RedBubble's refusal to address issue of watermarking

I have been a member of the print site, RedBubble for several years.  Over the past year or so, I have constantly found my work illegally on websites and blogs where the metadata of my infringed work indicates that the infringer lifted the image from RedBubble.  While RB does watermark the large thumbnail on the site, it refuses to place watermarks on smaller thumbnails which are, of course, able to be used for web use.  The lack of watermark is an open invitation to infringers who appear to think that without a watermark, images are not protected by copyright laws.  Wrong, of course but its the constant refrain from infringers.  One of the infringers actually admitted to my US attorney that the image was obtained from RB without the watermark.  I brought this up last year with RB and was fobbed off.  So, again, within the past week, I tried again and what followed was something out of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  I wrote asking why they were not watermarking thumbnail images explaining that they were being nicked constantly.  I got the usual, probably computer generated response "thanks for writing...really sorry about the copyright infringements...protection is of upmost importance...unfortunately its near impossible to prevent ..." and then a load of waffle.  Nothing to justify keeping unwatermarked images, my images, on their site.  It would appear that they only believe that folk download images to print out at home so they would not download low res as it would not look good on paper.  Little do they know that images are downloaded for website and blog use.   And then they closed the thread.   Warming to the subject, I sent them the following which appeared on 30 November:

"You never addressed the issue of watermarking ALL sizes (if the photographer requests this).  I have brought this up before and the matter was "closed" when it was never addressed or answered satisfactorily.  I am battling constant infringements of my work where the image, according to the metadata on the infringer's site, states that the image came from RedBubble.  What is so difficult about watermarking ALL image sizes?  Even small images can be used on websites unlicensed and without permission.  Amongst the photographer community (who are constantly dealing with infringements), RedBubble is mentioned as one of the worst offenders for allowing unwatermarked out in cyberspace."

The above appeared on the now open thread in RB.  Today, December 3,  I received the following:

"Thanks again for writing to us with your suggestion - its great to see such passion and dedication for the enhancement of the Redbubble.com experience!  Have a great day:)"

And then they closed the thread.  Again.

It was straight out of Alice in Wonderland.  I then sent them a response via their email address and it bounced as Spam.  How's that for adding insult to injury.  I am seriously thinking of removing all of my work from RB and I am not the only one thinking this way.  Hundreds of my images are on Pinterest and 95% of them are taken from RedBubble.

Update:  Because of their complete inaction, I cancelled my account with RedBubble in July 2013.  Nuff said.

Passing off ...or an accident?

There is a stoush over at RedBubble when Sydney photographer, Peter Hill found one of his (alleged) images  for sale by another photographer.  Peter confronted this passing off and the journal of the photographer has gone from a scant apology to indignant statements that the image (of a rose) was actually his and it was a rose which was given to his wife by a neighbour.  All this is arrant nonsense.  The alleged person who is passing this image off as his noted that he did not have any details of the camera when he checked the Picasa  program when Peter confronted him.  But on the original RedBubble journal of his which showed this image of the rose, he stated the following camera details:  "Panasonic Lumix GH2 at 32 mm, 14/140 lens, 1/30 f/8, ISO 160...etc etc" so where did these details suddenly come from.  The image was taken by Peter Hill on a Canon 5D3 and he also has similar images of the rose taken on the same day.  He keeps deleting my posts questioning how he came by these details.  Details of the stoush can be found here  Too late, he has deleted his journal page.   You can find Peter Hill's RB journal regarding this image here

Sydney photographer "appropriated images from Getty"

Sydney based photographer, Ben Ali Ong eventually admitted that he had appropriated images:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/art-world-in-a-flap-as-it-takes-stock-of-contentious-images-20120831-255nj.html

According to the Herald's arts journalist, Adam Fulton " Ong, 30, told the Herald he took those photos himself and that claims he did not were false and "heartbreaking". But then he suggested he had "recreated" the pictures. ''I cut out things that I like, and if I like it I will recreate it … and change it to my style.''  A day later, however, the gallery confirmed the contentious images were sourced from Getty Images and that the artist had ''appropriated'' them. He did this occasionally."

