vision etc. etc. cd was available through hotline and limewire or a few bucks to someone in the far east.

I have to report that there is a whole generation that believes that digital files are free game. Where I work, in a small design agency, we take on student work placements and their personal laptops are crammed full of unpaid for software, videos, images, songs, fonts etc. Like it or not, like shoplifting  and other forms of 'shrinkage' this is a cost of doing business in the digital world.

Wearing another of my hats as a manager of a moderately successful semi pro rock band that cost of doing business is so high that it's nigh on making it unsustainable to record anymore. Reviewers leak albums out before their release date and they are available as torrents that all but the most dedicated fans will help themselves to before the official stuff gets out. To add insult to injury many torrent sites will note the number of downloads.

The depth of this festering wound really does mean that the abuses on flicker, stolen images on others portfolios etc. that can be addressed are just scratching the surface. Fine if you do get a result, but in the micro world cost-benefit-wise are you really gaining anything?

And in the macro world when it comes to getty tracking down a misused image with its crawler and seeking thousands from the often unwitting small business owner who used one of the aformentioned students to design a website does the photographer get his commission?

Well that's something then