Having your pics nicked from Flickr

treeman

treeman

Messages
4,094
Name
Mark
Edit My Images
No
I'm sure this question must have been posted before, but I couldn't find it. So apologies in advance. :)
I read an article about someone finding out that they'd had one of their pictures, on their Flickr account, illegally used by someone else. Unless you actually see that picture somewhere else, how would you know that, is there someway of checking on Flickr?
 
Difficult.
I set all my permissions differently for each image and for some sets for friends and family only.
If you check what level of 'viewability' each image is set for - you can see if people are able to download them.
Mine defaults at 'private' unless I tell it otherwise when I'm uploading. Only people marked as friends and family have the ability to view all image sizes and download accordingly.
And only four people currently have that privelige.
 
If you're a pro member you can check your stats on a day by day basis and see where people viewed your image from. Most will be flickr.com, some may be from google or Yahoo and others could be from a certain domain.

I checked my stats once to find that a travel company where using one of my pictures to advertise a totally different country to the one in which it was taken. It's always worth looking every now and again, if there's an unusually high viewing pattern, it could point to someone using your image elsewhere.
 
The quote below is from the FLICKR terms of service. When you upload images to FLICKR, then you grant them the world wide rights to your image - effectively when you upload them they no longer are yours.

"(b) With respect to Content you elect to post for inclusion in publicly accessible areas of Yahoo! Groups or that consists of photos or other graphics you elect to post to any other publicly accessible area of the Services, you grant Yahoo! a world-wide, royalty free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish such Content on the Services solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted, or, in the case of photos or graphics, solely for the purpose for which such photo or graphic was submitted to the Services. This licence exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Services and shall be terminated at the time you delete such Content from the Services."
 
Sophotogenic said:
The quote below is from the FLICKR terms of service. When you upload images to FLICKR, then you grant them the world wide rights to your image - effectively when you upload them they no longer are yours.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm being naive, but does it really say that? It says that when you upload to flickr, yahoo can use it to advertise themselves effectively (in a 'look at the lovely photos hosted on flickr' kind of way).

That is then terminated when you remove it, and they can no longer do anything with it. The image is still yours, and you can terminate their license to use it whenever you want surely?

Chris
 
That would be world wide rights solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted, or, in the case of photos or graphics, solely for the purpose for which such photo or graphic was submitted to the Services.

Not sure where in there it says that they no longer belong to you??

Must type quicker....

back onto the original question it's rather difficult, especially as there tend to be more "unknown source" hits than easy to identify sites. If one of your photo's is getting more than it's normal amount of hits and you haven't posted it elsewhere yourself then it's a fairly safe bet that someone has linked it elsewhere. In these instances removing it (or replacing it with a suitable image of a useless bodypart) tends to solve it. In some instances the perp has been known to email and complain that the link no longer works. If however it's been downloaded, and actually re-uploaded, independently of Flickr then the occasional google search for image related keywords, or the image title may turn it up somewhere if tineye doesn't find it.
 
Sophotogenic said:
The quote below is from the FLICKR terms of service. When you upload images to FLICKR, then you grant them the world wide rights to your image - effectively when you upload them they no longer are yours.
Click to expand...

you've completely misread that, it says nothing of the sort and if you think it does you should seriously consider getting a third party to check any contracts you sign.

The trouble with the internet and sites like Flickr is that we all want to share our pictures and have them seen by as many people as possible, there is even a thread floating around about it today. The downside of this mass sharing of images is that it is incredibly easy for people to pinch them at web usable resulution and better depending on how you have your config set. The stealing of images is a pain but in the age of the internet it's going to happen and it's very difficult to track down allthough there is a reasonable chance of getting some compensation if you catch a company doing it.
 
Sophotogenic said:
The quote below is from the FLICKR terms of service. When you upload images to FLICKR, then you grant them the world wide rights to your image - effectively when you upload them they no longer are yours.
Click to expand...

What a load of rubbish, the condition is there purely so no smart arse tries to do them for displaying the photo they have uploaded..

As for the original question I occasionally check with tineye, but have yet to find anything, I also check my flickr stats but that is only useful if they are daft enough to link to the picture while it is hosted on flickr. If they copy you photo and use it there is no sure fire way of finding out. Watermarking can help in a small way in that it clearly claims it as yours no matter where it is, but it is normally quite easily cropped etc.

In short, no sure fire way to find if someone is using you photos :(
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
What a load of rubbish, the condition is there purely so no smart arse tries to do them for displaying the photo they have uploaded..

