*, the "Thumbnail" quality on PBASE is quite inviting to do exactly such a thing. I guess that is why the real stock agencies work with watermarks. Sorry to hear about this scam, but besides telling the sites to remove the images. Did you register copyright for these images? That might help to recover some damages.

Good luck

They are vectors, but it's obvious that your photos were used as source material. This guy has some nice stuff up on istock, but not these in particular -- probably because they are sticklers for verifying the copyright holder of the source material.

Those large unwatermarked images are really asking to be stolen by those who are so inclined.

Good luck!

I have all the originals at full size, with metadata. I don't hope to ever find this person. Just want him off StockExpert.

I don't think my images, on pBase are large enough for anybody to do anything serious with. Under 2MB.

well let us know how it turns out.

I would also really like to know where the $$ goes that people who stole images 'earned'

I have heard about accounts being closed and images removed which were stolen, which is good, but have never heard that the original artist is given the earnings... which i think we should, especially when we often are the ones who take the hit for credit card fraud.

the stolen images have sold 13 times... i hope you get the 13 sales worth of earnings.

good point.
is the thief ever even charged for theft?  if not, there is really nothing to deter them from doing it again.

You must be totally pissed off. I hate when people do such things. I don't know how people can risk so much... Every since and then we found some thief, and people still doing this. Does anyone know what happened to that woman "watercolor artist" that stole few images from SS?

...I don't know how people can risk so much... Every since and then we found some thief, and people still doing this...

They do it because they know that sometimes they will get away with it. In this case, they pretty much did. Those images were uploaded by the thief in May, and were only found out about now. Sure they'll be taken down soon, but who knows how much money this thief already got from these and possible other stolen images. Probably enough for a payout. They know that sometimes they'll get caught fast, and sometimes they'll be able to leave stolen images up for months at a time.

With people in so different locations, it is really difficult to go after someone doing this. You could sue him, and I think StockXpert would have the legal obligation of disclosing his personal data - if it's not fake.  But then, what if he is in another country?  It is probably more like "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to delete them" and get away with it.  Like if someone stole your car and you find him in the mall's parking, you approach him and he returns you the keys and walks away.

I don't think StockXpert can be asked to pay rimglow the amount earned by the thief, because it's not their fault that the guy committed a fraud.  Maybe if he has funds to be cashed, then they might, but I suspect they can not without legal order.

Regards,
Adelaide

I just discovered the same stolen images on Shutterstock!
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-p1.html?gallery_id=83940

Man, I'm going to have to go through every microstock site to hunt this down. What a drag.

It's actually a good thing that this guy is distributing your images on microstock sites. At least then you can do something about it, and the sites will delete the images. There is this guy Garcya, selling and giving away vectors from microstock sites on his own website, based in Russia. He's been at it for over a year now, he's been reported to all the microstock sites, and yet there's no way to shut him down. He still has some of the top selling vectors from SS on his site as free downloads. It's ridiculously blatant, yet there is very little anyone can do about it.

I wonder if I should notify all the sites that he appears on? He's only using my stuff on StockXpert & Shutterstock. Waste of time? Would they even care?

Shutterstock is known to be very rigid about it.  I'm almost sure they take action on him even probably erase his portfolio

Said he never realized they were copyright protected. (even though it clearly states such, under each title)

I think it is possible he actually did not realize the copyright issue even if he knows that your PHOTO are copyrighted.

My opinion is that many vector artists do not know (or prefer not to think about it) that it is not allowed to trace a photo as this is a derivative work.

If one look at some vector artists portfolio with many silhouettes of people, one can wonder whether they actually own the copyright on the original photo. Is it really believable that a pure vector artist with no photo in his portfolio shoot photos of so many beautiful girls as a source for their tracing?

I agree that some very talented artists may draw the silhouette by hand or use a 3D character as a reference, but I guess that many do use photo they did not shoot themselves.

But I may be wrong 

...If one look at some vector artists portfolio with many silhouettes of people, one can wonder whether they actually own the copyright on the original photo. Is it really believable that a pure vector artist with no photo in his portfolio shoot photos of so many beautiful girls as a source for their tracing?...

Why is it so unbelievable that someone would shoot photos just as reference material? Maybe some people have good shots of people walking in profile, suitable for a nice silhouette, but the rest of the photo isn't suitable for stock? Or the overall size of the image is too small for stock?

I've got a decent camera, but I don't shoot photos for stock. Just for reference material. Nice to know you'd just assume that I'm a thief, though.