Stealing of photos

[Graeme Harrold]

Get your solicitor on the case and be cheeky with the amount. At the end of the day it potentially could have lost you the big clients and charge them extra for non-disclosure.

[Ian Muir]

As Graeme says Jason…. lawyer/solicitor time, just to see what ballpark figure you’re looking at.. sure it’s cheaper for them as an out of court settlement, so what?

If they’ve used your pictures without your permission, to compete with you using your pictures as their own then they are in deep shite.

Perhaps the client list they claim to have is false too.

Ian :lol1:

[Alex Tucker]

Unreal Jason, how did they think they’d get away with this??!! muppets.

You need to put a watermark in your photos if you are worried about this happening again. I’d email all their clients with the details to make sure they know you did the work not them … and you may even get some business from it 😉

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Hi Jason.
I remember someone doing this on 101.
They snitched pix from someone’s website and added them to theirs.
Then had the nads to post a link to their site bragging about their work.
There was also someone who actually pilfered real photographs out of someone’s portfolio at a meet and put them in their own.
I have even heard of someone clipping pictures out of SignCraft and putting them into a portfolio to show clients.

So you are not the first person this has happened to, upsetting as it is.

Can you right-click disable the photos?
Can’t tell you the best way to handle this but I would definitely start with a cease and desist letter from your attorney.
Love….Jill

[Steve Underhill]

Right click disable will be able to stop "save image as" but you cant prevent anyone pressing print screen on their keyboard, so that function is basically useless, all you can do is put a big watermark through the image and hope they cant use photoshop.
I have done it with watermarked images before just to prove it could be done so whatever method you use you cannot fully prevent people stealing your pics, just make it as difficult as possible.

[Craig Brown]

quote Jason Xuereb:

I’ve found a company using our photos and passing off the work as their own.

They’ve agreed to pay an amount to settle it so it doesn’t go to court cause it will be cheaper for them being and open and closed case.

Whats the best way to do this?

.

Been there and I know how you feel

…and it’s amazing how many people just say “what you going to do about it”…unfortunately using solicitors is often the only way you get their attention, but unless you want to go down the injunction route (expensive) to stop them using the images, a settlement out of court may well be the best way to go as you will need to prove what damage it has done your business and you may well find the judge is not as generous as you think he should be.

But that’s just my 2 cents worth. Good luck with what ever route you go

[Mike Grant]

How can you check if someone is using your pictures short of accidentally stumbling across the site?

[Graeme Harrold]

I check out my competitors web sites on a regular basis, mainly to see what they are doing, probably how Jason spotted this.

The big companies employ people to trawl the net looking for copyright infringement. I know the likes of Getty embed tracking tags in their images………Big Brother is watching 😮

[Jason Xuereb]

I stumbled across the website because they are directly competing against us across our whole product range. Their main business is design and they have a separate website for this. This second website which was setup directly to promote the product aspect is directly linked to the main company in the form of being registered to the same company, same details etc.

They’ve taken down their whole website for now.

I know if I went to court I wouldn’t receive an award. But they would award all my legal costs and I’d ensure they were the most expensive I could get just to make them feel some pain.

In the end settling out of court will be their cheapest option unless they want their reputation of their design company tarnished.

[Graeme Harrold]

quote Jason Xuereb:

I stumbled across the website because they are directly competing against us across our whole product range. Their main business is design and they have a separate website for this. This second website which was setup directly to promote the product aspect is directly linked to the main company in the form of being registered to the same company, same details etc.

They’ve taken down their whole website for now.

I know if I went to court I wouldn’t receive an award. But they would award all my legal costs and I’d ensure they were the most expensive I could get just to make them feel some pain.

In the end settling out of court will be their cheapest option unless they want their reputation of their design company tarnished.

Thats why I thought you should also hit them for an additional non-disclosure fee……….really make it hurt

[Adriano Fantini]

Imagine if you had done this to a large company….like MCDonalds… you may settle out of court…but don’t be afraid to get a value over what they are worth! Its not just the photos they stole..there is the income they could have generated by using them.

[Chris Walker]

That’s cloak & dagger stuff, you think they would just take some time to do/use their own work?
I suppose you could always pose in-front of all photos of ur work pointing to it, like a fishing photo? lol: (>) 🙄