Stolen photos on Flikr

[Steam Is King]

I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Along that same line of thinking... your car is fair game if parked on a public street instead of in a garage, right?

Chico

[Anonymous]

I don't go on Flickr to look at trains LOL

I see enough of them at work .

[Erie Lackawanna]

I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Along that same line of thinking... your car is fair game if parked on a public street instead of in a garage, right?

Chico

 

Well said, Sir.

[Steam Is King]

I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Along that same line of thinking... your car is fair game if parked on a public street instead of in a garage, right?

Chico

 

Well said, Sir.

Thank you.

I used to go by the name of "Mister Analogy".

Chico

[Ottercove]

From someone who's photos were involved with this "theft" to those that think it's no big deal...  I'm glad you're not in charge at Yahoo.   They not only have a program in place to deal with copyright issues, but they took action in this case.  Several photos were removed by Yahoo after being notified.   Meantime the owner of the accounts (there were nearly 1000 photos taken from Railpictures.net)  became quite aware of hornets nest he stirred up and pulled all the rest and offered a contrite explanation and apology to the adminstrator of the website. 

To echo, the words of others here, just because some don't think it's a big deal, doesn't make it so.   You need no permission to take photos from public location and you have every right to protect your creation.   That protection in part comes from the copyright notice that is made part of every photo posted to Railpictures.   Which in this case was summarily removed before being reposted to Flickr, along with a notice that the now stolen photo was copyrighted by the owner of the Flickr account. 

I personally spend a fair amount of time, effort and money to create my images and I know many others on RP that do the same.  I'm slowly trying to make some money from this hobby.  Railpictures.net provides a method of doing so.  I have sold photos that were first "found" on that site and I know of several other photographers that have as well.  Some of there photos ended up on the Flicker accounts.   So crying we might be, but you might as well if people were taking away the opportunity to make a few bucks. 

Steve Carter

[CNW 6000]

I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Along that same line of thinking... your car is fair game if parked on a public street instead of in a garage, right?

Chico

So anything not locked up/bolted down somewhere, somehow is fair game to whom ever finds it or comes across it?  That's a pretty lame way to live man.

[Poppa_Zit]

I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Along that same line of thinking... your car is fair game if parked on a public street instead of in a garage, right?

Chico

So anything not locked up/bolted down somewhere, somehow is fair game to whom ever finds it or comes across it?  That's a pretty lame way to live man.

I think that was his whole point, Dan.  What Chico wrote was meant as irony to miketx's "logic". It was well said because many people DO live that way.

[CNW 6000]

I sure hope that was irony PZ.  Thanks for the 'correction'.

[zardoz]

cry me  a river  gee you guys are a pain in the caboose, it seems to me that your crying over someone using or taking pics that you dont have permission to have. sorta like taking pictures of crews on trains with out the permission of them saying it  alright and the crews opinion dont mean squat. as far as im concerned  once its on the electronic billboard its far game. go cry some where else you dont have anything to gripe about

Seems like he is under the impression that no one can photograph a train crew without its permission.

Yet he says "as far as im[sic] concerned once its[sic] on the electronic billboard its[sic] far[sic] game".

Would that constitute a double-standard?

If not a double-standard, then at least an attempted murder of the English language....

[miniwyo]

Once they are online, they ARE fair game, BUT You do still hold the copyright on it and you do have the right to stop people from using them. If they use them without credit (they don't even have to say that they are their own) they are legally obligated to remove them if you request.

Use Watermarks! I am in the process of adding a watermark to all of mine. When you place them, place them in an area with the most detail so they are harder to remove. You can also make them nearly invisible withougt looking for it, and then when you make a claim, you can point it out and they will finally notice it, and realize they have been caught. Until that watermark comes in to play, it is one work against the others. I keep all my RAW files and Negaties for just this reason. And like Chris sad, Use Low Res images. If they want a good detail at full screen, they cant blow it up without making it pixelated or blurry. Also one way to protect yourself, Post your photos on a site that allows Artist comments, Post a disclaimer stating tha tyou hold the copyright on it. Also look for one with viewer comments, If you have alot of people seeing it, there is a good chance that they will let you know if they see your images elsewhere. Another thing to look at, sometimes(not all the time) ripped off photos will lose thier EXIF data, so that may help identify the originals too. 

[Steam Is King]

Once they are online, they ARE fair game, BUT You do still hold the copyright on it and you do have the right to stop people from using them. If they use them without credit (they don't even have to say that they are their own) they are legally obligated to remove them if you request.

There is absolutely nothing true in the above statement. Go back and read the previous posts and stop enabling intellectual property thieves, okay? Just what we needed, another copyright law expert to chime in with total misinformation.

Chico

[chatanuga]

Here's an idea for if people are linking your photos on their sites (ie. the photo is on your site, and they are using the URL of the pic to have the pic on their site).  Rename the photo and then take an offensive pic and rename it to what the photo originally was and put it in the photo's place.  After a while, they'll get enough complaints that they'll pull the viewable image of their site and post a link.  Worked like a charm on a message board I go to where somebody did that with a pic of mine.  It was using up my site's bandwidth with the increase in traffic so I substituted in a photo of an invention I made in college during a night of drinking:  duct tape fly jeans.  They got the point very quickly.

Kevin

http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html

http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html

[fuzzybroken]

We will not resolve this issue any time soon.  It may be as hopeless as trying to educate more people about "photo-line etiquette" at railfan events ....

Great point, Dave!

