blowingsky Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 They have one of my lo-rez images, with my name on it. So what? I don't agree with what they did, but this is the Internet. The moment I posted an image on Pnet, or even created an electronic file of an image and e-mailed it, I acknowledged to myself that I was giving up a portion of my control to the great beyond. Commercial work is kept under much tighter wraps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulstenquist Posted February 10, 2008 Author Share Posted February 10, 2008 In regard to Susan's point, I think that exposure on the internet is usually a good thing. Lo-res images can't be turned into marketable prints. My personal experience suggests that photo.net and other forums have only made my work more desirable. In fact, I've sold prints as a direct result of the work having been viewed on photo.net, and I've been approached by stock houses and local galleries after they saw my work here. Because some moronic site that no one sees is displaying my photos won't change any of that. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgalyon Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 It was nice not to have any anonymous 3/3s on my photos. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgalyon Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 On a serious note. While I certainly have no respect for thieves, and if I had the power to end all theft of photographs throughout the known universe...how many of us are really affected in a tangible way by this? How many of us will lose one dime? If a billion bad copies of one of my photographs are sold in China (or Mars for that matter) all it will mean is that a billion Chinese (or Martian) people have a bad copy of one of my photographs. For all the wringing of hands and fear that the sky is falling...who cares... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mixmasta Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 They ripped off 31 of my shots, but they got my father Dennis Jones, for over 60 shots...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jan_piller Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 THey got a dozen or so of mine also....... But I'm a technophobe and have difficulty following all info above. I won't be uploading any images to PN until I can figure out how to put watermarks on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis jones Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 76 to be exact. I'm going with the Walter method, plus leaving a few rude comments on on www.bitcomet.com, "THIS STOLEN PHOTO BELONGS TO WWW.CAMERAVIEW.NET". Josh Root, question: Is there any way that Photo.net can get a good discount on someone's services like Digimarc's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyphillips Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 I believe they have at least one image from everyone on here. I typed in every name that I could remember in the search box and it came back with at least one image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis jones Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 180 of Alec Ee's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 "Lo-res images can't be turned into marketable prints." Hi Paul, prints are not the only commercial market. I don't understand the dismissal "they're just low rez web jpg's anyways...". How about if your picture was made into a logo or used on a commercial website? All jpg's can be turned into vector graphics and places like PN are a feeding ground for unscrupulous graphic designers looking for elements that can quickly be made into a derivative image. These images were harvested manually so i disagree with whomever said a bot grabbed them. Someone hand chose these for quality and categories and went to the trouble to post the authors name. PN can do more for this community by upgrading its software. It's not unusual to right-click (on non-flash sites) these days and get nowhere. One photo site has a notice that comes up "Sorry, you can't do that here". Another site opens with what you think will be the jpg but instead, you get a gif of the site's logo with text "Please contact us if you wish to use this image." Over on flickr, when you have a $25 pro account, one ends up saving the famous 'spaceball.gif'. Watermark your images. Most of us can see the forest through the trees and it doesn't bother me a bit. It's perfectly acceptable behavior on the net these days. If you can enter your name on your dslr's exif data, do it and do not 'save for the web' in post. I couldn't imagine being Jim Krantz and visiting the guggenheim museum... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/arts/design/06prin.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Taylor Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 He's taken thousands of images, none of them indexed by category, None of them with hi-res files. He has a couple of crappy local ads. It's more or less a blog, it's not going to make any real money. <p> So, huff and puff and blow it down. One or ten or a hundred more are going to pop up in its place. <p> Someone in China likes your photos. Congratulations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 John: I think it matters because when it's being scraped by bots/scripts in a large-scale way (as in this case) so that a commercial entity can use it as bait to make money selling ads... it's really bad form. More to the point, "resources" like this site contribute to the prevailing wisdom of 13-year-olds everywhere that anything they can see and touch should be theirs to use how they see fit, regardless of the means by which they acquire it. If creative people don't sometimes actually put up a fight when they're being badly abused (not to be confused with someone passing around a shot they love just because they love it), then we lose any moral high ground we may just barely still have. Especially as western nations become more and more engaged in the crazy economy that is China, we need to make a few efforts, where we can, to set the tone. Earlier, louder, and more often is better than shrugging it off. It's indeed pointless to fuss over whether the Greater Beijing Hsitsu Breeders Club has heisted a puppy picture for their web site's calendar. But when a big ol' Google-Magnet, making ad revenue, serves up thousands of images while being as oily about it as they have been here... that's worth the keystrokes to get (especially domestic) hosting shops to look into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reprint Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 I am a little concerned about how people are reacting. Posting on the web entails a risk of being copied. Crossing the street entails a risk of getting run over but the benefits outweigh the risks. For me the benefits of posting an image on photo.net or elsewhere outweigh the risks. Simple steps can be taken as were outlined here and hopefully that will remedy the situation. However my life will go on as normal and i will continue to post. The expense and inconvenience of watermarking etc is not worth it. I see this thread as an education on how to file a complaint, not as a warning and I certainly won't stop posting and learning. For those who don't report it, don't worry. Plenty of others are and if we get a result, thats great. If we don't, then thats how it goes but life shouldn't stop for this. Allowing this or other copyright violators to spoil your enjoyment is allowing them to control your life and enjoyment of your hobby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjmeade Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 Theyt have three pages of mine. I suppose that at least they credited me with the photos, which is more than some thieves do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
