Achilles, I know DT handles this when the watermarked image is from DT, and it's good to know that you also act when the image source is unknown. In this case, however, the source is a watermarked image, as I said, from a site that went out-of-busi [Read more...] posted in Use of watermarked images

Achilles, I know DT handles this when the watermarked image is from DT, and it's good to know that you also act when the image source is unknown. In this case, however, the source is a watermarked image, as I said, from a site that went out-of-business (Lucky Oliver). Would DT still take action in this case, given the image is in DT too? The blogger and the commercial site haven't yet removed the image. :( Regards, Adelaide posted in Use of watermarked images

Using TinEye, I found a watermarked image of mine in four sites. This has happened to me before, but the problem here is that this watermarked image was taken from a photo stock website that went out of business, so there is no company to report it to a [Read more...] posted in Use of watermarked images

Using TinEye, I found a watermarked image of mine in four sites. This has happened to me before, but the problem here is that this watermarked image was taken from a photo stock website that went out of business, so there is no company to report it to and have them take proper measures. In other cases, the stock photo websites contacted the infringing sites. I wrote to these websites - 2 photosharing sites, one a kind of blog site, and one online business site - reporting this and showing the same image in other websites I have them for sale (including DT), trying to prove my copyright ownership. The two photosharing ones removed the image (I think they should ban the users...), the blog site said I should contact the blog author (washed their hands) and the fourth one did not reply and is still showing the image. Now, how can I force the sites to remove that image? They are in other countries to begin with. The threat to sue them sounds a joke. And how many other people may have downloaded the image from the photosharing sites, unaware they were doing something illegal, and may be also spreading it? I also found an image from my website, unwatermarked but small, in another website. Although many people think they can use whatever they find in the Internet for free, I have a copyright notice in my website reminding that any use should be authorized by me. In this case, the infringing site is in Brazil, and so I can threat to sue them if they don't purchase a license, although it's likely they will simply remove the image. Any experiences on how we can deal with this? It is curious that although we an a globalized world in so many aspects, law and copyright enforcement in the internet seems so fragile. I wished photo stock websites had some sort of union, so they would fight infringements even in this case. Regards, Adelaide posted in Use of watermarked images