Looking at the two images published in the article, little to me has been "recreated" at all. The original work has been converted to mono then added a background texture with a grainy effect.  The questions are, firstly, why would he allegedly do this in the first place, risking his reputation and secondly  why on earth would he have sourced it from Getty? - beats me!   Of course, being a photographer I wondered if anything of mine had been "appropriated" (well, you would, wouldn't you!!) but his website appears to be down.  Hmmmm....  If this is considered as passing off, it has got to be one of the biggest sins a photographer could ever do to a fellow photographer and amazingly, it appears to be condoned by some folk in this article as "art" and therefore quite acceptable.

I have tracked one of the images to a wildlife photographer who lives in Virginia, US and I have emailed him asking him if he is aware of the controversy raging in the art world 12,000 km away.  Will keep you posted.

Comments would be welcome!

Another Getty/Beijing portal rip off

Sigh.  Opened July statements to find that Getty's Beijing portal had "topped up" the license in May of my rights managed image on cell/mobile phone casings by the gigantic amount of $2.38.  The original license was $1.19 (of which I will receive 36 cents) and now totals $3.57 for use in China only.  Yeah, right.  I wonder when I will see these phones on sale in Australia (outside the territory).  The fact that Getty admitted that they have no control over third party pricing does not bode well for photographers whose work gets snapped up by this Beijing company and licensed for next to nothing.  This is probably worse than microstock pricing.    Of course, this will be renewed next year, again for next to nothing, even though my contract had expired but Getty can renew the license one more time within a year of the contract cancellation.  

Dropping Getty

After two years or more as a Getty contributor (via Flickr), I have cancelled my contract with Getty Images.  While they licensed several of my images early on for reasonable fees, there seemed to be a definite downward trend in fees for my work.  Of course, I am not alone as lowball pricing is endemic in the stock image industry.  I guess the last straw was when Getty licensed one of my rights managed images via their Beijing portal for use on mobile phone covers for the princely sum of $1.19, of which I received 36 cents.  This was a renewal of a license fee for usage last year ($4.19) and which I questioned Getty about before the renewal.  Of course, I received no response.   My most recent sale via Getty was also a renewal but at 50% of the original license fee.  At this rate, photographers will soon be paying buyers to license their work!  Due to their exclusivity, it was just not economic for me to license work for 36 cents.  What the most astounding comment from Getty when they eventually (after a month or so of nagging) commented on the license by the Beijing portal was that they had no control of third party pricing.  Astonishing to say the least.  If that is true, then someone in Getty's legal department stuffed up big time if this was written into the three year contract with the Chinese company.

I was never entirely happy having Getty license my work.  Their appalling commission (they keep 70-80% of fees, depending on RM or RF), the exclusivity which means that I cannot license my work which appears on Getty anywhere else (even directly to clients) and the inability to choose the license (RM or RF).  All that said, my RPI (revenue per image) was very good with Getty but it was probably their attitude of "lump it or like it" bothered me.  Getty is now uploading photographers images to Fine Art America print site, competing directly with photographers who have had their images on FAA for years.  They are undercutting them to such an extent that its not worthwhile to keep images on this site.  Thankfully, none of my images are being uploaded by Getty and they won't now because Getty removed my images from their own site within days of me cancelling my contract.  What a lot of Getty photographers don't realise,especially those on Flickr, is that RF images can be downloaded by clients for a low amount and then the images can be on-sold as prints by the client without reference or any further payment to the photographer.  When this was brought up on the Getty/Flickr forum, it was never answered or acknowledged by Getty.

I have 19th October 2012 circled on my calendar as the "free of Getty" day!

Blogger's regret

An "mea culpa" post from a writer/blogger on not using images "found on Google" Roni Loren's blog

An interesting post from "the other side"!

Canon 5DIII

I replaced my Canon 5DII with the new beaut 5DIII and am still trying to get my head around the auto focussing aspects.  I did manage to take a nice snap of Mudda Mudda, my favourite aboriginal busker (street performer) with my Canon 135 f/2 L and heavily cropped it (which is what one can do with 23 MP cameras.

