and when someone cries foul, they are often chastised for having the audacity to want to protect their property.
there are always those that feel there is justification in their actions...they blame it on high prices from corporate greed, ignorance of copyright/usage laws, non-commercial usage, "inspiration", victim-less crime...and of course, there are those that simply do not care. whose sole concern is their own profit, convenience, or perhaps just apathy.
I think image, music, or software theft from someones website is no different than if they invited you to their home and you stole a picture off their wall, or a CD off their shelf. I understand that for much of it, there is little to be done, or gained, from pursuing legal action, but I applaud those that do.
No disagreement here, I just think in this particular case running to an attorney and threatening to sue immediately probably isn't the best course of action. I have a feeling if the OP contacts the team in question and merely tells them, hey, that is my picture and I do own the copyright, that will solve the issue.
I have no problem with people who want to protect their copyrights, nor would I have a problem if a law suit was necessary to achieve that end. I'm just saying in this case, I doubt a lawsuit is really necessary. A simple email will most likely suffice.
How does it "solve the issue"? "Suffice" at what? What's the OP's goal here?
well, that will all depend on what the OP wants.
Quite right, and really, that's a key point of discussion that we all probably should have started with.
That said, I still think it's worth the OP, and anyone else interested, in knowing all the available options and reasoning out there, including mine, in order to make a truly informed decision about what to do.
for me, in this particular case, it would suffice for my image simply being removed from their use if they did not wish to pay me for it.
There's an interesting analogy that The Copyright Zone guys make regarding that. It's better the way they tell it, but basically, it's like somebody plunges a knife into you, and you yell out, "HEY! You plunged a knife into me!" So they say, "oh yeah... sorry about that" and take it out. And now it's supposedly all good?
Well, for some, it is enough, and that's fine for them. Others, like myself, see it differently, in that the violation has already occurred.
They already used it. They already profited in some way from it, and it doesn't have to directly tie to monetary profit, though it usually leads to that, if only in a roundabout way. They used it because they feel it enhances their website, at the very least. That's added value to their website. What's the result of a website that has added value? More visitors, more hits, more advertising dollars, if there are any ads on the site.
And because it's a photo of Jimmy-John, Jimmy-John's family, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and so on are likely to want to go to the website to see it, and maybe to grab a copy of it for their own use on their computers, blogs, emails, Facebook, Twitter, other social media, or whatever else they can think of. More hits, more websites, more viewers, less and less and less control of the author and copyright holder over his own work.
More visitors can and usually does mean more people interested in whatever that website promotes, and when people get interested in something like that, they want to buy merchandise to support it. So, even without selling that particular image to anyone, which can also be a factor, it can help sales of other things, and they don't even have to be for sale on or even by that website. That means that using that image can, and often, even usually, DOES make some people some money somewhere along the line.
It's dominoes. It's a chain reaction. And at the ends of all those lines of dominoes running off in different directions, spreading uncontrollably like a cancer without any control of the author and copyright holder, some of those lines end up gaining money for some folks, whether one can directly tie it to a specific photo or not - but the author and copyright holder ain't one of them.
So, even if they take it down, the first domino has already been knocked over, and the rest, going in who knows how many directions and spreading, are going down, like it or not. There's no way to reverse that. It's a done deal, whether the first fallen domino is removed or not.
But hey, just take the knife back out, and we're all good? Some of us can't be quite that forgiving.
if the OP wants something different, that would have to be part of the discussion.
Again, agreed. But I think it's important that the OP really understands the implications of letting folks off the hook with a warning; A warning that:
1 - won't provide a warning to all the other people and companies in all the other lines spreading out like a cancer from the original infringement.
2 - won't stop people in all the other lines spreading out like a cancer from the original infringement from making money with it by various means.
3 - makes infringers think that it's not really a big deal, since if they get caught they'll just have to take it down, and that's the end of it. No pain at all, especially no financial pain over it. So if you want to infringe, why worry, why care?
Again, this is something that each creative needs to decide on their own. I've got no dog in any of their fights, only my own. All I can say is, mine pays, and I guarantee you, it's teaching people, "dont steal my $#&@".
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