Copyright infringement alarm

[alioffe]

<p>There is an evidence that this person<br>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/</a><br>

regularly posts copyrighted pictures as his own and collect credits for it.<br>

Here is my picture <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4266894192/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4266894192/</a> (you can see even my name and address in the EXIF data!)<br>

and Albena Markov's one<br>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4237179774/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4237179774/</a> <br>

(taken from <a href="../photo/8843766">http://www.photo.net/photo/8843766</a>)<br>

Also another photograper wrote me that he found his picture there too and after posting comment that it was stolen, the person removed it. But the whole account still exits and he continue to steal and upload new photos. I left coments for a few pictures and then he removed my comments and blocked my account. So he knows for sure what he is doing.<br>

I reported the abuse to Yahoo, although I'm not sure it will be effective. So I just want you pay attention to this site and if you find your pictures there report the abuse too. May be this help to close the account of this freak. Or may be someone else knows the better way to stop it.<br>

Thank you</p>

[andylynn]

<p>Well that sucks... but what are we supposed to do?</p>

[stp]

<p>Man, he sure gets around the world and has an incredibly diverse portfolio.</p>

[derek_kennedy]

<p>go to flikr people, report him.</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>Google DMCA</p>

[anthea50]

<p>He even has a copyright statement under the photos! Cheeky! I would report him to Flikr too, and keep reporting him until something is done! Anyone who understands photography can see the diversity of styles in his portfolio couldn't really have come from one person. Hopefully more people will work this out too....</p>

[jbs]

<p>Well, I wrote him a note. FWIW.</p>

[alioffe]

<p>I've already reported to Yahoo, but not sure it will stop his account. I could only ask you guys to look there and if you recognize your or someone else's works report too (may be eventually Yahoo does something), but not to send the comments to the person. I found he just delete the comments block you, and continue what he is doing. The best you can do he remove your work, but then upload new ones.<br>

I understand he is just a person who needs phycologycal support, but I can help him saying that his activity is illegal</p>

[alioffe]

<p>Another thing I noticed that we all do not like watermarks. But looks like not all of us put copyright notice along with the name into EXIF data too. I realize this is not a strong protection but better than nothing.</p>

[derek_kennedy]

<p>left a comment on the photo, seems to be removed.</p>

[starvy]

<p>i found a picture of him!<br>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4281252828/</p>

[RobertChura]

<p>Starvy, maybe he stole that one too!</p>

[george_peng1]

<p>You do have to wonder why somebody would do this. One could argue a commercial motive, but that strikes me as unlikely (not being an expert on microstock). It seems that he just likes the anonymous adulation. Sort of sad, if you ask me.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>Stolen photos feature excessive saturation and photoshop tricks. <br /> "2/1."</p>

<p>1 for originality because there is no "minus 10."<br /> 2 for aesthetics because at least one point deserves to go to the photographer who got ripped off.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>That is, a 2/1 for our pilferer. </p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>I remember this shot being posted here, but I can't seem to find the thread now. i remember it because it was shot with a IR converted D50, and I use a D50.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4039282251/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4039282251/</a></p>

<p>If you read the comments, there are a couple of site admins for other sites asking this douche for permission to post the pic that he stole from someone else.</p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Here's the shot I was talking about. If anyone else recognises it and knows who took it, you might let that person know.</p>

<p><b>ADMIN EDIT:</b> Image removed. Per the TOU and the Community Guidelines, please do not upload photos to photo.net that you did not take yourself. If you need to reference someone else's image, please do so via a link.</p>

[janahughes]

<p>As I only look at photos on photo.net and I recognized quite few there already, I am sure they have been uploaded from here. </p>

[acarodp]

And this one:

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/33502065@N04/4098075756/

 

is a photo of Lev Daichik that was POTW in 2008...

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo.tcl?photo_id=5973439

 

The genius pumped up the saturation... I will write Lev to signal the fact.

 

 

L

[alioffe]

<p>I reported abuse to Flickr team, but they require to address it to special copyright team:<br>

<a href="http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html">http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html</a><br>

The procedure requires that the infridgement is reported by the copyright owner agains a particular picture. I know only one owner of one picture is Albena Markova and I e-mailed her. So the best I think we could achieve here that some of the pictures will be removed eventually if the owner will be fould and the owner will report.<br>

Inetersting how often such things happen? I personally never had expirience.</p>

[tonmestrom]

<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33502065@N04/4251695040/">this one</a> was shot by Tim Holte. Will e-mail him.</p>

[acarodp]

<p>Now it appears that the photo I spotted before is no longer visible (at least, I have no permission to see the page). It appears the guy noticed and his gallery went straight from 14 pages to 2 on my iPhone... What a marvelous human being.</p>

<p>L.</p>

[alioffe]

<p>He still has some pictures includng mine. I'm not telling him anything purposely. Just want to see can Yahoo's copyright protection team do something about it and may be he will learn a lesson</p>

[robert_k1]

<p>Philip of this site tried to pursue those who used his images without consent, and eventually gave up. <br /> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/images">http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/images</a> <br /> Scroll down to "A Personal Approach to Copyright".<br /> Instead, he came up with an alternate method to let off some steam, but that did not seem to have done much good either.<br /> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/hall-of-shame">http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/hall-of-shame</a> <br /> The above started over a decade ago, and things are not getting any better. I believe that we are ultimately responsible for protecting our work, starting with the following:<br /> - Do not distribute or publish any image online that you cannot afford to be stolen. I limit mine to small jpegs, and have learned to live with them being stolen.<br /> - In particular, do not give out your high resolution files, unless absolutely necessary. Once they are on a computer, they can stay there forever, can be easily transmitted and accessed by many. I avoid all online services that require or create such files, such as storing, printing, scanning, book publishing, etc. I do not submit to the ridiculous and clueless requests of "300dpi jpegs" for jurying. Few of these organizations would clarify how they would protect your files and how long they would keep them.<br /> - Before sending out any image, I establish the terms of use, in writing.<br /> - Lawyers are advocates of copyrights, for their vested interest. Without copyrights, they have no case and no profit</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>I think this is a wake-up call for all photographers of any description. Make sure you either do watermarks or metadata (or both). Don't put up big files on-line. It's sad, because I think big images have a better impact. I might not even put up images on Flickr anymore, except those which are snapshots. This might be an over-reaction, but I lose nothing by not posting photos. Thoughts?</p>