Whole gallery copied and posted on website

armani

Hello !

Today i suddenly got some visitors from another website. Curious as i am i followed the link. Someone posted a link to one of my galleries .

But then in the next post i see someone else copied ALL pictures and posted them on the same forum :-( Don't know how that was possible. The gallery is "right click protected". Furthermore i always thought display copies are at 72 dpi but te pictures on the website are at 300 dpi, size large.

Other problem: the photos are from a concert of an international band and i had to sign a relase form.

What can i do about this?
What is a proper way to react?

What can i do to prevent this in the future?

Thanks!

Andy

Show me the website, please.
And the gallery on your site.

Thanks.

armani

This is my gallery:
http://www.digididi.com/gallery/5255103_garx7#319688397_R64JN

This is the link to the site: (you have to suscribe first)

http://duranduransjn.aceboard.fr/251559-3559-10028-2-concert-BRUXELLES-mercredi-juin-2008.htm

A few minutes ago, I did a posting on the forum and they immediatly removed all pictures.

But i made a copy of the page with all pictures on it.

armani

I have to leave.
Will be back on in an hour or so...

armani

Through the copy i made of the webpage i can now be certain that they disabled right click protection, copied every single picture, renamed the pictures and uploaded them to their photowebspace (photobucket) from which they linked to their site.

What now?

jfriend

armani wrote:

Through the copy i made of the webpage i can now be certain that they disabled right click protection, copied every single picture, renamed the pictures and uploaded them to their photowebspace (photobucket) from which they linked to their site.

What now?

You cannot prevent people from copying your web-sized images, stealing them and using them for their own purposes. If you want your images to be viewable in a browser without a password, then it is possible for someone to steal them.

You did the right thing and the best thing you could do. You found it and you asked them to stop and they did.

Right-click protection is only a deterrent that makes it harder for the non-internet-savvy to get your images. Anyone versed in how browsers work can get around it the same way the browser does to download and display your images. This is not a bug, but an innate characteristic of browser technology.

There are only two ways to entirely prevent this type of abuse in the future:

1. Don't put any images on the web
2. Require a password on your site or each gallery so that only people you know and trust are allowed to view them.

You can also use a watermark on your images. While this doesn't prevent them from being copied and used in the way they were this time, most people won't do it when it's obvious to their customers that these images belong to someone else.

So, in the end, you have the following choices:

1. Get comfortable with occasional image theft and just knowing that it will happen. Figure that the benefit to you of having good-sized images on the internet that are easy for your intended viewers to see is worth some risk that occasionally people will take your images for some other purpose.
2. Require password credentials before anything that you're worried about theft on can be viewed
3. Use a watermark on your images as a more meaningful deterrent to image theft and a good reason for people not to take your images (easier to go get someone else's who don't have a watermark on them).
4. Stop putting anything on the internet

In my opinion, 1,2 and 3 are all reasonable choices depending upon your circumstance.

Andy

John said it really, really well.

http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/2008/07/04/right-click-protection-and-image-security/

Montec

I learned the hard way as well...I was not watermarking images and allowing XXL to be viewed. I learned from an acquaintance that an entire shoot of a sports league was downloaded by some clever team members and given out freely, I never had ANY orders from that gallery.

From now on all images are watermarked, right through the centre :boid

That was entirely my fault in my opinion...

Awais Yaqub

As you may have heard "There are 101 ways to do wrong stuff but only few ways to do right stuff" unfortunately photogs fall in the later category and advertising agencies etc fall in 1st.

Few days back one of the leading Telecom company published a full page ad in a leading mag, and guess what photo was stolen from flickr.

armani

Jfriend, Andy, and others thanks for the help and explanation.

It was just not a nice feeling to visit a website and see all my photos are copied

rjdesq

Here's a cool tool you can use to check to see if your images have been posted somewhere else...I use the Firefox plugin all the time: http://tineye.com

Blaker

I tried to sign up and they put me on a waiting list for an invite.
I wonder how long the wait will be?

rjdesq wrote:

Here's a cool tool you can use to check to see if your images have been posted somewhere else...I use the Firefox plugin all the time: http://tineye.com

denisegoldberg

Blaker wrote:

I tried to sign up and they put me on a waiting list for an invite.
I wonder how long the wait will be?

That happened to me too. The invitation came through the next day though.

--- Denise

OffTopic

Blaker wrote:

I tried to sign up and they put me on a waiting list for an invite.
I wonder how long the wait will be?

If you don't hear back from them in a day or so let me know and I can send you one of my invites. Beta users can issue three personal invites that skip the wait list. I would just need you to pm me your e-mail address.

As word gets out about how fantastic Tineye is, I'm sure the line is getting longer and longer because everyone wants to try it out.

I really hope they keep a free component for photographers (as I've heard in the rumor mill) after they release the final version.