A letter I wrote to e thief !!

[Maine Sail]

To those who take photos and post them here be aware.


Be aware that people can and do steal photos from these forums to display on their own personal sites without credit to the owner or back linking to the original source.


These are my photos that were taken and placed on a private web site without my permission and without any credit..


Edited: Letter removed as it is no longer relevant to the subject of stealing photos and the situation was resolved. Do read on though as there is some good information contained within this thread!

[CLucas]

Looks as though you got his attention as they are down (thumbnails are still there though). Why do people think ripping off someone else's work is acceptable?!? He could have simply listed your site as a link and it would have been fine. They way this was handled -- no credits, no links -- suggests that the photos are his. I'm hoping it was an unintentional gaff and not deliberate.

Beautiful photos btw -- I've visited your site and admire your photography. Any of it published?

[erps]

Halekai,

I've always wondered about photographs and copyright law. Are these your pictures then? How do you figure he got them?

[jimmyb116]

There are lots of pictures stolen from this site there. I think I will be keeping my pictures to myself in the future.

[Zanshin]

One word - watermarks. I put them on any pictures that I put out on the web so that I at least can prove their providence but I'm such a bad photographer that I am surprised when my pictures end up somewhere else.

[teshannon]

I'm sympathetic and also ignorant of the law so please don't misunderstand me. I thought if a photos was out in the public domain it was fair game for anyone to use. Is that not correct?

[sailingdog]

I knew I had seen that Melita photo in the boat p0rn photo thread. Didn't remember the little skiff... but did remember the Melita, mainly due to the gorgeous light in the photo.

TEshannon-

US Copyright Law says that even if the photos are on display, the copyrights are still retained by the creator unless assigned in WRITING. A verbal agreement won't cut it generally. Certain use is protected by the "Fair Use" clause of the Copyright Act of 1978, for instance, using a publicity photo of a boat from the manufacturer's press packet in a review of the boat might be considered fair use. Using photos for educational or research purposes are often covered by fair use as well. However, publishing photos in an on-line photo gallery, without credit, attribution or explicit permission is pretty clearly not considered Fair Use AFAIK, particularly if the photo gallery's design leads one to believe that the website's creator is the creator of the photograph.

ERPS—

Halekai was kind enough to post those photos in a thread on boat photographs, and I remembered the photo from that thread when I was browsing the thief's website's photo galleries. He obviously stole it from the boat photo thread.

[TrueBlue]

Perhaps max-esq can verify this, but it is my understanding that if a photo does not have a copyright notice imprinted on it -either with a watermark or otherwise, it's available for public or private use by other parties.

[bestfriend]

Not true. People, places, and things in the public domain are open to anyone photographing them. The images themselves are copyrighted with or without the stamp or watermark. In the days of film the saying was that you could take the film away from the photographer, but you had to scrape the image off first because its his. There are numerous court cases over all of this. I will find some links about rights.

I don't have time right now, but you can start with this. Photojojo » Photography and The Law: Know Your Rights

The eighties saw numerous legal cases about the rights of usage for images. Mostly siding with the photographer. Digital photography has turned image rights into a free-for-all, and one of the reasons I got out of the business in the early 90's.

[captainjack161]

I guess I need to study the issue a bit. I wrote in my site "My favorite sites to surf are those created by boaters. Chip Ford's Catalina 22 site is a great example. I hope some of you will get as much enjoyment from this site as I do from sites like Chip's". My site is intended simply for the enjoyment of boat lovers. I am not selling anything. A lot of my pics come from internet searches – mostly Yahoo searches. I will remove any photos on request and go back and check for any copyright marks.