List of excuses by infringers

Carolyn Wright, who represents me in the US, has a very interesting post on her blog Excuses, Excuses on the many excuses by those who infringe the copyright of photographers and how they stand up upon close and legal examination.  I would recommend a read by photographers who read my blog and infringers who, out of curiosity, read my blog!  And here is Part 2 of Excuses, Excuses and Part 3 of Excuses, Excuses

List of IP attorneys I recommend

United States: Carolyn Wright PhotoAttorney
United States: Leslie Burns BurnsTheAttorney
Australia: Sydney lawyer Peter Knight of Banki Haddock Fiora
UK: Mark Corran of Briffa
Canada: Dan Pollack Dan Pollock Law

For the US attorneys to pursue an action, you will need your images registered with the US Copyright Office.  There are some exceptions so I suggest you contact them first.  The US attorneys will act on a contingency basis.  Again, there are exceptions.

Please feel free to contact me with recommended IP lawyers to add to this list. Please give contact name, name of firm and country.

Limestone Networks ignoring DMCA notices

Over the past month, I have been attempting to have  Limestone Networks  remove a site downloading copyright images for "free".  I sent them DMCA notices on 29 April 2012, 3 May 2012 and 9 May 2012, all of which have been ignored.  I have left them at least two messages on their webpage and still no response.  Not only is the infringing site downloading my images "for free", they are downloading hundreds of photographers images without license.  A similar site was taken down within 24 hours by GoDaddy for which we are very grateful and only wish that Limestone Networks will take heed of legal DMCA notices.

Update 19 May7 2012:  Well, the infringing site has been taken down.   Excellent.  I don't know who took it down as I contacted Xo.com yesterday which is Limestone Networks upstream provider so it could have been either one.

One of the comments on this post (which I did not publish) was from a site which stated that they loved free images and was downloading them from their site.  Well, I checked out the site and the images were absolute crap.  So nothing to lose any sleep over there!

New blog by David Hoffman in EPUK

An interesting read from photographer, David Hoffman, who wrote (amongst other interesting things) in EPUK on the possibility of a small claims court in the UK dedicated to settling infringement actions.  David has concerns over the caseload of the court at 150 cases per year.  I guess the UK Government is still unaware of the amount of infringements going on, mainly amongst newspaper groups and massive infringements on websites and blogs.  Still, it's better than nothing.  Here is the link to the the UK Government's Intellectual Property Office website IPO detailing the anticipated small claims court.

Another site giving away "free" images for download

I recent found yet another website allowing downloads of "free" images which, of course, are not free.  The site is based in Indonesia so I guess I have buckleys trying to get them to remove my many, many images which are being given away.  I have removed link to this site because of the stupid comment I received which I have deleted!   I have tried to contact the site via their email address which of course is false (it bounced twice) and I have left a message on their Facebook site and will continue to do so until they remove ALL of my images.  I have sent a DMCA notice to their server in the US (Limestone Networks) but even a reminder email has not elicited a response.  The site is still online and still giving away photographers' copyrighted work.  I will continue to send reminders to Limestone until they tire of me!

As a last resort, I will find an IP lawyer in Jakarta to pursue an action for copyright infringement but I had hoped that Limestone would co-operate as GoDaddy did awhile back when they took down completely another infringing site offering similar free downloads.

Update: 19 May 2012:  Site has now been taken down.  See my post re Limestone Networks.

Egg on face over at SmugMug

It would appear that the photosharing site,  SmugMug, had a major stuff up over a blog piece on one of their contributors.  The apology can be found HERE   The interesting thing is that the owner of SmugMug never actually explained why they posted the piece about the photographer in the first place without, apparently, doing any due diligence!  Nor was it explained exactly what they had done as, of course, the offending blog piece has been deleted and it did not show up in the Wayback Machine - darn!

Advice for those infringing copyright - Please read!

For those infringing copyright of photographers (and maybe the reason why you have clicked on my blog link!), I strongly recommend you read the blog of Seattle based attorney,  Timothy McCormack on why you should NOT infringe the copyright of others, especially if the image has been registered with the US Copyright Office.  Basically, ignorance of the law is no excuse.  Happy reading.

