Where do I stand with this use of my photo?

WilliamC

WilliamC

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I recently saw a tweet advertising something which included a photograph that I took back in 2005. I asked them where they'd got it from and they said Getty Images. I've yet to track it down at Getty (it's a very common subject, there are thousands similar so finding it aint easy!) but if indeed they are selling it then where do I stand? I've no idea how they got hold of it.

I'm not a pro, I'm not looking to make money but neither do I like businesses doing such things and short changing those that ARE trying to make money! Having never dealt with them I don't know if I can simply ask them to stop selling it or whether I can at least get some credit when it's used or what?

TIA
 
WilliamC said:
I recently saw a tweet advertising something which included a photograph that I took back in 2005. I asked them where they'd got it from and they said Getty Images. I've yet to track it down at Getty (it's a very common subject, there are thousands similar so finding it aint easy!) but if indeed they are selling it then where do I stand? I've no idea how they got hold of it.

I'm not a pro, I'm not looking to make money but neither do I like businesses doing such things and short changing those that ARE trying to make money! Having never dealt with them I don't know if I can simply ask them to stop selling it or whether I can at least get some credit when it's used or what?

TIA
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You must have uploaded it as some point... A wild guess would ba the cheapo site flicker or whatever its called.. dont they have a deal with getty where you give all your pics away for free unless you change the settings.. isnt that right?

First step on the trail is where did you upload it to and where was the terms conditions? :)
 
KIPAX said:
You must have uploaded it as some point... A wild guess would ba the cheapo site flicker or whatever its called.. dont they have a deal with getty where you give all your pics away for free unless you change the settings.. isnt that right?

First step on the trail is where did you upload it to and where was the terms conditions? :)
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No one sells via Getty unless they want to. There used to be a Getty/Flickr collaboration, but even then you had to respond to an invite to have an image submitted to Getty Images.
 
Have you considered that the person who told you they got it from Getty is lying? It's almost certainly the reality here.
 
I've had a newspaper using mine, they had various conflicting stories about how it was in their collection, depending who you talked to - then went quiet - unless I took legal action they know they can just get away with it.
This seems surprisingly common now they just google stuff and use it, hoping you won't notice or take any real action.
 
Thanks for the replies folks, I've been beavering away and..

It's not on Getty (@ Pookyhead - you are correct!). When the company replied to me and said "It's from Getty" that tweet has now been deleted so I'm pretty sure they "borrowed" it from somewhere else. I've done the reverse search (thx @ Viewfromthenorth) and it's been used a fair few times and in every case it appears to have been copied from one website which, unfortunately, no longer exists and no registration info is available so that's probably a dead end.

I've never personally uploaded it to the web anywhere but obviously someone who I'd sent a copy (only a handful of people) must have bunged it up somewhere back in 2005'ish. My search hasn't thrown up any usage related to anyone who might have had a copy but clearly it somehow got out into the wild. Sadly, being totally new to digital photography at the time (I'd bought my first dSLR specifically for the trip I was on when I took it) I didn't even know what EXIF was so hadn't entered any copyright info into the camera although it does make it clear that my copy is the original (date & time is indisputable due to the event I shot).

So it looks like this is going nowhere and my inquisitive mind will probably have to forget it (I love a good mystery!). So somehow it got posted somewhere by someone and someone else copied it which then got copied by some other someone else's until 10 years later someone else entirely tweets it to me in an advert.

It's a small world when a 10 year old photo from the tip of Africa finally finds it's way back to the person who took it! :thinking:
 
WilliamC said:
Thanks for the replies folks, I've been beavering away and..

It's not on Getty (@ Pookyhead - you are correct!). When the company replied to me and said "It's from Getty" that tweet has now been deleted so I'm pretty sure they "borrowed" it from somewhere else. I've done the reverse search (thx @ Viewfromthenorth) and it's been used a fair few times and in every case it appears to have been copied from one website which, unfortunately, no longer exists and no registration info is available so that's probably a dead end.

I've never personally uploaded it to the web anywhere but obviously someone who I'd sent a copy (only a handful of people) must have bunged it up somewhere back in 2005'ish. My search hasn't thrown up any usage related to anyone who might have had a copy but clearly it somehow got out into the wild. Sadly, being totally new to digital photography at the time (I'd bought my first dSLR specifically for the trip I was on when I took it) I didn't even know what EXIF was so hadn't entered any copyright info into the camera although it does make it clear that my copy is the original (date & time is indisputable due to the event I shot).

