Stolen Photograph

Gordon · February 10, 2006

My 72yr old father telephoned from the UK to tell me someone had stolen one of his picture of Naval Ships and got it published in UK Navy News magazine. Anyone got any advice on what I should tell him to do?

He's a keen photo hobbiest and never sold any pictures for financial gain..... and really doesn't want to. He's more interested in getting credit for his work. What made him so mad was he e-mailed the editor to inform her his picture was in the Feb edition of NN. She replied that the person claiming rights to the picture told her he was standing beside my father when the picture was taken.

My sense is he would be happy if the Navy News editor would believe it was his picture and correct the error in the March edition..

Shay Stephens · February 10, 2006

First off, you have to verify that the photo printed is indeed the one your father took. Look at the angles, details, shadows etc to see if this is a dead ringer or slight variation as claimed. Does your father still have the negatives?

It very well could be a photo taken by someone else. I have seen some remarkably similar photos of my own that required a double take to make sure it wasn't.

After having established that the two photos are indeed one and the same photo, then take that evidence to the publisher.

But you also have to ask yourself what you want out of this. If your father is only looking for credit, then ask the publisher to make a correction in an upcoming issue.

Gordon wrote:

My 72yr old father telephoned from the UK to tell me someone had stolen one of his picture of Naval Ships and got it published in UK Navy News magazine. Anyone got any advice on what I should tell him to do?

He's a keen photo hobbiest and never sold any pictures for financial gain..... and really doesn't want to. He's more interested in getting credit for his work. What made him so mad was he e-mailed the editor to inform her his picture was in the Feb edition of NN. She replied that the person claiming rights to the picture told her he was standing beside my father when the picture was taken.

My sense is he would be happy if the Navy News editor would believe it was his picture and correct the error in the March edition..

Gordon · February 10, 2006

Stolen Photography
Thanks...

It was a digital picture, posted on Smugmug...

He is totally convinced it was his picture - apparently, the reason Navy News was interested is these boats is they are seldom, if ever, seen together. Surely there is enough detail in this image for an editor to tell whether it is the original.

I'll ask him to send the digital image (with Exif) to the editor and to make sure he's clear about what action he wants taken.

wxwax · February 10, 2006

He should ask for credit, and the same amount of money that was paid to the thief.

ian408 · February 12, 2006

Good luck.

gtc · February 12, 2006

overlay
if it was nicked its another example of why viewing/download size should be limited by the subscriber in the smugmug control panel

the publisher should email the copy they used and you could then superimpose it over your dads original-if it all lines up then you have proof.

Gordon wrote:

Thanks...

It was a digital picture, posted on Smugmug...

He is totally convinced it was his picture - apparently, the reason Navy News was interested is these boats is they are seldom, if ever, seen together. Surely there is enough detail in this image for an editor to tell whether it is the original.

I'll ask him to send the digital image (with Exif) to the editor and to make sure he's clear about what action he wants taken.

Gordon · February 13, 2006

The outcome
The editor of Naval News called my father today. She agreed that he had a case that the photograph was his and was prepared to publish a correction on their web site - NOT in a future addition of NN.

Her next comment was a surprise - the thief never received any payment for the picture.

It's not quite the closure I'd hoped for the old man but it's time for him to move on and go back to his passion - taking pictures of boats..

Thanks for the support everyone....

Andy · February 13, 2006

Gordon wrote:

Thanks for the support everyone....

Well, not exactly what you hoped for, but some closure, anyhow...

gtc · February 13, 2006

you could also..
i am one who can't take these things lying down-an occupational hazard.

if they published the photo,and profited from it, then you have an argument that the fee,which was not paid to the thief,should be paid to your father.

the argument may not of course be a legal one-who would go to court over this-but certainly it has moral weight- if necessary threatening small claims action,cancelling your subscription and encouraging others to, and attendant publicity may squeeze the cash out of the cheap baskets.i think its worth a letter to the editor.

once you get it,depending on how much, you could then go out for a nice dinner and a few beers!

also be careful about posting on the web-keep your viweing size down so that they cant rip you off.

good luck

greg

Gordon wrote:

The editor of Naval News called my father today. She agreed that he had a case that the photograph was his and was prepared to publish a correction on their web site - NOT in a future addition of NN.

Her next comment was a surprise - the thief never received any payment for the picture.

It's not quite the closure I'd hoped for the old man but it's time for him to move on and go back to his passion - taking pictures of boats..

Thanks for the support everyone....

mercphoto · February 13, 2006

gtc wrote:

also be careful about posting on the web-keep your viweing size down so that they cant rip you off.

I learned that the hard way... twice. For two months last year I stopped water-marking race images (I disabled large and originals, however). My sales plummeted. I now water-mark again.

The second way was this Saturday. I was talking with the father of two boys entered in a kart race. I knew the father and have talked to him before. He was praising my work and telling me how he even grabbed one of the photos last year from my site, cut-out the kart from the background, and used it as a semi-transparent background on stationary.

I was so dumb-founded at his ommission to my fact that I quite literally had no idea how to respond to him.

Water-mark everything. Its unfortunate that you cannot trust people.

Pamela · March 18, 2006

gtc wrote:

i am one who can't take these things lying down-an occupational hazard.

if they published the photo,and profited from it, then you have an argument that the fee,which was not paid to the thief,should be paid to your father.

the argument may not of course be a legal one-who would go to court over this-but certainly it has moral weight- if necessary threatening small claims action,cancelling your subscription and encouraging others to, and attendant publicity may squeeze the cash out of the cheap baskets.i think its worth a letter to the editor.

once you get it,depending on how much, you could then go out for a nice dinner and a few beers!

also be careful about posting on the web-keep your viweing size down so that they cant rip you off.

good luck

greg

I was wondering what setting would I change, and where is it located?
So that the view is smaller.
Thankyou

Cindy · March 22, 2006

Pamela wrote:

I was wondering what setting would I change, and where is it located?
So that the view is smaller.
Thankyou

Pamela I checked out your site. First off you should set right click protect and consider dissabling large & origanal sizes in each customize gallery setting. As it is right now anyone can right click to save your images to their harddrive. Nice shots btw :-)

Pamela · March 22, 2006

Cindy wrote:

Pamela I checked out your site. First off you should set right click protect and consider dissabling large & origanal sizes in each customize gallery setting. As it is right now anyone can right click to save your images to their harddrive. Nice shots btw :-)

Thankyou Cindy

How do I set right click protect & disable large ., I thought I did hhhmm

Pamela

Cindy · March 22, 2006

Pamela wrote:

Thankyou Cindy

How do I set right click protect & disable large ., I thought I did hhhmm

Pamela

You have to do it by customizing each and every gallery with those settings. I believe you can save a gallery template of your settings and bulk apply it to all... heads up though... be sure and double check that your bulk settings take effect because I've noticed several times bulk template settings that didn't go through as they should have

I made and tried to apply the same template to several galleries and it worked on about 3/4 of them. Not sure why it didn't on all

Have a great day!

GerryDavid · March 28, 2006

Cindy wrote:

Pamela I checked out your site. First off you should set right click protect and consider dissabling large & origanal sizes in each customize gallery setting. As it is right now anyone can right click to save your images to their harddrive. Nice shots btw :-)

Its easy to work around the right click thing, just so you know. :0)

Stolen Photograph

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