Someone Stole my Photo!
I was thankfully sent an email by someone this morning who recognised a photo on someone’s flickr stream as a crop of my Smiley Face Conjunction photo. The photo on flickr is called Clouds, and you can clearly see it’s a crop of my image.
I posted a comment demanding that the photo be removed, but the user deleted my comment and blocked me from posting further comments. I also sent them an email demanding it be removed. I have reported the copyright infringement to the Yahoo Copyright Infringement people, and hopefully they will do something about it.
I’m very disappointed and angered that someone would do this. I wonder what other photos on this users stream are stolen!?
Have you ever had this done to you? What other action can you take?
If you’re a member on flickr and you’re as outraged as me, perhaps consider leaving a negative comment. It will probably get deleted but it might help all the same.
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posted in Miscellaneous | 6 Comments
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of 
I couldn’t resist I posted a taunt on the thief’s site
I wonder if I’ll be blocked too.
Ha, I’m blocked too now.
might beworth joining the award groups she’s part of and letting them know she’s cheating….
hah! Well it’s been removed now, which is a good thing.
She’ll probably just do it again under a different name. I think all the photos in her stream are probably stolen.
In this particular case i wouldn’t take it to serious to be honest. I reckon most shots on that account are “stolen” as i recognize a lotus shot that is not hers as well. Take it as a compliment instead. Apart from this case, sure its a real hassle with people nicking your shots. Though i must admit that its surprising how the astrophotography community in general is so open (and maybe naive?)and rarely protect images with watermarks. Considering the massive amount of work and time that is behind a major part of the images its even more surprising.
While its awful to see a protective watermarks, specially over a astro image or even an ordinary landscape image i reckon thats a thing we have to learn to live with in the future unfortunately. In the sports/event field of photography (i shoot equestrian events) if one wouldn’t take every single measure to protect the images the sales would drop considerably. I have to do whatever it takes really to protect the images from the events i cover, like posting very small low quality samples, watermarked of course, right click disabled etc.
Quite right Michael – I’m not too concerned about it.
I agree – I just don’t have the time or patience to go to all the effort to fully protect my work. It’s just not worth it for me and it looks ugly.
I can understand why professional photographers have to though – it’s their income! Their living!
Thanks for your comment.
Mike I may be late with this but It is gone now. Removed deleted etc. The date today is 2/3/2010. Don’t know if you knew but I thopught I’d let you know just in case. Hate theft and Plagrism.