I am glad this discussion came up because I have an internet photography ethics question.Is it wrong to post a picture on Flickr e-mailed to you by someone else for the purpose of storing it?

Here's my take on George's question: Flickr has an option to keep certain photos non-public; while that would certainly keep it out of the public arena, I would still ask the photographer for permission to put it in a place like Flickr, if the photographer is known.  If the photographer is not known, there would likely be no real recourse for the photographer anyway, since the photo is not posted publicly.

I used to regularly post e-mails that were forwarded to me, and I was contacted in one case to properly attribute a particular poem to its author, which I did promptly.  In another case, someone re-posted one of my pages, only problem was that they took along some of my page formatting, so I suddenly discovered that my "no hotlinking" image was popping up on their MySpace.  The user had no problem removing the offending images, and I had no problem with their reposting the poem.

As far as  the original topic goes, wouldn't it have saved the offending individual a whole lot of time and embarassment to just post links to the photos?  I mean, they're already on the internet, and there are services that make it simple to organize groups of links like this -- del.icio.us comes to mind.  At least the individual was called on his misdeeds, and was apologetic about it.  Anybody heard the saga of Kevin Corazza?  He was swiping other people's Flickr photos, posting them on his own site as his own work, and when he was called on it, threatened those whose work he had stolen with legal action!  What a knob, but he did end up backing down in the end.

A photographer may think his or her photos are nothing special and may give them away.  That is his or her perogative.  But that does not mean that such a surrendered claim applies to all photographers' work.  This business about phtotos being fair game on the net is nonsense.

Photo plagerism, as a sub-set of theft, has its own subculture, from what I gather through this discussion.  When I download a copy of a photo (or any other internet item not purchased) to my local hard drive, so I can refer to it while offline, is that theft?  

Certainly, posting that photo and getting credit for having taken it is not right.  

...

I for one am gratefull for the photos shared here by the members of this forum, and that they havent chosen to keep them to themselves.  Thanks to all who have in the past and who will in  the future share those pictures...

I've had several people contact me about doing just that.  I've also had people contact me about using my photos on other sites.  I don't have any problems with the former, and I'm usually okay with the latter, but I always appreciate those who do contact me!

And I'll be happy to keep posting photos on my ever-growing site...   Now I just gotta figure out how to get 'em done faster! 

Several years ago I had some photos posted on racing from the past.  I've seen one of the photos on two different sites in the last year in memorial threads to one of the drivers.  In both cases I was given credit for the photo.  So that's been my only experience.  No one asked me if they could use my picture, but I have to agree with those who say once it's on the internet, it's fair game, right or wrong.

Gonna disagree with ya here, Mike: those people should have contacted you.  At least they gave you credit.  I agree with the earlier post about the car parked on the street: If somebody "borrowed" it without my permission, just because it was on a public street, I think know I would have some serious problems with that!!!

 

 

[zugmann]

Let me address the car anaolgy.  Posting your photos on the internets is like leaving your car on the street, keys in it, running, $100 and a bottle of JD on the front seat.  What do you expect will happen?

Is it right? No.  But get your head out of the clouds.  The world is not going to suddenly change and people are not going to stop stealing photos.  I am not an enabler, I am a realist.  With the  growing global economy, intellectual rights are going to get less important.  

 

[CNW 6000]

With the  growing global economy, intellectual rights are going to get less important.

Funny...I would think that with competition for limited dollars on the rise that statement would be the opposite.

[Anonymous]

I would say that with the growing globalization, intellectual property rights will be just as important, but grow less effective because they will be harder to enforce.

[zugmann]

Said it better than I could. 

 

I would say that with the growing globalization, intellectual property rights will be just as important, but grow less effective because they will be harder to enforce.

[CNW 6000]

I would say that with the growing globalization, intellectual property rights will be just as important, but grow less effective because they will be harder to enforce.

Makes more sense.  No offense Zug.

[tree68]

Gonna disagree with ya here, Mike: those people should have contacted you.

  A somewhat slippery slope, unfortunately.  In order for folks to contact you, they need an address.  If you include your e-mail address, you're providing one more way for the data-miners to pick up your address and add you to the mountains of spam traversing the net nowadays (which I read someplace now amounts to over 80% of all Internet traffic).

At least they gave you credit. 

Indeed.  Unless I'm trying to sell the photos, I'm happy with that.  Occasionally I'll credit a photo to my fire department instead of myself.  PR, if you will.

[fuzzybroken]

Gonna disagree with ya here, Mike: those people should have contacted you.

  A somewhat slippery slope, unfortunately.  In order for folks to contact you, they need an address.  If you include your e-mail address, you're providing one more way for the data-miners to pick up your address and add you to the mountains of spam traversing the net nowadays (which I read someplace now amounts to over 80% of all Internet traffic).

Doesn't surprise me a bit.  I've still always provided a way to contact me, and while my early methods did produce a lot of spam, I've become wise to their tactics, and my more-recent efforts to display contact options have at least one layer of protection.  E-mail addresses aren't particularly permanent, and I've had to change mine a few times.  Another tip, don't use your regularly-scheduled e-dress for your contact information (or for signing up to "newsletters", "promotional offers", and the like), create an alternate address.  Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and AIM Mail are all free: that's three alternate "contact" addresses that are easily tossed, and that doesn't include the multitude of others that are out there!  (Spammers used to do this too, but now they just send automatically-generated junk e-mails with fake From information.  Nice. )  My current project is putting together a contact form, which I'm sure spambots will regularly try to crack.  

[zugmann]

Makes more sense.  No offense Zug.

 

Absolutely none taken.