Mon, April 10th, 2006 by Miles
As the photoblogs community grows there have been more and more reports of members' images being used without their permission or even being stolen outright and posted on other sites with false attributions.
We feel that something must be done to support members and highlight those people that are aware that what they're doing is wrong and keep doing it. So, to start with, we have created a new category for the blog, 'Theft Reports', which we will use to report instances of image theft from our members and hopefully help discourage image theft.
This post is to highlight the image theft taking place on a photoblog called shanghaiviva. This site has posted many images from other photoblogs without attribution and, according to the about page, the images are "a selection of my latest projects". So far we've identified images from Chromasia, John Washington, Yamasaki, Chromegenic, Mute and possibly others. If you see your images on there let us know. So far the owner of this site hasn't responded to emails or comments asking them to remove the images.
April 10th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
http://www.shanghaiviva.com/index.php?showimage=54
This image is from Bob of notraces.com
April 10th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Unbelievable!
http://www.shanghaiviva.com/index.php?showimage=73
http://www.shanghaiviva.com/index.php?showimage=72
http://www.shanghaiviva.com/index.php?showimage=71
The above are from jinkyart.com.au
April 10th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
I found my images and others from well known sites on this site http://photo.wewww.org/ The images don't appear to be incorrectly accredited but are certainly an odd selection and not displayed in a manner that the originator intended.
I can't find a way of contacting whoever created this site to ask them to remove my images that have been put here without my knowledge or consent. There are worse crimes being commited I am sure but this is in the 'slightly annoying' bracket I suppose. Others may wish to check this site as well.
April 10th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Saw a few from Jinky Art on there too...
April 10th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
I forgot to add If no has used our images should we be relieved or dissapointed that we had nothing worth stealing.
April 10th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Miles, thanks for posting this and I agree, this is something that is happening more and more frequently and I think we do need to find a reliable and effective way of responing to it. Perhaps others could use these comments for suggestions about what we might do next.
Keith: I can see where you're coming from with your comments, but personally I think this goes beyond being 'slightly annoying'. This is deliberate theft.
If you look at this guy's about page you'll see that he describes himself as a digital artist and the art director at Yide.com, yet his 'portfolio' - the images he posts on his site - is made up of ripped off material, 41 of which are mine, including a photograph of my children.
In some cases people do reproduce our images because they don't understand how copyright legislation works, and in these cases a polite email normally serves to get the images (or images) taken down, but I can't believe that that's the case in this instance. This guy knows what he's doing, and he probably also knows that there isn't too much we can do about it.
What I would hope is that as a community - photographers, photobloggers, artists and so on - is that we can come up with some sort of protocol for dealing with these issues in a timely and effective manner.
April 10th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
There certainly is a difference between someone using your image for a header on their personal blog who will remove it when you ask and those who deliberately pass off their work as yours or use it in commercial projects.
Imagine taking a photograph of your son or daughter which you then proudly post on your blog only to see, three months later, it being used to advertise template designs. It's pretty sickening if you ask me.
I think the community has a responsibility to do whatever it can to prevent this kind of abuse of our work. More and more people are turning to photoblogs as a source of free images as they become more popular, not just people posting your images on their sites because they think it's cool but people taking credit for your work, professional designers and companies thinking we're too ignorant or uncaring to stop them. It's more common than you might think.
If we can publicise genuine cases of image theft here and we will also create a list of those people on a separate page that we will encourage google and other search engines to index with the appropriate description.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
/me cracks out the Pixelpost security hole notebook
did someone call?
April 10th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanghaiviva/tags/ass/page7/
I think that Ricko Pan is a pervert.See the "other" shots that he did.I just googled him and this is his FLICKR contribution.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
my site is nowhere near as popular as most of the ones that pics are stolen from, nevertheless i have found the following sites have stolen pics of mine. They are both very bizarre sites and in a foreign language. They take a while to load up.
http://www.river-man.blogfa.com./8411.aspx
(the black and white pic of the man staring out of the rainy window is mine..(scroll down, it's under the one of the Rolling Stones!). It was taken at the eaton centre, toronto. I have the negative.
http://mayqueen.blogbus.com/logs/2005/12/
This site has stolen pics also. Those who live dowtown toronto might recognize the guy with the rats who hangs around near osgoode hall. He even stole pics of paintings i have done. (i put the dildo there as a measure of revenge. He didn't rename the photo, so when that happens it's possible make a switch.)
If this is happening to a site like mine, which is largely off the popularity radar on photoblogs.org, then i'm sure it's fairly widespread and troublesome. Who knows what else is out there? I also noticed that at least two different people used paintings of mine as the background for their myspace.com pages. Not a terrible crime, but if you ask i'd probably say go ahead, just give me a little credit or link to me.
