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.

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

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.

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.

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.

**Stolen photographs - what to do - Article by EPUKs Simon Crofts

Many thanks to Simon Crofts for his article in Editorial Photographers UK and Ireland for his take on tackling infringers. Click on link above ...and learn!

**No more Mr Nice Guy - or Girl**

After finding so many infringements and getting responses such as "Oh, we didn't see a watermark and so thought it was free" or, the best "Sorry, cannot afford your fee as we only buy images at $1.00 to $3.00", I have decided to pass on the infringements to my US IP attorney and let her deal with it. I am also about to contact an old friend who is a partner of a law firm in Toronto to follow up on the mounting Canadian infringements. Many do not even respond to my emails but then remove the image without any sort of apology or acknowledgment that they have done the wrong thing. So it's No more Mr Nice Guy or Girl and the first they will hear about infringing my copyright will be an email or contact from my lawyers pursuing an infringement of copyright suit. Even when I sent them an email advising that "an apology or removal of the image is NOT an option" and requesting payment of my account, I still get the "Sorry, have removed image" and they think that is the end of it. But no more! I am also tired of sending DMCA notices to Facebook, Photobucket, Imageshack et al although FB is quick to remove the images from the offenders' sites. I am even debating adding bloggers to my list of infringers but they are still infringing my copyright and it should be a lesson to them all.

For those interested in having someone else do all the leg work, a company called
Imagerights has recently been formed - probably because of the new Google Image Search engine - a vacuum always gets filled!

It has been suggested by one of my fellow photographers, who read my blog, that it would be a good idea if an organisation could direct photographers to intellectual property lawyers to prosecute copyright infringement actions on behalf of the photographers as it is very difficult for togs to find overseas lawyers. So if anyone knows of such an organisation, please comment. Alternatively, if you know of good IP lawyers, please list them by Country and contact details. Do not publish their email addresses as I don't want them to be spammed. I suggest that you obtain permission from the law firms to publish their contact details. Let's get the ball rolling. Here is the legal bit "Photographers would have to carry out their own due diligence regarding the lawyer's/law firm's credentials published in this blog". Phew (pays to have a legal background for 30 years)!

United States: Carolyn Wright PhotoAttorney
United States: Leslie Burns BurnsTheAttorney
Australia: Sydney lawyer Peter Knight of Banki Haddock Fiora
Canada: Toronto Doug Deeth of Deeth Williams Wall
Germany: Dr Frank Marcus Doring of Jensen-Emmerich
UK: Mark Corran of Briffa

**Warning - this site downloading images for free**

Yet another site allowing downloading of copyrighted images for free. I have sent them an official complaint and also on their Twitter page. I know its "finger in the dyke" stuff but its time we made a stand against this. It's an Indonesian site so I don't expect any sort of response but there you go.

Theft of images and how to find them

There is now an excellent way to find out how many of my images are being used illegally and without permission from me. It's called Google Image Search. While there may be issues with the TOS of this site, it is still worth a try. I have downloaded the Chrome extension (Firefox extension also works) so I can right click my images on my website and hey presto, up comes the image and the location/website of same. Always check "All sizes" of the particular image because sometimes they show there and not in the Google pages. I have found many on Facebook without attribution or permission, hundreds on blogs which I don't really have a problem with but I have found a lot on commercial websites around the world. I have over 4,000 images on my PBase site so it will take a fair amount of time to find them all. The most ironic to date was to find one of my images of a silhouette of a bicycle being published on a UK police website about stolen bicycles. I pointed out to them the irony of finding an image on their site which was actually stolen from my website and that images should have the same protection as cyclists! I also noticed that a brochure on this website also had the same image on the front cover so it would appear that it was infringed on a hard copy publication rather than website use. It will be an interesting read when I get a response. I have also found one of my images of the Sydney Opera House on the blog of a UK television personality (who was once a resident of Sydney) but have yet to received a response from him. Another found on a religious surfer website and I pointed out that I thought one of their commandments was Thou Shalt Not Steal and received an immediate apology. Yet another on an Australian television station website which has a "foot in the door" approach to shonky tradesmen and who has since apologised for publishing an image of mine illegally on one of their webpages. And so the list goes on. I did get a positive response from one dentist in Hollywood who offered to pay (and did with 24 hours) for two years use for one image of mine and hopefully will renew the license when it expires. A pic of mine of the Richmond bridge in Richmond, Tasmania seems extremely popular with travel agents specialising in Tassie who seem to have group memory loss as to where they may have purchased the image as it was not from Tourism Tasmania (as a couple of them stated) as I have checked with them and they are horrified that their name is being used as a source. A real estate company in Sydney was most indignant that I sent him a "ridiculous" (according to him) bill for $120.00 for use of one of my images of the Rocks and offered me 10%. Sigh. It does not seem to dawn on those who nick images that it is theft, pure and simple.