People will rip you off anyway they can.

Zerodog

Awesome photos ripped off of my site all the time. So I started watermarking. This one takes the cake. It is a cell phone picture of a computer screen. WTF the digital download was $2. Give me a break...........



I had a guy from a local paper ask me for photos. I said how much can you pay? He cursed at me, told me I was an asshole and hung up? We never really discussd anything? WTF? I was even nice to the guy. Maybe I need to start being a total dickhole to everyone I meet then they will buy. Maybe being nice doesn't pay off??

I guess I will just keep trying.

WinsomeWorks

How are you finding out when they're ripped off?

Zerodog

Just on Facebook. Probably get ripped off more too. But at least with watermarks they are marked. It just fricken kills me. But that is what happens when you stick your neck out a little. Somebody will take advantage. But you can't just leave stuff on your computer either. To sell it it needs to be out there.

On the upshot I have been selling some stuff from my last MMA event! Sweet! And better yet that led to a paying job this sat. So it isn't all bad:D

Mark Dickinson

I feel ya on that. I have a fan base of about 5k on face book. I post the photos on there with logos (to spread which I think does help/work) but they end up cropping out the logo, but atleast I can tag myself in the photo to track back.

I was at a few weddings this week and my complementary engagement shoot, which the client knows copyrights are NOT included decided to use them as prints, mixbooks printed an album with my logo all over the photos, and another had a collage at her house of every engagment session photo *all of these photos were reduced in size restricted to medium only allowed for non protected.

So it really happens everywhere. I love the vendors in the area that say, hey can put a few up on my website if so send me some. Yet when I do marketing photoshoots they are around 500-1000 with a few shots included... I never send them and they just rip them from the site and use them anyway.

The associated press also used a photo of mine with out permission and against fair use. 1. came to me asked if they could, "yes with credit please" 2. published it with the story's subject as the photographer/submitted by, and then the news made decent news about dating on social networking sites. I confronted AP and requested 1000.00 from them and they paid due to the letter we sent in from an attorney.

people will do it, they download music, software and anything you can imagine.

Im turning into the dickhole to be honest. The best way to not get ripped off is get paid to display them in the first place I guess

SamirD

I've had newspapers and other print publications rip off my work in the past. I made a very strong Terms of Service agreement for my site that tells visitors that they are violating copyright law if anything on the site is downloaded. I also changed my photo gallery method to SM and turned on right-click, medium, and watermarking.

I've found Facebook users are still the biggest offenders of copyright laws. And with Facebooks' images having no real protection, the images there are basically the world's cheapest free stock photo service.