I guess people who aren't very creative have to sponge off others. be on the look out.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Great idea.
The japanese site looks like it may be hosted on Expressions.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
http://mayqueen.blogbus.com/logs/2005/12/1716322.html
Hi,there you can leave a comment there I did already and you can see what did I wrote.I thin ALL need to sign in and tell him that is not right thing to do.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
BIG honkin' tonkin' WATERMARK is a solution to the problems.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
With a site like that it's a little hard to know if the image is accredited or falsely claimed as their's, for me anyway since I don't read the language. I doubt the guy is trying to take credit for all those images - some of them are obviously 'professional' like the rolling stones one. But at the same time there doesn't seem to be any link back to your site. It's worth emailling the site if you can find an email and asking them to remove the images. You might find someone on the photoblogs.org google group who can translate.
I have found a lot of, especially Chinese, sites that use your RSS feed to basically recreate your site, but this is what RSS is for and as long as there's no false accreditation it's fair use.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
the language barrier is a problem with both... the site with one pic i'm not so concerned about...the japanese/chinese site however has taken dozens of pics and this is unacceptable. he has a gallery of my work that i did give permission for.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
"BIG honkin' tonkin' WATERMARK is a solution to the problems"
It would make stealing the images harder but it's something that should be a last resort, viewing images like that is a big turn off for me and many others I'm sure.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
i agree.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
i meant, did NOT give permission for in my above comment. Woops.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
maybe ripper hunting would feature it as well? the more exposure the better.
http://www.ripperhunting.com/
April 10th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
I think a number of people believe that once a photo is published on the Internet, it can be used freely. Our photos might also have been used offline, as in as book art, or in many other sites online that we will never be aware. Although a part of it is indeed sickening as Miles puts it, I think we have to accept the risk that we are -consciously or not- taking with posting our photos online.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Yes, there's a risk when you post your images online, but accepting that risk isn't the same as doing nothing about copyright violations when you see them.
There's a big difference between passively accepting that your images may be attributed to other people or used without your permission in commercial designs, and being conscious of and trying to do something about it.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
well, i suppose my work isnt that great, because those guys never seem to steal my stuff!! WHY!!...hehehe!
it is something i do think about, and i know someone who deleted her whole site (blogspot), because she fears someone will steal her work. i dont know of any real way to absolutely stop anyone from doing what they want with your work, but it doesnt hurt to make it as difficult as possible. a few weeks ago, somone on the google boards posted some html & java on how to overlay a blank gif on your work so that when someone wants to right click and save your image they just end up saving a blank gif. (apparently something flickr does?.. not sure) either way this got me thinking that if that image laying on top, was not blank but pieces of your image (or puzzle), and the underlying image was the rest of the image/puzzle. and all you had to do was create the code that would link the 2 image back up on your site. at least that would make it more difficult (of course someone could dwnld both images and patch them back up in photoshop... but hey! thats the best i can think of) i tried it, with this test page, and it seems to work kind well.
http://www.cobwebstudios.com/cws_photos_giftest.htm
of course its a few extra steps, but it really only took me another 2 or 3 mins to do. take my code and play around if youd like.
i realize this is really more for those who have a minimal amount of html and coding experience, and i guess PS skills (and trust me, i have a bare minimum) but im opening this up here, so that if any of you out there, who know more than i, can take this and make it easier/faster/simpler/better. build off this if youd want. dont know if its even something worth making better. but im kinda annoyed that work keeps getting shanghai'd from people like shanghaiviva
April 11th, 2006 at 12:05 am
StumbleUpon.com has probably thousands of illegally lifted images from blogs and websites on their site, and they "think" that they are immune from what is about to come!
They "do make money" from their site!
Look close enough, and long enough, and you will find hundreds of images on their that belong to those individuals who have already posted right here in this thread.
Although they state that they are not responsible for what their members post, they should learn a bit more along the lines of "vicarious liability", and so should their ISP who refuses a response!
I can easily see those mortgage payments melting away!!
April 11th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Well something happened, the section of shanghaiviva, that had the offending images, is down now and is now something about Shanghai street style.
April 11th, 2006 at 4:46 am
To Michael Brown;
I'm not sure what you mean. StumbleUpon doesn't host any content (as far as I am aware). It merely links to sites that it's users have suggested. You see the StumbleUpon URL in the address bar because it is "framing" the remote site. This is similar to the way Google image search works.
