Image stolen and used on competitors site?

[livingitup]

Hello!

We are an online furniture retailer selling modern bedroom and garden furniture.

We had our garden range professionally photographed which was rather costly but well worth it as the results were superb!

Well I’ve just came across a website that has taken our picture (from last season) and using it as there own on there front page! I have emailed and left numerous messages explaining that we own the image they are using but they have ignored us!

Has anybody had a similar problem? And how did you solve it?

Thanks in advance!

Ric

 

[Pressman]

If you can prove you commissioned the images then you can sue for copyright breach. I'd speak to a lawyer if i were you. Maybe someone on here can help?

 

[sysops]

We are an online furniture retailer selling modern bedroom and garden furniture.

We had our garden range professionally photographed which was rather costly but well worth it as the results were superb!

Well I’ve just came across a website that has taken our picture (from last season) and using it as there own on there front page! I have emailed and left numerous messages explaining that we own the image they are using but they have ignored us!

Has anybody had a similar problem? And how did you solve it?

Yes, all the time. Two things:

Send a recorded letter to the company's registered address informing them that they are infringing your copyright, and demanding removal within 7 days.

Send an email and a recorded letter to their hosting company informing them that they are hosting images which infringe your copyright, and demanding removal within 7 days.

Works every single time (unless they're in China or Russia, in which case it almost never works)

 

[livingitup]

Brilliant Sysops!!! I'll try what you suggested!

Thanks alot!

 

[alanc]

...and watermark your images.

 

[Chunkford]

You could add a digital watermark to all your images, either that be visible or invisible watermark - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking

Here's a professional company offering a PS plugin but cost a bit - https://www.digimarc.com/mypicturemarc/support/tutorial_covert.asp
I should also add they scan the internet for you to track down unauthorised use of your images.

On the other hand there are others like this http://www.adptools.com/signmyimage/eng/index.php that could do the job for less (i think, i've never used this)

Hope that helps

 

[jedimonkey]

This happened to me when I did the photography for my previous employer. Eventually 4 of our competitors nicked the images..... 2 of them even had the balls to stick their own watermark over my image!!!! I have the original RAW image so could easily prove they were mine....

Lawyers letter did the trick to remove most images.... although i noticed they re-added a couple of images some months later...

Watermarking as they others said really help stopping MOST people stealing them.....

I bought a cheap copy of PaintShopPro9 from an auction site - and made a filter which was a 1click solution to adding watermarks.

jm

 

[GreenLaser]

"Lawyers letter did the trick to remove most images.... "

CRAZY you should have to pay to protect your won images , after all these years you would have though some solution would have been made ...like an automatic copyright breaking fine , kinda asbo for photo abusers ....... would soon make people think twicea bout scraping images from google images eh !

 

[jedimonkey]

I did once see a site that used a layered image, which was transparent and it went over all the site images - if you nicked the image by rightclicking it - the image you wanted was not the one you got.... it was basically a blank image with a message saying something like 'please ask, dont steal'

 

[sysops]

I did once see a site that used a layered image, which was transparent and it went over all the site images - if you nicked the image by rightclicking it - the image you wanted was not the one you got.... it was basically a blank image with a message saying something like 'please ask, dont steal'

Wow, that's ingenious, there's just no way of getting round that level of security...

 

[Andycal]

Wow, that's ingenious, there's just no way of getting round that level of security...

You really should've put a smiley on the end of that...

 

[sysops]

You really should've put a smiley on the end of that...

I don't like the smilies on this forum, they're really cheesy.

 

[Andycal]

I don't like the smilies on this forum, they're really cheesy.

Cheesy smilies - almost poetic...

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Wow, that's ingenious, there's just no way of getting round that level of security...

Well you could always look up the real image in the page source.