Stuart Richardson
Active member
Hey everyone, I was wondering if you might be able to offer me some advice. Recently I was searching one of my images on the web (I do this occasionally, because I have found my photos in places they don't belong before), and I found that one of my images was being used without my permission on about.com. This is the first time I have had my image being used by a large, corporate site. I was particularly incensed that the image was cropped and then copyrighted with someone else's name!
This is the photo (it is the one of vik beach). The author, Terri Mapes, has put a copyright notice with her name on it.
http://goscandinavia.about.com/od/icelan1/tp/icelandbeaches.htm
It is also used here, without credit to me, but not under her copyright.
http://goscandinavia.about.com/b/2008/07/09/photo-of-the-week-a-black-sand-beach.htm
For comparison, here is my photo, which is uncropped:
You can tell it is the same photo by the colors and the fact that the waves are identical. It is just a crop from the upper right.
So normally I would not care so much if this was just someone's myspace page or blog etc, but this is a site where the author is making money from my work AND passing it off as her own. What do you think I should do? I can of course write to about.com and ask for either compensation or for them to take it down, but I am wondering if there are any other options. Obviously this image is not being used in a huge money-maker way, but it does not take away from the fact that it is blatant theft.
I am sure some here have been in the same situation, so I am curious what you have done...
Thanks,
Stuart.
P.S. It is not even that nice of an image! I took it ages ago on a crappy day...
This is the photo (it is the one of vik beach). The author, Terri Mapes, has put a copyright notice with her name on it.
http://goscandinavia.about.com/od/icelan1/tp/icelandbeaches.htm
It is also used here, without credit to me, but not under her copyright.
http://goscandinavia.about.com/b/2008/07/09/photo-of-the-week-a-black-sand-beach.htm
For comparison, here is my photo, which is uncropped:
You can tell it is the same photo by the colors and the fact that the waves are identical. It is just a crop from the upper right.
So normally I would not care so much if this was just someone's myspace page or blog etc, but this is a site where the author is making money from my work AND passing it off as her own. What do you think I should do? I can of course write to about.com and ask for either compensation or for them to take it down, but I am wondering if there are any other options. Obviously this image is not being used in a huge money-maker way, but it does not take away from the fact that it is blatant theft.
I am sure some here have been in the same situation, so I am curious what you have done...
Thanks,
Stuart.
P.S. It is not even that nice of an image! I took it ages ago on a crappy day...