Unpleasant Surprises
by Dave Wilson on Jan.27, 2011, under Photography
Most of my images are licensed under a Creative Commons license which allows non-commercial use without people having to contact me to ask permission. This has worked pretty well but occasionally I have to send letters to folks who are using pictures for commercial use – real estate agents and Wired.com come to mind. In most of these cases, the infringer decides to remove the image rather than pay for a license and in all of these cases so far, the infringement has been on a web site. Tonight, however, I experienced my largest and most blatant example of image theft.
On arriving home from work, I picked up a telephone directory that had been left at the end of the driveway and was amazed to discover one of my pictures on the front cover. At no point had I licensed this image to anyone for commercial use – it’s been sold as an art print a few times but not as a stock license. Looking through the directory, I found the same image used twice more in advertisements for the directory company. I have to assume that they found the image on Flickr and decided to use it in the hope that the owner would not complain. They made no attempt to contact me prior to using the image despite the fact that my contact details are clearly advertised on Flickr. Tomorrow, I’ll give them a call to check the circulation (probably around 100,000-150,000 given the number of households in the 4 counties they distribute the directory to) then invoice them for the usage. If they choose to ignore my gentle reminder, we’ll see where it goes after that.
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Tweets that mention Unpleasant Surprises | News and Views from Dave Wilson -- Topsy.com
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 9:52 pm[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Scott Wyden Kivowitz, Dave Wilson, Bryan Espinoza, Julia W, Toad Hollow and others. Toad Hollow said: This is utterly terrible! RT @tphoto10 Ug:( good luck Dave RT @dawilson: Blog post – Unpleasant Surprises http://bit.ly/hKbyUd […]
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News: The Good and the Bad « Places 2 Explore
February 3rd, 2011 on Feb 03, 11 | 12:02 pm[…] had a blatant un-approved usage of one of his photos recently. Â You can read about it here….Dave Wilson. Â As photographers reach more people these days due to social media and word of mouth, viewership […]
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Copyright Infringement Update | News and Views from Dave Wilson
April 21st, 2011 on Apr 21, 11 | 8:04 pm[…] under Photography If you were following this blog back in late January, you may remember that I had my first serious case of copyright infringement when a local telephone directory company decided to pick up one of my photos from Flickr and use it […]
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January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 9:25 pm
Good luck Dave. No doubt your images are worthy of putting on the cover of this book, but not to the extent of stealing!
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 9:39 pm
Send a DMCA letter and a bill!
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 9:52 pm
If all else fails, try http://www.photoattorney.com/
Good luck Dave!
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 10:03 pm
Did you register the image with the FTC? If not. damages will be much lower if you have to go to court.
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 10:13 pm
heard about this via a tweet from greta olivas; keep us informed and best of luck and success for you
January 27th, 2011 on Jan 27, 11 | 11:56 pm
Good luck, Dave! Keep us apprised of the situation!
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 12:09 am
Lawsuit! Did not see this yet but I bet I have the same book.
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 2:21 am
I do the same. Just send an invoice for usage- with an extra admin charge for delayed payment. Usually works fine. Good luck.
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 7:36 am
I took a closer look through the directory last night and see at least 18 uses of the image from the cover to 1/4 page ads to some spot use. Basically, it’s in every one of the ads for the company that produced the directory.
I’m going to invoice with a strongly worded letter to begin with (pricing for each individual infringement which will no doubt end up being more than they would have paid had they approached me first) and will talk to my attorney if they fail to pay the invoice.
Scott – I wonder how a takedown notice would work with a physical publication? I’ve had people infringe on web sites before so removing the image is pretty straightfoward there. With these books in the wild, though, I can’t see there’s any way to quickly undo the damage.
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 9:05 am
It is an awesome photo but the theft and blatant disregard for copyright laws is incredibly stupid. Good Luck with the battle and I hope you get paid appropriately! Keep us posted and if there is any help you need from us I am sure the Austin photog community will help support you.
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 11:02 am
They’re going to have to pay you. With the books out there there’s no choice for them. Make it a hefty bill!
A similar thing happened to me 2 years ago. A friend called to let me know that one of my images appeared in a magazine along with a poem on the merits of travel. It looked like the poet had taken the shot. A few friendly phone calls later I was compensated. Apparently it was the fault of a new editor, and his oversight……
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 2:41 pm
The fact that these folks decided to use the picture without any license automatically makes me bill for each one of the 18 infringements as separate uses. If they had asked in advance, I would have offered a license that would have covered all 18. You can be assured that the bill will be significant!
January 28th, 2011 on Jan 28, 11 | 4:03 pm
Dave, sorry this happened to you. However sounds like you have them by the balls. I love it. Cha Ching! 🙂
January 29th, 2011 on Jan 29, 11 | 12:03 am
Got my phone book with your image all over it. I usually send these phone books straight to the recycle bin but I think I will keep this as an example. Best of luck going after this company and their blatant lack of respect for copyright law and general decency.
January 29th, 2011 on Jan 29, 11 | 9:09 am
Good luck Dave, sounds like they owe you a lot! Great image BTW. Jim
February 2nd, 2011 on Feb 02, 11 | 5:23 pm
Best of luck with this – It’s hard to stop people taking the images and unless you watermark right over the middle of the shot you can’t make it unusable.
The least you can do is disable download Flickr. I’ve got into the habit of only uploading 750 height shots too. Hopefully even a screengrab wont be good enough res for publication.
I’ll keep an eye out for your progress.
February 3rd, 2011 on Feb 03, 11 | 12:11 pm
Wow Dave, that stinks, good luck!