Help please! my work is being stolen..

[bcgirl_75]

Hello, I am new here, and I need some advice... I am by no means a professional, but trying to be AS professional as I can be. I took some Vancouver, BC pix, HAS to be atleast 2 1/2 years do, but I needed my husband's "friend" to upload them from my camera to her comp so she could burn them to disc for me. I thought they were all deleted off of her comp, thought nothing of it. I find out yesterday that MY vancouver pix are on HER website. I didnt give her any permission to use, post my pix AT ALL. They were my personal pix, so they havent been copyrighted(I cant afford that)but I have the original disc that has the originals(full size pix). what can I do??? I IM-ed her on yahoo messenger, asking her to remove them, etc and she wont. I even emailed the site web-person and nothing back from them yet. Can I take some sort of legal action if they arent copyrighted, but we have tons of the same Vancover pix when just me and my hubby in them, she wasnt even there? she never posted any comments on the pix, so I cant say she is fully taking credit but she used them w/out my consent, that has to mean something, right?
ANY advice would help.......thank you for listening.

 

[CanAm]

Hello, I am new here, and I need some advice... I am by no means a professional, but trying to be AS professional as I can be. I took some Vancouver, BC pix, HAS to be atleast 2 1/2 years do, but I needed my husband's "friend" to upload them from my camera to her comp so she could burn them to disc for me. I thought they were all deleted off of her comp, thought nothing of it. I find out yesterday that MY vancouver pix are on HER website. I didnt give her any permission to use, post my pix AT ALL. They were my personal pix, so they havent been copyrighted(I cant afford that)but I have the original disc that has the originals(full size pix). what can I do??? I IM-ed her on yahoo messenger, asking her to remove them, etc and she wont. I even emailed the site web-person and nothing back from them yet. Can I take some sort of legal action if they arent copyrighted, but we have tons of the same Vancover pix when just me and my hubby in them, she wasnt even there? she never posted any comments on the pix, so I cant say she is fully taking credit but she used them w/out my consent, that has to mean something, right?
ANY advice would help.......thank you for listening.

Ask her again, and if she doesn't agree, tell her you're talking to a lawyer about it.

Usually the mention of lawyers shuts people up.

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

Even if your photos aren't registered...they are still owned by you, which means that you own the copyright. However, it can be hard to prove and thus hard to enforce.

Some things you could do would be; to ask her again, threaten her with legal action, actually get a lawyer to draft a letter to her, contact her ISP. From what I've heard, a typical ISP can and will drop someone if there is a strong threat of legal action against the person...because I think the ISP could be found partially liable as well.

 

[MX962]

I think from what i have heard you need to send a formal Cease & Desist letter first ,But if it were me I would go get a free consultation with a lawyer first

 

[craig]

I would speak with her directly. Then figure out how much the images mean to you. Also try and decide if they are helping her business and or website traffic. I mean if they are full size on the welcome page and part of her corporate (or otherwise) identity then you may have a case. If they are just nice photos on someone's blogspot then maybe chalk one up to experience. Generally speaking these matters can get sticky and no one wins.

Love & Bass