My Image was STOLEN!!

[Buckster]

I WOULD not create a photograph like she has with MY photo, so it is misrepresenting me as a business if someone becomes aware that its the same photo.

I'm sure Patrick Cariou feels the same way, but that doesn't seem to have been a factor.

Patrick Cariou ? Sorry I'm unaware of this story?

He's the photographer that was in a big copyright war with Richard Prince last time:

Richard Prince Triumphs Over Copyright With New Court Decision - ANIMAL

Woah. What the?
Its like he used Gimp to do those edits!!
Does this Richard guy have any real talent?

Well, that's always quite the subjective question / answer. He makes a HUGE amount of money from his work.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

I WOULD not create a photograph like she has with MY photo, so it is misrepresenting me as a business if someone becomes aware that its the same photo.

I'm sure Patrick Cariou feels the same way, but that doesn't seem to have been a factor.

Patrick Cariou ? Sorry I'm unaware of this story?

He's the photographer that was in a big copyright war with Richard Prince last time:

Richard Prince Triumphs Over Copyright With New Court Decision - ANIMAL

Woah. What the?
Its like he used Gimp to do those edits!!
Does this Richard guy have any real talent?

Well, that's always quite the subjective question / answer. He makes a HUGE amount of money from his work.

Can't believe this goes to court and he's allowed to do this to photographers.
He should at least have to pay for use of their image.
Its unfair at the very least.

 

[Derrel]

She's not using YOUR image,exactly....she has created a substantially different image, and is using it sparingly, and it can not be mistaken for your image...I think she can actually claim it's a transformative, original, new work....and under fair use, she could probably make a claim to it...there's some wiggle room on her end, I think, just based on the way the laws have been written. I think you are also being a big baby about it...I have 10,000 of my own images on line, and periodically BOTS come by and download damned near every single image, overnight. Some of the images have been on-line for over 10 years, and multiple of my University of Oregon cheerleader images have appeared all over the friggin world wide web...I don't complain about it.

Is HER use of the photo of HER actually causing you to lose money? Is she directly earning money off of the one, tiny image of her, in her portfolio of hundreds of Facebook images? Did YOU actually create that photo where she's in the river, at the waterfalls, by the power plant or whatever, in sepia tone? Would the removal of her image from her portfolio cause her great financial harm? Does the presence of that image in her Facebook portfolio bring her significant financial benefit? I think you need to get in touch with somebody who can explain the actual term "commercial use" AS it might be argued in a fair use case with a substantial, obvious transformative use of the source image of plaintif...I seriously think this would be bounced right out of court if you could ever find an attorney dumb or unscrupulous enough to take your case.

She is using this image, the one SHE created, for promotional use...she's not being payed for that image in any direct way. if the image goes or stays on her Facebook samples gallery, I do not think its presence or absence would have one iota of positive nor negative financial benefit to her... ergo, not commercial use...and since its transformed, it's HER creation...

I personally think YOU are not being smart by naming this woman,making this post, and making allegations of improper use and then publishing your allegations on the world wide web...I think you are actually setting yourself up for a slam-dunk countersuit for libeling her by name, and impugning her reputation on the basis of a dubious set of allegations.

Oh....on May 23, I had 2,400 images bot downloaded, overnight...and I'm not complaining or tracking them down... but hey, I'm not a lawyer. and I have not seen your contract with her. Maybe you have an iron-clad, watertight case.

http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Infographic_CanIUseThatPicture4.jpg

 

[bribrius]

So instead of complaining to a bunch of strangers on an innernets forum, why aren't you contacting a lawyer?

Because it's one photo. I am confident that she will remove it, and if not Facebook will (I have had to do this before)
No need for me to turn into a psycho. People make mistakes and I'm just hoping she will be made aware that us photographers keep on top of our work and copyright and not to do it again............. :/

I have been through that with facebook and in my case they have made them take them down (or asked them to i wasn't privy to the convo) so they ended up removed either way. I am not sure how it works on there now though, that was a while ago.