Beware DMCANOW

Through the  Alamy forum forum, I found this site DMCANOW      which allegedly does all the DMCA takedowns you want for the princely sum of $49.00 per takedown.  Yes, cheap at half the price!  Of course, it's a scam.  And if it isn't why would you pay 49 bucks for something which can take you less than five minutes to send your own DMCA (especially if you set up a template for DMCAs)..  The text of the website is straight out of "Google translations" which would indicate that English is not the first language of someone who allegedly has offices in the US and the UK.  "London, Essex" is part of the seemingly UK address but London is not in Essex and the website has a postcode of Ilford.    So beware and don't part with any money!


Update: It would appear that the addresses in both the US and the UK are bogus and that the owner of the site actually lives in Pakistan.

Pinterest on copyright infringement

This is the latest on the blog of Pinterest which seemingly is attempting to justify the constant infringement of photographers images which are "pinned" to their site by those who don't seem to realise (or care) that images are copyright.  Their blog suggests that we photographers place an "opt out" widget on our websites rather than  them insisting on their pinners obtain permission before pinning images on their site.  That would be like you or I placing a sign on our car/computer/bicycle which states DO NOT STEAL!

Edit: 7 May 2012: Looks as though the blog posts have been deleted.  And I am still finding my work "pinned" illegally and each time I send them an email demanding removal which is getting tiresome.  

Yet another site inviting downloads of copyright images

I took several emails before Pixdaus eventually removed one of my images from their website which has the facility to download copyright images.  They absolutely refused to explain why they invited followers to download images which were clearly in copyright without due licensing or permission of the copyright holder, ie the photographer.  As I have already had one site removed offering similar freebie downloads, this one is at the top of the list!  Many of the images are marked "unnamed" so if you find any images of yours there, I suggest you contact them and demand removal.

Alan Spencer's take on stealing!

I thought this blog of photographer Alan Spencer's take on Stealing a real hoot!

UK Daily Telegraph caught infringing copyright

Oh dear.  The UK Telegraph's picture editor is ill informed regarding copyright of photographers as outlined in the British Journal of Photography website.  Historically, UK newspapers are very tardy in reporting usage of images and sometimes they don't report them at all and stock libraries, namely Alamy, seem to have a laissez faire attitude towards this problem not wishing to upset their big clients.  So stuff the photographers....!

Follow up:  Here is a tongue in cheek response from the photographer to the photo editor of the Telegraph HERE

Registering images with US Copyright Office

There are many benefits in registering one's images with the US Copyright Office.  Carolyn Wright of Photoattorney has a great blog on  US Copyright Office registration

I cannot recommend strongly enough to register one's work as it does add strength to any litigation and a lot of US IP attorneys will not handle any cases without it.  

An excellent app to find images via GSI

I found this on a blog http://www.wirefresh.com/find-out-whos-stolen-your-images-online-with-src-img/ where you drag the app here to your bookmarks bar on your browser.  Then go to your own website/gallery and click on the app on your bookmarks bar and all the images on that page have an upside down question mark. Click on the image and it directs to Google Search by Image function.  This will save a lot of time and you won't have to download the Firefox/Google extensions or drag the individual images into the Google search box.  A neat app and thanks to the developer and Wirefresh blog.  This will only work with Firefox or Chrome.  It will not work with IE.

Update:  It would appear that Google, for reasons unknown, is now not showing all sites in their search.  I would strongly recommend that when searching images, after the current search, ALSO go down the left hand column of the Google Search My Image page and click on Past Year and this will bring up far more results than the normal search.  I found this out when going back to get information for my Canadian IP attorney to find that the current search did not come up with the Canadian infringers but using the Past Year function, the sites showed up and indeed the image was still current on their websites.  Of course, many of the sites will have been removed but its worth the extra click as you may be missing sites still currently showing your image.

Bildertube - massive infringements

BilderTube http://www.bildertube.com is a Portuguese based website (but the text is German) who is massively infringing the work of photographers worldwide by allowing free downloads of thousands of images that they have stolen from websites around the world. Many of my images on this site were taken from my Fred Miranda Gallery plus my PBase site.  The English text at the top of their webpage states "Picture [Bildertube] tube is the new free image database. Can be found in our database royalty free images and photos that you can use for free on your website, whether private or commercial (but be sure to check our terms of use when you want to use an image without a license. Have fun!" Images are uploaded from anyone, anywhere and are then downloaded for use in websites and blogs without payment or reference and certainly without accreditation. In fact, I found one of mine with ©BilderTube on a blog and after my request, the blogger removed the reference and corrected the accreditation. I have contacted GoDaddy in Germany with a request to remove my images and hopefully pull the site down. The email I sent to BilderTube bounced.

