MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Image Sleuth => Topic started by: hospitalera on August 11, 2007, 05:26
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I set here http://stolenimagesalarm.blogspot.com/ (http://stolenimagesalarm.blogspot.com/) a blog up where I will post in future every alarm/ suspicion about stolen images I come across the boards/ forums I submit to. You can subscribe by email and/ or feed. This should serve to get information about possibly stolen/ misused images quick out to everybody concerned without the problem of posting in the forum of one agency information about another agency. Tell me please what you think (you will see this message across several different sites today, I want to get the word out asap, before the next case happens). SY
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never mind.
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Have you actually looked at the blog? And noticed that it is not tagged, doesn't contain any info other then the link to the forum post? It is nothing else then a semi-automated email alarm system to pass messages quickly on to people who have subscribed to email or feed! Please, before giving feedback LOOK at things!!! SY
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never mind.
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Sorry that I misinterpreted you, but if you would have looked carefully you would have noticed that:
The posts are NOT tagged, so the only way a thief could find it is that s/he stumbled upon it. Highly improbable imho. The chance to increase communication over stock site and forum borders is vastly higher. If I am mistaken please correct me. The thieves mentioned in the ShutterStock thread got caught because everybody worked together. In a case like the one you mentioned the easiest would have been to take immediately a screen shot as prove.
The idea of the blog is that everybody that is interested can subscribe via email/ feed to this blog and gets automatically informed when a new post is made. I have added my own email address so that people can tell me about relevant forum posts. Why? We all, or nearly all, submit to different agencies BUT we don't read all the different forums. I am kind of a forum addict and read at least most of them. That's all, those that are interested subscribe those that are not - not. I don't plan to denounce or even mention any names on this blog, it will be simply a kind of semi-automated alarm for forum posts about stolen or misused images. I doubt that anybody will subscribe to the feed/ email that has nothing to do with (micro) stock and I have also not tagged the posts so a "search for blog containing ..." is not possible. And for those stumbling over the blog it must be the most boring one in history. Hope that helps to clear things a bit. I will monitor traffic/ subscriptions for a couple of months and when I see no interest I take it done. Yes, I appreciate feedback if it is well founded, sorry, but I can't see much foundation for yours. But if you can prove me wrong and that it does more harm then good THEN I am more then happy to take the blog down immediately. SY
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There's another page of apparently stolen images here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikamicu/album?.dir=a914&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikamicu/my_photos (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikamicu/album?.dir=a914&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikamicu/my_photos)
and a forum thread about it on Shutterstock.
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23827&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23827&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)
Looks like this is getting to be an increasing problem. How to stop it?
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Added it, thanx, how to avoid this happening? No idea, SY
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The only way to avoid this happening is to catch a few of the perpetrators and slap swingeing fines on them.
I think it was Getty (or maybe it was Corbis) did this a year or so ago. They used a program to trawl the net and identify images that were on their books but being used illegally. Then they send hefty demands to the people using these images.
I heard of several small businesses in UK that were astonished to receive bills of several thousand pounds, completely unexpectedly.
In fact, some of the businesses were not directly involved in the wrongdoing as it was their advertising agency who had stolen the images. The businesses thought it was all legitimate.
But, whatever the rights and wrongs, I believe that put an immediate stop to people stealing images from Getty (or Corbis).
Maybe that's why the thieves are turning to microstock now >:(
IS and SS and all the others should clamp down hard on this, too. Unfortunately some of these examples of theft are on Yahoo and, it seems, Yahoo is so big they don't give a tinker's cuss about copyright violations.
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Nice idea. Good Job! I hope you can get enough support to keep things running.
br, Mikko P.
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I guess some of us may have to rethink the shelf life of our images I remember someone stating 5 years which may be the case for some images but if some little **** decides he is going to resell or give away your images.
I have glanced few recent threads at SS regarding illegal reselling of images, the small fish website got fried and the big fish website is still unresolved.
I suppose maybe as time goes on the agencies will fire reviewers and start hiring lawyers.
Certainly one reason to think about going exclusive.
It would be nice to see you some crucifixations to make people think twice about doing this.
How many folk actually go hunting for illegal reselling of their images?