I suppose the site didnt pay for the small size microstock pictures so I would like to warn the author or the microstock site about it. But my question is, anybody has any experience on finding "robberies" or other fraud uses?, and what you did?
Thanks in advance

I was at a new restaurant in a small town last year "Healthy one". I started looking at their menu and saw that almost all images was having the Dreamstime logo on them. I asked the waitress who was the manager here, she said he wasn't there. Then I asked who did the menu she said her and her friend (not professional menu but good looking though).

I explained that she actually stole the images and I was working as a photographer for the agency where they took them. I was surprised myself to see that someone in this small village have browsed the DT collection. I don't think they even had high speed internet at that time.

The waitress said she was sorry and felt confused about all this. I told her that for less than 20$ she could have all the pics she wanted for their menu. Being opportunist, I said I could make the pictures free for them If they cooked the meals. I would put those pictures in my online portfolio. She said OK and felt interested, asked for my business card

Then 2 hours later I received a call from the manager. He said... I was the second or third to tell them that they stolen the images and that I knew those guys who came before. After some explanation I told him "Don't get paranoid with all this" or something like. He calmed hiself down... He apologised and approved that their menu needed to be redesigned

That's the last time I tried to work on any project with a company. Never get back there since

Geeze, forget the 20 bucks, who would want photos with watermarks on their menu?

I had a client last year give me a half dozen awesome photos to use in his marketing...

All with the Getty watermark.  He says "but they're royalty free!" 

LOL, out of all the agencies he could steal from, I would think that Getty would be the one with the biggest legal team!   I don't think most of them are really theifs, but the word "free" confuses them.

...No one misunderstood the words RIGHT MANAGED , though.

I read in the Alamy forum that people have had their rights managed preview images stolen, so I don't think the license makes much difference.  Some people just break the rules and think they will get away with it.

NONE pictures are free for commercial use, thats it. Except really few where is explicitly stated they are free for any use including commercial. Any pics can be downloaded for personal use but that doesnt mean publishing them on your blog, web, leaflet, article etc... So the common myth that people excuse with "we thought its free" - what . When I do mystake in taxes, does the finance bureau care about what "I thought"? Its very easy to keep "stupid", but downloading pics from agency with watermarks and pics which are abviously NOT free - theres nothing to talk about.

Btw. saw some page full of thumbs from micro with watermarks, including one RM agency, SS, DT, IS. Cant recall the link. 

Why not post links to the sites that are stealing images so we can all send them an email and bitch about it?

good idea. but something more.  i know for a fact that some sites have limits for how many times your site has been viewed, then they disallow visitors for the month or whatnot.
maybe someone here who is a knowledgeable IT person  (FlemishDream??) can tell us if a program can actually do that to the site.
i hope i explained it properly. it's always simpler to discuss this over a pint at the pub 

Once I was looking for info online about a particular Filipino landmark cathedral and I stumbled upon a thread in a history/tourism forum about that cathedral I wanted to document more. The main shot was one of me on iStock with that particular cathedral and the big iStock watermark all over it. The site owner apologized for the "ugly" watermark in a pissed off comment that things like that (the watermark) should be outlawed 
I did nothing. The time for emailing and complaining you can do other shots.

on second thought, forget it. i did not see FD's comment above .

it's true too , what FD's last statement. better spend the time creating more for your port than chasing shadows.