Hi all,
Just lately I've seen some of my Editorial photos used in social media in either promoting or advertising a product. No photographer credit line. They've all been mid-size or small businesses doing this, and I don't know where they have purchased the images. In one incident I was quite sure the source was Bigstock (and still am) and wrote in, but they denied it and nothing followed.
It is perfectly clear that images of property, featuring a logo, etc, or people, need appropriate releases and without them the contributor will need to sell them under Editorial.
It's not OK that the buyers are using them in advertising. The photographer/ contributor is the one who will face the blame and responsibility eventually, everyone will ask "who took this photo?" and no one blames the buyer who used it wrongly.
What would you do in a situation like this? Any help/insight will be welcome.