Although, Google has a policy of delisting sites with copyright violations - I'm not sure if SU does.
cheers..
April 11th, 2006 at 5:01 am
By the looks of it, shanghaiviva's other site has removed any and all material as well = http://www.hiricko.com/
Apart from having the stolen images removed from these sites, are there any other actions that can really be taken? A written apology on the site maybe, but that might be asking too much.
April 11th, 2006 at 8:45 am
dimitri,
I'm afraid the transparent gif isn't much of a deterrent, either. I have a Firefox extension that finds all images on a page and downloads them with just a couple of clicks. It found both the images on your site.
What I want to know is, how do you people FIND these stolen images of yours? Do you google the filename (which is easily changed)? Some of these ripoff sites are so random and obscure that I certainly wouldn't have ever noticed them. I'm not worried about addressing the problem once it's discovered, I'm more worried about the vast potential for ripoffs that no one will ever find.
April 11th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Way to go. Posting images on the web is always a risk, but like any cyber-assholery, it is possible to fight back. This is great idea, outing the jerks who steal images. The faster they are discredited, the faster they will be shut down. This is better solution than posting images with "BIG honkin' tonkin' WATERMARK", which in my opinion, is tantamount to defacing them. Where is this new Theft Reports blog? I'd like to link to it and spread the word. Keep up the good work.
April 11th, 2006 at 9:36 am
The site does seem to be down, that's great. There may be no apologies or contrition but as long as it's down and stays down I'm happy.
Beerzie Boy, the 'theft reports' are a category on this blog and we're going to be adding a special page with advice about what to do in cases like this and a 'list of shame' for repeat offenders who might not care about being chastised but might care that their names are associated with image theft in every search engine out there.
April 11th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Thanks; so much for my ability to read carefully. I have linked this section of our site and encourage others to do so, too. Is there some specific protocol folks need to follow for reporting image theft to you?
April 11th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Great result. Lets hope it stays down. To clarify my earlier comment I didn't consider that using an image without consent or accreditation was 'slightly annoying' I was refering to the site that I provided a link to that used images from a number of sites correctly accredited and even providing a link but it seemed to be a site initially intended to 'collate' images on which to hang some form of advertising. there is a subtle difference. Neither is acceptable but it is just short of outright theft or misaccreditation.
I personally dont even like sites that carry blatant advertising (a great strength of photoblogs.org I might add)or annoying pop ups so I would not like to see my images used to provide a link to loans or mortgages or whatever was intended. Anyway this is a topic that will run and run. Well done for the theft report page.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:26 am
At the moment we're putting together some information on this but if anyone knows of any instances of image theft drop us a line using the 'Submit a Story' contact form and we'll look into it.
I think the first move on anyone's part should be to try and contact the site owner and have any stolen images removed. If that doesn't work then we'll do what we can here.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:41 am
when this 'special page' is made for image theft, will there be a button or something to link to the page, so we can place it on our site? id certainly put it up. maybe help deter some of those who dont know what they are doing is wrong. (if thats even possible)
and renee, i realize that both of those images can be dwnld through firefox, but its putting another hurdle in front of those who want to try and steal your imagery. and at least that will more than certainly stop people from hotlinking directly to an image. hopefully someone who knows more can build upon something like that and come up with some kind of effective way of stopping people from dwnld images at all. (if even possible yet)
April 11th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Dimitri, that's one of the things we're discussing. If people link to the page using the same text then google will pick up on that, it's basically like creating a 'google bomb'. The text of the link will likely be 'image theft'.
April 12th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I'm not surprised someone has already mentioned Stumbleupon. I've been having big problems lately with various members hotlinking to my images and even taking them and uploading them to another server.
The problem is that it's a completely anonymous service. There's no way, that I can tell, to get in touch with the members taking my work and telling them to remove it. I would be happy to do that (or at least try it first) rather than just breaking a link or asking an image hosting service to remove my copyrighted material, but I don't have that option.
The problem with Stumbleupon in particular, and I'm sure it applies to various other similar situations, is that the users don't seem to be very sophisticated web users. I really think that most of them just don't know any better. That's not an excuse for what they're doing, however.
By the way, transparent .gifs aren't a good way to stop hotlinking. The best way is through an .htaccess file. I have transparent .gifs in place right now, though, to at least discourage some of the thieves.
The thing is, most of the images I've found have been attributed to me, but I still find it offensive that people are reproducing them without asking. I have contact info on my website, it's not hard to get in touch with me.
It also bothers me because I feel that having my photos on someone else's anonymous link-filled site cheapens them, in my opinion.
April 12th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Again, ........ StumbleUpon?