UPDATE:  Good news.  I wrote to the ISP and received the usual "We will request them to remove the images etc etc" but I felt that that was not good enough so I wrote them the following:


With respect, this whole site is infringing copyright and I am sure that the EC would be interested in having this site removed entirely.  Germany is a signatory to the Berne Convention and this site is contravening Article 1 (amongst others) of said convention.  There are possibly many other images of mine which are on the site which I have yet to find along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other images of professional photographers whose intellectual property rights are being abused.  The text “Picture tube is the new free image database. Can be found in our database royalty free images and photos that you can use for free on your website, whether private or commercial (but be sure to check our terms of use when you want to use an image without a license . Have fun” is in contravention of Article 1.  They are inviting contributors to upload images to their site without any reference to the copyright holders and they are then being downloaded by websites and blogs illegally.  On one occasion, I found one of my images with attribution ©BilderTube so they were also passing off one of my images. 

As their email address is false, I believe that your “request” rather than “demand” will be ignored

 (and today the site has disappeared).  One for the good guys but just the start of a long process of bringing these sites down.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Checking more infringements today, they would appear to have taken down several other "freebie" sites, all possibly linked to BilderTube but under other names as the websites were almost identical in nature with same images being published illegally.

David Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK)

It would appear that there is now a legal precedent in the United Kingdom regarding websites publishing images without prior licensing the images from the photographer, even if they believed that the images were "covered by Crown copyright and understood that the text and images could be used". An excellent precis of the judgment is given by Alamy photographer DavidC on the Alamy forum

US Copyright Small Claims Court Proposal

Click on title link above. It would appear that the US Copyright Office is looking into the feasibility of a small claims court to assist photographers whose intellectual property rights have been infringed. Makes an interesting read. Comments would be appreciated.

What get's up my nose is the indignant ones

You know the ones. Those who, when caught out infringing one's work, come up with "well it was not watermarked" and then suggested that all images should be watermarked. Like all products on a supermarket shelf should be marked "do not nick". Today, this came from a person (a journalism student who should have known better) who nicked one of my images from one of my stock libraries (which are not watermarked for obvious reasons) and when confronted, disputed the fact that it was taken from GlobalEye images when the metadata stated exactly that. Along with the metadata of all the other images on the site. (And I have a screenshot). And offering the gem "I think the lesson here is to ensure that your images are watermarked or similar - just a suggestion. That way it would be clear from the outset, irrespective of source origins of the site (web trawling via search engine versus deliberately and maliciously ripping off a web library notwithstanding)." The delicious irony of the last sentence did not go unnoticed!

All I did originally was politely suggest to the person in the comments section of her website that she should obtain permission of the photographer before publishing images.

Tumblr, Pinterest, Photobucket and Facebook - multi-infringements

I am so tired of seeing my work plastered across sites such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Photobucket and Facebook. Whilst they are quick to respond to my requests to remove the images, I am mighty tired of having to go through the rituals of removals. I sent the following email to Tumblr after asking for the removal of one particular image which was all over the site.

Your site massively infringes the copyright of photographers. You cannot truly believe that all the images on the site are owned by the individuals who post them or that they are part of a creative commons license? With this particular image, it is apparent that it was just passed around your website with gay abandon without any thought by your contributors that they were infringing a photographer’s copyright.

Tumblr, Photobucket, Facebook and many others are responsible for the images published on their sites and you cannot hide behind “sorry, we were unaware” garbage when it is blatantly obvious that images are being infringed. One hopes that one day, one of your “contributors” places a Getty exclusive image (which has been registered with the US Copyright Office) on your site and the first you will hear will be from Getty’s lawyers with a damages bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Well, one lives in hope! Maybe photographers who get their work constantly infringed on these sites should start a class action against them and then maybe that they will actually monitor more closely the images placed on them with a less laissez faire attitude.