I found this post from Ross @Scrivna in 2010 and thought it would be good to remind people again about Copyright Theft. I hope you don't mind me sharing it again Ross.
I hate to have to write about this here as I know the vast majority of our community are great people. Our site is being spoiled by a few people in the community who feel it is ok to steal other peoples work and post either as their own, or without permission.
THIS MUST STOP
It's really winding me up now, every week I am deleting peoples accounts because they are infringing copyright and posting other artists work as their own. You can not do this. It is written in Our terms of service, and the law, in almost every country in the world.
STOP IT
I know most people here would never do this, and fortunately we have a great community of photographers on our site, and I intend to keep it that way. From now on, anybody caught posting content that is not their own work will have their account deleted immediately, with no warning, it's taking up too much of my time talking with these people.
This is a hard line to take, but people need to know this activity is not acceptable, not here, not anywhere.
If anybody reading this who has used work on this site without explicit written permission from the copyright owner must NOW go and remove it or risk having their account removed when it is discovered.
If anybody knows of anyone who is using other people work without permission, please email me at ross@365project.org I will be adding features to the site to enable easier reporting of images in the future.
Thanks for your time, and sorry to the truly genuine people using this site, you are our backbone and we love you!
Firstly copying another person's photographs and posting it as one's own is unlawful and unacceptable.
I would however raise this issue below as I feel a policy decision from management would be useful.
There are a number of what I would describe as photo editing challenges/competitions on the forum. Obviously the original image which the challenge/competition organiser has posted has to be copied; no issues on that. My question is whether or not it is acceptable to use posted photographs posted on the internet, (not those bearing any sort of copyright restriction) as part of the editing process. I have used photographs from the internet in these challenges/competitions; I will happily remove them if the advice is that they should not be used at all and specifically in these circumstances.
Many thanks.
Post edited to clarify challenges/competitions following observations in post below.
I agree entirely with Marilyn on this and having read John's comment above I do think there is a problem with those "competitions" that he alludes to. For me I think everything should be original. A very small thing but I would advocate substituting the word "challenges" for "competitions" in all posts and the Discussion index might help.
I've posted the occasional photo of myself that isn't a selfie (mostly for 52 portraits challenge), but have always said who took the photo (usually a family member) unless I can't remember. I hope this has been OK?
As to using photos from the internet for the editing challenges, if they are marked as Public Domain they should be fine to use.
@mittens I'm presuming you mean YOU are finding this happening here - do you approach the person and sort it out?
I once had someone post one of my images in a collage, I approached them and they said it was a mistake and immediately removed the collage.
We have remained friends here since and it was easily done.
I hope you can answer each reply here Marilyn as this is a pretty serious accusation you are making and we would all like to see it resolved.
I just put this up just as a reminder and I only have a suspicion and thought it would be appropriate to remind everyone again.
Sharing another persons photo and not taking credit for it and telling who's it is I think is fine.
I don't usually enter the competitions so I'm not familiar with that.
If someone's photos are pretty consistent and suddenly a totally different and more professional looking one shows up I would maybe start wondering about it.
I'm sorry if I'm causing a big stir in here. I don't mean to.
@spanishliz i don't think that is the issue - if you post a photo that has come from your camera and taken 'by someone else' - thats not what is being talked about here..
@brigette@spanishliz I agree, also. This is not what we are talking about. It's someone who would take someone else's photo off of the internet and pass it on as one that he took.
i discovered someone here who uses photos from the internet and passes them off as their own, but i am reluctant to 'go to the authorities' as they appear to enjoy their time here . i pulled the person up on it one time, but there is at least one other image in their account that i know they didnt take because i checked by searching the picture in google, think it even made the voting in a challenge lol
@kali66 My personal take on this is that if you know for sure that someone is doing this then you should "go to the authorities". Apart from the illegality of it it is not fair on the rest of us.
I’ve only ever been suspicious of some (very very few) people who may be doing this; I have never challenged as have no evidence to back it up, just suspicions.
@allsop that person is on hiatus at the moment, i prefer to say something to the person and will if i see it done again, i dont like naming and shaming, just letting someone know you know might make them think twice.
@kali66 My husband and I discuss why someone would steal other pictures and take credit for them. So saying that people who do this probably have a self esteem issues is a good way to put it, Kali. I agree.
If you are in Chrome, you can just right click on the picture and select "search google for image"
or on your browser you can search "google reverse image search" and select it and then click on the camera image right by the search window. Copy and paste the url of the picture into the window and click search.
You can also try it on "Tin Eye"
I have to say, this does not always show if the image came from somewhere else, though.
I have just come across this article and I seem to remember you 'exposed' someone before for posting someone else's photos. That person was contacted and told to delete all the photos that didn't belong to them I believe and they did that and disappeared from 365 for a while. I see that they are back again and the majority of the time the photos belong to them, but lately I have noticed that a couple of photos way beyond their normal photography capabilities have been turning up again and I also suspect that they have begun to copy other people's photos once more. I do hope they don't continue to post other people's photos but they don't seem to have learned their lesson.
Practice like this does put a bit of a damper on this wonderful site doesn't it. You always seem to get one or two people who want to cheat. Sad.
Does Ross know of your suspicions?
@mittens I can't say for sure as I have only seen a couple of photos that don't possibly fit with the person concerned, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they do belong to them. I am just wary of believing it. Once bitten etc.
@mittens So I just tried this with a couple of my images that I know are here and on either Facebook or Flickr or both. Nothing came up in the search as finding them in any other location on the internet.
@kali66 I did this with some of my images that I know to be on either Facebook or Flickr or both of those places and here on 365 and it said the images were not used on any other web site.
@k1w1 Sometimes if they are on Facebook and are not public photos they won't show up. It may be the same thing with Flickr. I don't use Flickr. Using the reverse image search doesn't always bring them up I guess depending on where the photos are.
I would however raise this issue below as I feel a policy decision from management would be useful.
There are a number of what I would describe as photo editing challenges/competitions on the forum. Obviously the original image which the challenge/competition organiser has posted has to be copied; no issues on that. My question is whether or not it is acceptable to use posted photographs posted on the internet, (not those bearing any sort of copyright restriction) as part of the editing process. I have used photographs from the internet in these challenges/competitions; I will happily remove them if the advice is that they should not be used at all and specifically in these circumstances.
Many thanks.
Post edited to clarify challenges/competitions following observations in post below.
As to using photos from the internet for the editing challenges, if they are marked as Public Domain they should be fine to use.
I once had someone post one of my images in a collage, I approached them and they said it was a mistake and immediately removed the collage.
We have remained friends here since and it was easily done.
I hope you can answer each reply here Marilyn as this is a pretty serious accusation you are making and we would all like to see it resolved.
Sharing another persons photo and not taking credit for it and telling who's it is I think is fine.
I don't usually enter the competitions so I'm not familiar with that.
If someone's photos are pretty consistent and suddenly a totally different and more professional looking one shows up I would maybe start wondering about it.
I'm sorry if I'm causing a big stir in here. I don't mean to.
How do you go about searching a photo on google?
Thanks!
or on your browser you can search "google reverse image search" and select it and then click on the camera image right by the search window. Copy and paste the url of the picture into the window and click search.
You can also try it on "Tin Eye"
I have to say, this does not always show if the image came from somewhere else, though.
Practice like this does put a bit of a damper on this wonderful site doesn't it. You always seem to get one or two people who want to cheat. Sad.
Does Ross know of your suspicions?