Believe me, ..... it's only a matter of time.
The owners and members are both liable, but it is the owners that will be dealt with.
The owners are providing the means, in this case.
And, it probably has the most hotlinking of images from any site on the internet.
So many will try to work around the issues of hotlinking, using various terms/thoughts/ideas about it.
By law, ...... it is theft. Plain and simple!
Just wait, and see what happens next. It does take time!
April 13th, 2006 at 7:23 am
I alter/create graphics from ones I find on Google image search. Although i'm sure I havent stepped on any bloggers toes, perhaps tagging your pictures with the site url is an answer, I try to remember to do this, but as I generally work pretty fast, I often forget!
Feel free to check I haven't stolen your graphics -
http://nobodystopme.blogspot.com
April 19th, 2006 at 2:02 am
I am fairly new to photoblogging, but I've been aware from the start that there's the possibility of image theft. (Even after assuming there is a demand).
So I have reluctantly been putting watermarks on all images before uploading them to my server. I too believe it is like defacing them in a way - a lot of hard work has gone into them and that's just not how I intended them to look.
I have been looking at putting a more subtle watermark on them - one which is not immediately obvious but will be spotted after viewing the image more closeley. The watermarks are smaller and quite faint. And usually placed in a shadow or a busy place in the image. This is what I already do on my prints. You can't see the watermark straight away so the overall impression of the image is not spoilt. But you can see it after a while. I don't know how well this will work on smaller web images as you have less pixels to play with. It's something I will look at next time I post images on my site.
Dimitri - I like the idea of the transparent gif. It's another obstacle against image theft. And I've tried to figure out how you do it from your code. Do you know any pages/links where the process is explained.
I doubt I would give permission for anyone to show my photographs on another site even with due credit and links back. As I would prefer the viewer to see them in the way that I've worked hard to achieve and have control over.
April 20th, 2006 at 3:46 am
Here are the registered details of the URL, (the email address is ricko_wiki@citiz.net):
Domain Name ..................... shanghaiviva.com
Name Server ..................... dns1.hichina.com
dns2.hichina.com
Registrant ID ................... hc072653464-cn
Registrant Name ................. wei pan
Registrant Organization ......... panwei
Registrant Address .............. SHAIHAI
Registrant City ................. shanghaishi
Registrant Province/State ....... shanghai
Registrant Postal Code .......... 200124
Registrant Country Code ......... CN
Registrant Phone Number ......... +86.02158416619 -
Registrant Fax .................. +86. -
Registrant Email ................ ricko_wiki@citiz.net
Administrative ID ............... hc072653464-cn
Administrative Name ............. wei pan
Administrative Organization ..... panwei
Administrative Address .......... SHAIHAI
Administrative City ............. shanghaishi
Administrative Province/State ... shanghai
Administrative Postal Code ...... 200124
Administrative Country Code ..... CN
Administrative Phone Number ..... +86.02158416619 -
Administrative Fax .............. +86. -
Administrative Email ............ ricko_wiki@citiz.net
Billing ID ...................... hichina001-cn
Billing Name .................... hichina
Billing Organization ............ HiChina Web Solutions Limited
Billing Address ................. 3/F., HiChina Mansion
No.27 Gulouwai Avenue
Dongcheng District
Billing City .................... Beijing
Billing Province/State .......... Beijing
Billing Postal Code ............. 100011
Billing Country Code ............ CN
Billing Phone Number ............ +86.01064242299 -
Billing Fax ..................... +86.01064258796 -
Billing Email ................... domainadm@hichina.com
Technical ID .................... hichina001-cn
Technical Name .................. hichina
Technical Organization .......... HiChina Web Solutions Limited
Technical Address ............... 3/F., HiChina Mansion
No.27 Gulouwai Avenue
Dongcheng District
Technical City .................. Beijing
Technical Province/State ........ Beijing
Technical Postal Code ........... 100011
Technical Country Code .......... CN
Technical Phone Number .......... +86.01064242299 -
Technical Fax ................... +86.01064258796 -
Technical Email ................. domainadm@hichina.com
Expiration Date ................. 2006-10-20 05:09:17
April 21st, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Although the information by gribbly may be publicly accesible I think there may some legal issues with republishing them here. I believe the information is part of a dataset, therefore the original content creator and publisher has copyright ownership of it and some of these folks don't play with kid gloves when it comes to their copyright being breached.
I know that this is ironic but I wouldn't want to see Brandon being sued for breaching copyright.
I would recommend removing the post or contacting a lawyer to see what your legal position is.