As for the original question I occasionally check with tineye, but have yet to find anything, I also check my flickr stats but that is only useful if they are daft enough to link to the picture while it is hosted on flickr. If they copy you photo and use it there is no sure fire way of finding out. Watermarking can help in a small way in that it clearly claims it as yours no matter where it is, but it is normally quite easily cropped etc.

In short, no sure fire way to find if someone is using you photos :(
Click to expand...

Yup, I agree. There is no sure way to find out if someone is using your photograph. Watermarking helps but isn't definitive. EXIF data helps prove a photo is yours but can also be stripped but as for how many people add copyright notices to EXIF and how many people strip it off I don't know. TineEye helps and I've found three photos being used on two blogs and a travel website and it's the best thing I've found so far.
 
Ah sorry Jimmy, I bow to your superior knowledge.

Jimmy_Lemon said:
What a load of rubbish, the condition is there purely so no smart arse tries to do them for displaying the photo they have uploaded..

As for the original question I occasionally check with tineye, but have yet to find anything, I also check my flickr stats but that is only useful if they are daft enough to link to the picture while it is hosted on flickr. If they copy you photo and use it there is no sure fire way of finding out. Watermarking can help in a small way in that it clearly claims it as yours no matter where it is, but it is normally quite easily cropped etc.

In short, no sure fire way to find if someone is using you photos :(
Click to expand...
 
yoby said:
Did you manage to get paid for the infringements?
Click to expand...

Nope, asked the blogs nicely to take the image down or leave a link to my flickr which they did straight away. As for the travel agency I asked them to take the photo down or I'd sent them an invoice for 8 months use (date was left on the page so I knew when it had been posted) and I'd send them one every 6 months for the photo was up and that they had one week to decide. They replied and decided to take the photo down. Couple of weeks later I went back to the site and they were using another photo from flickr by somebody else!
 
There is another way to search and that is to google the camera body number and your name! If you have saved the files with the info embedded and it's still in it? it should work:thinking:
 
I don't think you can swap images on flickr. Ie if someone was hotlinking to a photo, you could swap it for a notice that the website was stealing your photo... or something less savoury if you were feeling so inclined.
 
Some software uploaders (flickr export for aperture) does allow you to replace the image with a new version... So it may be possible to get a notice uploaded that way.
 
I once had some one take my pics and repost them on there own stream as there own photos.
There entire stream was almost a duplicate of mine with 3 other members pics there too:eek::cuckoo:

Not sure how you would track that....I was informed by other flickr contacts that my pics had been pirated.
 
With regards to the repost/replace photo option, yep you can. Go to the photo page and there's a "Replace" link at the bottom right near your EXIF data :)
 
it's definitely possible to replace a image under the same reference no. I had a problem with some french website hotlinking a couple of my shots...



they don't any more :)
 
You learn something every day. :D

Haven't needed to yet, but it's good to know I could if the need arose. ;)
 
might be a thick question.. but how do you add your name/copyright to the exif data?.. have often wondered :thinking:
 
Whenever I replace a photo (replace is only available through Flickr for those with a pro account) in Flickr, anywhere (including here) that was showing it previously then shows a broken image link as the URL for that image is changed.

What are you guys doing differently to replace a photo on Flickr without causing it to break on another site?

With regards to people downloading your images, if you put it online and publicly display it then it can be download. It has to be downloaded in order to be displayed in your browser! See this thread.
 
mich66 - you can make the additions via Photoshop. In CS3, for example, click file, then file info and in the description type in the details that you want. To save you doing this every time, click the little arrow button on the top right of the file info window, click 'Save Metadate Template', name it whatever you want e.g. copyright. Next time you just click the top right arrow and click on 'copyright' or whatever you saved it as, and it'll load.
 
What worse is when you have a flickr contact who copies your work literally hours/days after you put yours up, and that person calls themselves a pro trying to make a living out of it, laughable really.
 
martyncoup said:
Guess one way is to watermark things? But that adds to processing time.
Click to expand...

Not if you have images automatically watermarked by software e.g. when I export my finished images out of Lightroom, it automatically watermarks them all for me with a pre-determined logo.
 
I no longer put any of my images on the net without my url on them. Not only that, but I refuse to upload anything bigger than 1000pixels wide or tall so it is always me that has the original image in the full resolution. I know that wont stop people using the image i upload in some cases, but if i need to prove ownership then I have the original files on disc.

On another related note, when you send images off to a printing lab, what is to stop a lab worker from saving the original image that you have sent them and to use it as their own? Paranoid maybe?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top