susan stone Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 I'm not naive enough to not realize that my imagery wouldn't be heisted to other sites, it's just that this is the first I've known of it. The bottom line for me is that I treat people with respect and honesty and that's where I'm naive, I expect the same from others. Any kind of "theft" makes me feel violated, and I have no one to blame but myself because I knowingly posted my imagery to PN. The point here is if we are to be "in control of our lives" than we need to make those decisions, for ourselves, whether to post or not. This isn't about monetary gain, but about protecting my personal creativity, that's important to me, and it's about principles and where do we draw the line. I haven't read all the posts but I do know some folks will think this is all silly nonsense and others will feel a tad pissed off like myself. I think part of my frustration is the feeling of helplessness in a situation like this, there's not a damn thing I can do about it but whine.....and send a complaint or two in the right directions. No big deal for some, a real barn burner for others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dyoung Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 18 of mine.. additional information Under the US Copyright Law Chapter 17 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92appb.pdf), Give, the server owner, Go Daddy, a take down notification as pursuant to Act, section 512 © (3). A statement to them of the number and type, webpage address, etc., and your desire to have them remove the images pursuant to the ACT, .. etc. Also, send this notic to Google, to let them know you have sent it to Go Daddy. Marc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 <i>"The photos posted could be dispayed as flash embedded images. So there should be no .jpegs and other files to steal."</i> <p> It is something that could be considered. But making changes like that to the site would bring other problems that would need to be considered as well. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of sites that rely so heavily on flash. I don't feel like they work as well. <p> <i>"Is there any way that Photo.net can get a good discount on someone's services like Digimarc's?"</i> <p> While I don't think digimarc would solve the problem we have here (given that legal action probably cannot be easily taken against a chinese company), it might be a good start. I will look into talking with digimarc about some sort of deal. <p> <i>"PN can do more for this community by upgrading its software."</i> <p> My general opinion is that actions like disabling right-click just slow down the theft process by a few seconds. I have yet to see a site I could not swipe an image from if I wanted to. However, that having been said, I haven't done any serious research into what techniques other large photo sites are using to try and prevent image theft. Might be worth exploring. <p> <b>My Personal Opinion on this sort of theft</b> (which is not my "photo.net admin" opinion) <p> I tend to not worry about this stuff. Having images "stolen" in this fashion is just one of the risks of putting your images on the web. For my own images, I might explore legal options if the outcome would be profitable. But it a case like this, I don't let it bother me. The benefits of having my images online outweigh the occasional problems that come up. <p> However, that is just my personal opinion as a professional photographer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis jones Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 Thanks Josh... I know the risk, where I'm pissed off about is, other than our name, this type of rip off allows no way of contacting the right full owner and they post without my permission. Hell, I'd give them permission in most cases, if they would ask and give me proper credit, not just my name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 ""The photos posted could be dispayed as flash embedded images. So there should be no .jpegs and other files to steal." You can simply do a screen capture of a flash embedded image. They're as easy to steal as a normally displayed JPEG. I've attached an image I just "stole" from my own flash based gallery (http://www.bobatkins.com/images2). Took me 10 seconds to do it. Yes, it would be difficult to automate, but not impossible and it wouldn't stop individuals stealing images. If you seriously want images you could also pay someone in a 3rd world economy $1 for every 100 images they stole for you. It's called "outsourcing"! Putting your images on the web is like putting a basket of apples at the end of your driveway along with a box and a note saying "put 25 cents in the box for every apple you take". Most people will put a quarter in the box. A few won't.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 <i>Most people will put a quarter in the box. A few won't.</i> <Br><br> And some of them (like the web site in question) will take the entire basket of apples AND the box with the money in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiro Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 from my perspective, I'm not surprised by this, and am aware this is a risk of posting photos on the internet. However, getting robbed is a risk of going to the store, and robberies happen every day, but the police still try to stop it. Similarly, these guys have stolen our photos, I don't see any reason for not taking the 10 minutes to contact google and godaddy to try and shut them down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 "My general opinion is that actions like disabling right-click just slow down the theft process by a few seconds. I have yet to see a site I could not swipe an image from if I wanted to. However, that having been said, I haven't done any serious research into what techniques other large photo sites are using to try and prevent image theft. Might be worth exploring." Josh, the path of least resistance is chosen by these types. Yes indeed it's easy to screen grab or go deep into windows and extract jpg's from your cache. But again, if it's too much hassle for sites like the one in question here, they go elsewhere. Try right-clicking on this smugmug image for instance. http://www.smugmug.com/popular/today/1/252658247_dv2CP#252658247_dv2CP-M-LB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 That is a clever little dropdown when you right click. But it still took me just a few seconds to download the image from the page. Clicking "page info" then the "media" tab in firefox got me the image with no screengrabs. If I can do it, I'm sure someone can program a computer to do it. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean photo.net shouldn't look into what options are available to us to discourage images from being taken off the site. As I said "might be worth exploring". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 that's the hard way, Josh. Most 'humans' searching for images just surf the net and cache out afterwards. ie, read this thread http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=3242786&sid=1c2409d9ad7424c8d3f0084e198a3e44 but the reasons stated at Feb Mon 4th 2008 3:21am is typical of how they do it for theft en masse. IE is even easier. And it doesn't matter if you're on flash sites or not as usually jpg's are called on from the .swf file and not embedded into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicodovale Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 They also stole one of my photos from PN. I followed the suggestion of Bob Atkins and sent a report to Google, showing the address with my photo at their site, http://pic.playcomet.com/Francisco_Ribeiro_do_Vale-99372.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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