Agreed! Every time I have put a notice through Facebook my image has been removed and they have been warned. I think its scares them more actually because facebook warns them they could terminate their account

well in this case it may not be quite as easy. As she is actually in the photo. I never reported a photo with the person actually in it. curious to know how this works out. Personally, for that case i wouldn't worry too much about it. Suppose i understand though it was using "your" photo.
For future reference, you might want to be careful what exactly you post online and on facebook as well. I ended up booting all kinds of people off mine and limiting what type of things i put online and started using small low quality files when i do. Especially on facebook, people share/take.borrow/steal whatever all the time it is the norm.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

She's not using YOUR image,exactly....she has created a substantially different image, and is using it sparingly, and it can not be mistaken for your image...I think she can actually claim it's a transformative, original, new work....and under fair use, she could probably make a claim to it...there's some wiggle room on her end, I think, just based on the way the laws have been written. I think you are also being a big baby about it...I have 10,000 of my own images on line, and periodically BOTS come by and download damned near every single image, overnight. Some of the images have been on-line for over 10 years, and multiple of my University of Oregon cheerleader images have appeared all over the friggin world wide web...I don't complain about it.

Is HER use of the photo of HER costing you to lose money? Is she directly earning money off of the one, tiny image of her, in her portfolio of hundreds of Facebook images? Did YOU actually create that image of her in the short where she's in the river, at the falls, by the power plant or whatever? Would the removal of her image from her portfolio cause her great financial harm? Does the presence of that image in her Facebook portfolio bring her significant financial benefit? I think you need to get in touch with somebody who can explain the actual term "commerical use" AS it might be argued in a fair use case with a substantial, obvious transformative use of the source image of plaintif...I seriously think this would be bounced right out of court if you could ever find an attorney dumb or unscrupulous enough to take your case.

I personally think YOU are not being smart by naming this woman,making this post, and making allegations of improper use...I think you are actually setting yourself up for a slam-dunk coungtersuit for liberling her bt name, and impugning her reputation on the basis of a dubious set of allegations.

Oh....on May 23, I had 2,400 images bot downloaded, overnight...and I'm not complaining or tracking them down...

http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Infographic_CanIUseThatPicture4.jpg

Just because something doesn't bother you, doesn't man the same for others.
I send a great deal of time, money and effort on my images and haven't released them as stock images either.
I can't just steal stock images off the internet so why should another photographer steal my work, and use it for their own benefit and financial gain?
Its a matter of morals I'm afraid.
And hell, you may be right- but I still have the right to be annoyed, and someone else might see this post and learn a thing or two and there is nothing wrong with education of any sort.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

And personally without my photo, the photo would just be a separate collection of stolen images anyway.
She has only placed them together (very poorly, sorry but its true...)
If this was a mural for in her own home- great.
But I deserve to be paid appropriately (and so do the others) if she is using my image as a stock image.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

And in NEWZEALAND this is the Fair Use Act.
Which is different to overseas:

Exclusions and fair dealing[edit]
The Act allows for certain permitted acts to be exempted from copyright restrictions.

• Fair dealing; for purpose of criticism, review, news reporting, research, private study.
• certain educational purposes
• time shifting of TV programmes for viewing at a later time
• format shifting of music
• back up of computer programmes
• making copies in Braille.

 

[bribrius]

She's not using YOUR image,exactly....she has created a substantially different image, and is using it sparingly, and it can not be mistaken for your image...I think she can actually claim it's a transformative, original, new work....and under fair use, she could probably make a claim to it...there's some wiggle room on her end, I think, just based on the way the laws have been written. I think you are also being a big baby about it...I have 10,000 of my own images on line, and periodically BOTS come by and download damned near every single image, overnight. Some of the images have been on-line for over 10 years, and multiple of my University of Oregon cheerleader images have appeared all over the friggin world wide web...I don't complain about it.

Is HER use of the photo of HER actually causing you to lose money? Is she directly earning money off of the one, tiny image of her, in her portfolio of hundreds of Facebook images? Did YOU actually create that photo where she's in the river, at the waterfalls, by the power plant or whatever, in sepia tone? Would the removal of her image from her portfolio cause her great financial harm? Does the presence of that image in her Facebook portfolio bring her significant financial benefit? I think you need to get in touch with somebody who can explain the actual term "commercial use" AS it might be argued in a fair use case with a substantial, obvious transformative use of the source image of plaintif...I seriously think this would be bounced right out of court if you could ever find an attorney dumb or unscrupulous enough to take your case.