Regards,
Jeremy
April 21st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Wait... You're saying that I could legitimately be sued for what some random person posts to a public forum hosted on my server? Of course I'd like to protect myself legally, but what you're saying sounds alarmist.
Also, there are an endless number of sites that display this information. Are you saying that all the sites like the following one are unlawful?
http://www.whois.net/whois.cgi2?d=shanghaiviva.com
If I get a cease and desist letter, I would probably just comply with it immediately. But until then, I'm not going to flip out over this.
April 21st, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Brandon,
This is based on things I've read in the papers.
Although whois or others may be publishing this information and may not be the original content creator they may be paying a fee to the original owners to be able to publish the information. Although you may not have uploaded the content by gribbly I have read of cases where the owners of sites like this, being held responsable for the content in defamation and copyright breaches. Yes, it's stupid.
In the same way that sites such as flikr will remove copyrighted material, if only to ensure that they don't get sued, not from some feel good motive.
And please don't ask me for specific examples, I just read the stuff and it's abstract implications get stored away in the old brain.
I'm just trying to point out an issue that may have adverse effects on your financial well being.
Regards,
Jeremy
April 22nd, 2006 at 11:49 am
I just replied to your email about this. Now I see your response here, too. Would you rather talk about this over email or on the blog?
In any event, you say "please don't ask me for specific examples." Why not? That seems like the responsible thing to do.
If you're going to say that my financial well-being is at stake, then you should really take the time to make sure that what you're saying is valid.
It just seems wrong to claim that the sky is falling and then ask someone else to research whether or not you're right.
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Brandon,
I've had a quick look through that link you sent me and some other stuff and it looks like I'm quite wrong with my original post, my appologies for that, I feel quite the fool.
Although a lot more confused now, it looks like the whole fair use/ part of whole work/ take down notice etc canoodle applies in this case.
Anyhoo, thanks for you comprehensive email which I'll reply to soon.
Regards,
Jeremy
April 27th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I'm knew to photoblogging (I'm not on Photoblogs.org as the submit page is still down), but I do run a photography website where my images are constantly hot-linked to and other images are constantly being used and credited to other people.
May 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
If Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Cartier with their crack squads of fraudster sniffer dogs out on the trail can't stop the copying what's a humble photoblogger to do. I would suggest that unless you see your picture on billboards being used to promote a sexy new and very expensive line of underwear then forget it and concentrate on taking pictures. Just a thought.
May 12th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
i'm so sorry about it
i just like those pictures and i save it for your web/blog,and upload into my weblog, it's just a collection for me,because i like it....
ok,all photo and photoBlog code was deleted.
i 'm not a Theft.i just like this pictures.
i forgot write "author " is my fault .
if you are want to ask me Sth.
add me msn
shanghai_viva@hotmail.com
i'll be say sorry for you
June 30th, 2006 at 9:44 am
seriously folks, i can understand how it must feel to have someone steal your images, have you ever thought to leave a message requesting them to email you for a approval or disapproval, maybe suggesting that on conditions you get a mention somewhere on their website, if you agree to let them use your images, because where else can new people to building their own sites get pictures from, myspace and xanga just dont have the images most people want, it would save alot of fighting and anger, because at the moment there is alot of it, if i had a site with my images and i got them copied i would be annoyed, but on the other hand i would realise that they like what they see, wouldnt that make you feel special or knowing your site must be good if they did that, after all they are not really originals, they are copied images, are they not?
i just think the stress can be alleviated by negotiating or simply leaving a request for permission before copying, you want your work or site to be found right? how can anyone know that your site exists if not passed on through another source, where myspace and xanga are a very popular sites with millions of members who can spread the word quickly about your sites, by using your images with your consent.
well the choice is yours and up to the sites of whose images are being copied, but personally i dont see any crime being committed here, only communication breakdown between people.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:53 am
also i forgot to add, dont make people feel awful about creating something, fair enough its your work that you did, but why all the anger? no-one deliberately takes, its a world wide web stated "internet resources" thats what your pages are arent they? well any how disputes over copying images, is it really that bad? is it worth the worry? what is this world coming to, like i say welcome to the internet my friends!!
July 15th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
If a person uses a link to your work or a picture of your work, it can be either theft or can bring you added attention and recognition. If in their display the item can clearly be clicked on to get back to your website or it is labeled with your name or website information then I don't think it is truly "theft". If you are offended by it or if it is absolutely causing you mental and financial anguish then contact them to remove it. Most internet users are not out to ruin your careers.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Good one Justin on the watermarks thing. I imagine the ones that are blatantly obvious work as more of a deterent but of course they ruin the pic. I guess that's why you only see them on some online shops.