So it looks like this is going nowhere and my inquisitive mind will probably have to forget it (I love a good mystery!). So somehow it got posted somewhere by someone and someone else copied it which then got copied by some other someone else's until 10 years later someone else entirely tweets it to me in an advert.

It's a small world when a 10 year old photo from the tip of Africa finally finds it's way back to the person who took it! :thinking:
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If you have emailed etc it to someone, then I suppose technically you have uploaded it to the internet. When you email something, you are uploading it to the internet.
 
WilliamC said:
Thanks for the replies folks, I've been beavering away and..

It's not on Getty (@ Pookyhead - you are correct!). When the company replied to me and said "It's from Getty" that tweet has now been deleted so I'm pretty sure they "borrowed" it from somewhere else. I've done the reverse search (thx @ Viewfromthenorth) and it's been used a fair few times and in every case it appears to have been copied from one website which, unfortunately, no longer exists and no registration info is available so that's probably a dead end.

I've never personally uploaded it to the web anywhere but obviously someone who I'd sent a copy (only a handful of people) must have bunged it up somewhere back in 2005'ish. My search hasn't thrown up any usage related to anyone who might have had a copy but clearly it somehow got out into the wild. Sadly, being totally new to digital photography at the time (I'd bought my first dSLR specifically for the trip I was on when I took it) I didn't even know what EXIF was so hadn't entered any copyright info into the camera although it does make it clear that my copy is the original (date & time is indisputable due to the event I shot).

So it looks like this is going nowhere and my inquisitive mind will probably have to forget it (I love a good mystery!). So somehow it got posted somewhere by someone and someone else copied it which then got copied by some other someone else's until 10 years later someone else entirely tweets it to me in an advert.

It's a small world when a 10 year old photo from the tip of Africa finally finds it's way back to the person who took it! :thinking:
Click to expand...
You're chasing the wrong ghost, it's irrelevant where they got it from. They owe you for its use.
 
Thx again guys. Right, this has now got all rather messy! The guy who originally sourced the pic for the tweet (i.e. got it from a website abroad who had watermarked it themselves!) has been in touch with me directly to explain things and I'll be e-mailing with him tomorrow. He's from an organisation that I will NOT be chasing for money since I actually send money *to* them for the work they do! The bunch that told me it was from Getty are their subcontractors to whom they gave the picture; quite why they came out with the Getty story is a mystery but they sent me another message today saying it "wasn't Getty", nor indeed themselves. Some weapons-grade backside watching going on there! I seem to have caused a few twitchy botties thus far.

Are we keeping up? Anyway, I shall be having further conversations tomorrow whilst also sending strongly worded scribbles to the 6 other websites that have used it (and taking note of the contents of Steve_T's excellent link, thanks).
 
WilliamC said:
Thx again guys. Right, this has now got all rather messy! The guy who originally sourced the pic for the tweet (i.e. got it from a website abroad who had watermarked it themselves!) has been in touch with me directly to explain things and I'll be e-mailing with him tomorrow. He's from an organisation that I will NOT be chasing for money since I actually send money *to* them for the work they do! The bunch that told me it was from Getty are their subcontractors to whom they gave the picture; quite why they came out with the Getty story is a mystery but they sent me another message today saying it "wasn't Getty", nor indeed themselves. Some weapons-grade backside watching going on there! I seem to have caused a few twitchy botties thus far.

Are we keeping up? Anyway, I shall be having further conversations tomorrow whilst also sending strongly worded scribbles to the 6 other websites that have used it (and taking note of the contents of Steve_T's excellent link, thanks).
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I think the fair thing to do here is charge them all, then donate the money back to your chosen charity.
 
Don't forget the big charities are also big business and the majority of staff dont work for free, if you choose to give money then fine but as said publisher has responsibility to check where they are getting the images from. It can get frustrating when charities get away with so much because they are a charity.
 
Good luck with that William. I once had an image I had taken emailed to me as the main photo of an advert for discounted entry to a nature park. It was irritating as I would have been happy if they had actually offered me discounted entry to use it. They had liberated the image from my Twitter timeline.
 
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