She is using this image, the one SHE created, for promotional use...she's not being payed for that image in any direct way. if the image goes or stays on her Facebook samples gallery, I do not think its presence or absence would have one iota of positive nor negative financial benefit to her... ergo, not commercial use...and since its transformed, it's HER creation...

I personally think YOU are not being smart by naming this woman,making this post, and making allegations of improper use and then publishing your allegations on the world wide web...I think you are actually setting yourself up for a slam-dunk countersuit for libeling her by name, and impugning her reputation on the basis of a dubious set of allegations.

Oh....on May 23, I had 2,400 images bot downloaded, overnight...and I'm not complaining or tracking them down... but hey, I'm not a lawyer. and I have not seen your contract with her. Maybe you have an iron-clad, watertight case.

http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Infographic_CanIUseThatPicture4.jpg

why would you want that? Or let that happen? I think i would flip out just on principle.

 

[runnah]

Let's all take a moment and relax.

We can all get our points across in a nice way.

 

[Derrel]

Look at "transformative work", and have a lawyer look into what commercial usage actually means to the New Zealand courts...the image you are complaining about has 20% your original shot, and the remaining 80% is her creation...the two images are not even remotely similar...one is a straightforward, rather pedestrian portrait, the other is some oddball avante garde art piece...which she created using a photo of her own face and body...I think you need to look at transformative work and BOOM...your case nose dives, hits the ground, and explodes in a flame ball....

But again...I'm not a lawyer...and I'm not in New Zealand...

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

Have received a message back.
She is claiming its not a business page (even though its listed as one), not that I'm worried about that as much anyway.
Its the blatant use without permission.
I have dug into the NZ laws surrounding this, and researched previous cases in the last 30 minutes, and it is definitely illegal.
Will keep everyone updated.

 

[Dave442]

And some feedback on the current Richard Price artwork that I found interesting:
The Latest Richard Prince Controversy Clarified by Patent and Copyright Attorney John Arsenault Fstoppers

As Derrel noted, the new image uses your photo as part of a larger composite or collage. An artist here has shows with collages that are made up of things cut out of magazine pictures and then scanned and photoshopped, printed, framed and sold. I had asked the artist one time about their use of the parts of photos and was given the fair-use answer.

Now it would be interesting if this photographer had this image in a 40x60cm hanging for sale at her gallery. As for the image on FB, I would be interested to know if it is removed.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

The laws in Newzealand are made in favour of the artist, which is great.
I wish the same could be said for America. But laws are different.
Here's the example:
American Fair Use Law-
In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement. - See more at: What Is Fair Use - Copyright Overview by Rich Stim - Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center

Newzealand Fair Use Law (known as fair dealing here)-
Can I make "fair use" of material in New Zealand?
Yes you can. But our copyright law defines "fair use" more specifically. It applies only to copying for the purpose of criticism, review, news reporting, research or private study.

The Act allows for certain permitted acts to be exempted from copyright restrictions.

• Fair dealing; for purpose of criticism, review, news reporting, research, private study.
• certain educational purposes
• time shifting of TV programmes for viewing at a later time
• format shifting of music
• back up of computer programmes
• making copies in Braille.

 

[YoungPhotoGirl]

Hopefully another unaware NZ'er now knows this is illegal too
Learn something new every day....

 

[tirediron]

Yes I am. And I won't take this thread down until my photo is removed. I WOULD not create a photograph like she has with MY photo, so it is misrepresenting me as a business if someone becomes aware that its the same photo.

First and foremost, I sympathize with you completely however two wrongs do not make a right, and therefore the other images have been removed. With respect to taking down this thread, that's not a decision you are empowered to make.

Finally, what are New Zealand's laws on derivative works? It's possible that she may not be violating your copyright (I don't know, I know nothing about your law, but since yours are somewhat similar to ours, it's a possibility).