Candy

I have had a few of my photographs stolen from flicker, can anyone advise me how to copyright my photos to enable me to get paid for them.

knightmarian

http://www.copyright.gov/

Hope this helps.

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

follow Knightmarion's link and set up an account. They accept zipped files so you can literally register hundreds of photos for one small fee.
It's worth it.

MWAC Loc: Somewhere East Of Crazy

Make sure your settings on Flickr are set to copyright protected and tight click disabled. It won't stop screen shot captures but it stops right click stealing.

Water marked them, makes them work a little more to steal them as they have to crop, or clone it out.

And the best way to stop people from stealing them is not to post them on the web, saddly it really is the only way.

Carioca

Your photos are copyrighted the instant you create them. They don't need to be registered until and unless you decide to seek redress in the courts.

But you should register them, in any case.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Your photos are automatically copyright protected. Now comes the tricky part of enforcing it and collecting damages. Sorry, I don't have any good advice or a lawyer I recommend. Let us know how this gets resolved.

Iowegan

I found a few of my pictures on a website of a person I was friend's with on fb.

The only commonality we shared, was photography, and, of course, face book.
Anyway, I noticed a picture she'd posted one day, and it looked extremely familiar. What caught my eye was the PP done to the picture.
I checked my pictures and viola`, there it was. It was mine...

I also had these pictures in a folder on a photo-bucket account. I had unfortunately made a reference to photo-bucket on a couple of pictures I'd posted, so...

FWIW, FB strips EXIF data from images before posting, so I couldn't prove anything that way. BUT, she did have a website for her new upstart photography business.
I went there, and using google chrome with a EXIF extension add-on, I was able to read the data on the picture(s).
The photo matched everything I had on my archived photo, except, my copyright information and name. Everything else, was identical.

I contacted her about the deal, and she was at first, quite confrontational.
When I explained to her I could prove without a shadow of a doubt, did she begin to calm down.
What made her pause was, she'd noted she used only Canon equipment, whereas, I use Nikon.
The metadata did show the camera model # in the file. When I shot the photo, I was using a D5100, with a Sigma lens, and that data was on the file.
I asked her to check the photos I had on photo-bucket, to compare them with some of hers, and get back with me.

A couple days passed, but, she did call me, and apologized for the incident.
Seems she had a webmaster update her photos weekly, from a pool of images she'd present. Apparently, this "person" had pirated my files, stripped some data, overlayed her business name over my photos, and, posted them. Apparently, I guess they never figured anyone would make the association.
And, I wouldn't have noticed, except that the photo in questions was of the Iowa State Capitol bldg, and was quite different, account the PP I'd done.
I had no reason to doubt what she was saying, so I let it go.

Oh, I've since dropped the fb account, for other reasons though.

Candy

Thank you Iowegan, I had photo's taken from Flicker, and put on another part of Flicker, and accidentally I saw them, so I deleted them from my flicker account and found that it also deleted them from the Pirate who stole them. Sad what people do. Thanks Candy

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

So are YOU the pirate? :-)

Candy

No, the pirate who stole my photographs, I know its a naval term, but I guess you have something far worse to call a thief who stole my photographs

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Sorry... I understood what you meant. We do call them "pirates". This term is appropriate. It just sounded funny when you said that after you deleted your photos, the pirated ones were deleted too. Sounded like one in the same, so I put a smiley face at the end of my statement. :)

English_Wolf Loc: Near Pensacola, FL

I have not one but two account on FB, nothing was ever stolen because I rarely, if ever, post anything in there and when I do, I go back to the account every month or so and remover all the posts other than online links to comics or videos...

As to having thing stolen from the web? I am not sure I even care as I am not selling anything and not trying to.

Now: "The other guy, my ISP did it!" Yeah, right and my mom is still alive scaring little kids.

Iowegan

I deleted my account because of another issue, that they (fb) kept behaving as though, I was trying to find a vulnerability in their system. Even after proving to them, I was legit, I was still getting their "attitude", so I dropped the account, and will never go there again.

They offer a free service for contacting people, and I understand that it's private property.
I don't appreciate their attitudes that everyone is a thief(implying I was, for asking questions about EXIF data)

For all I know, many many pictures taken with our stolen property, are being shared and propagated via facebook.

Candy

Hi Iowegan, I agree with you.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

FaceBook is a for profit business. Despite the fact that they claim to keep your information safe, you (we) give them permission to use that information with certain restrictions. To get a muddy understanding of how far they can go with your info, you'll need to read and understand the agreement you checked when you signed-up. Bottom line: don't post anything you are not willing to give away.