It happened again. Another set of photos of mine were stolen and posted on the web without permission. Usually, I’m fine with just getting the photos removed. But this time, the story needs to be more public due to the actions of the thief.
On Sunday morning, I received an email from someone on flickr alerting me that one of my butterfly photos from the Butterfly Rainforest was in Tulsa7035′’s photostream. I did a quick check – and yes it was my photo of the banded grecian shoemaker butterfly. After doing a little exploring of Tulsa7035’s photostream – I found two additional photographs of mine in her collection.
The first thing I did after finding the photos in her photostream was to make PDF files of the Flickr pages – and downloaded copies of the files to my hard drive.
Next I sent a letter to Flickr that met their rules under their Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy My letter was based on PhotoAttorney Carolyn Wright’s excellent letter in her Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement.
And then I posted info on the theft, with links to the copies, to Twitter. From past experience, I knew that my twitter friends (and all of their friends) can be a great help in dealing with situations like this. Not too long after I posted my tweets, comments began to appear on the photos in her flickrstream – with links to my original photos.
I believe the comments caused Tulsa7035 to remove one of my photos from her flickr account. As of this morning, two of the photos are still posted under her account.
The two photos of mine that are still in her flickrstream are
A Giant Charaxes butterfly – my photo on flickr – and the copy in her photostream
A Golden Birdwing Butterfly – my photo on flickr and the copy in her photostream
Please note the difference between my photos on flickr and copies she posted. On the copies in her flickrstream – there are no watermarks on the photos. All the metadata is missing. They are posted with a creative commons license (rather than the all rights reserved I use).
In other words – by stripping all of my identifying information and changing the license – she effectively has turned my copyrighted photograph into orphan works. If someone wants to license them, they have no way of knowing that I am original photographer and that I did not place the photos in the commons. I no longer have control over these three copyrighted photographs.
Tulsa7035 has deleted several comments on the photos in her photostream linking her copies to my originals and identifying them as stolen photos.
Tulsa7035’s actions aren’t going to stop me from posting my photos on the web. I’ll continue to post them – watermarked with my copyright notice and with my contact info in the metadata. And I will file DMCA notices every time I find a stolen photo. Unfortunately, dealing with thieves is the price photographers have to pay for sharing our work on the web.
There is, however, a bright side to this entire mess. In the past 24 hours, I have received so much encouragement, support and help from my network of friends on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. They have posted spectacular comments on Tulsa7035’s flickr account, filed complaints with Flickr, provided me with contact info to help get this resolved – and emailed, tweeted and FB commented so much wonderful supportive notes. Thanks everyone for all the help – having online friends like I’ve got makes it much easier to deal with the occasional photo thief.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post soon that the stolen photos have been removed.
Update – Monday evening – Flickr has let me know that they have taken appropriate action. My photos have been removed from Tulsa7035’s account.
Thanks again for all the help in dealing with this mess. I really appreciated all the wonderful comments my friends made on the photos on Flickr!
June 29, 2009 at 10:23 am
I’ve had work stolen, as well. A bit flattering, but still infuriating.
June 29, 2009 at 10:28 am
Thank you for writing about this, describing how you handled it. This will be a good resource for any of us in the future.
June 29, 2009 at 10:34 am
I just reported abuse on Flickr on those two photos in addition to the Tweeting and commenting I did this morning. I hope this all helps and that it gets the issue resolved more quickly. There’s just no excuse in stealing the work of others. It’s an insult to those of us who post our own work on Flickr.
June 29, 2009 at 11:18 am
I’ve left a remark on her site that the photos are your copyright. There were a long list of others, tool. I’ll also report abuse on Flickr. This can happen to anyone and should happen to no one.
June 29, 2009 at 11:19 am
That, of course, should have been “too,” not “tool.” Ah, spellcheck isn’t what’s needed. I need “stupid check.”
June 29, 2009 at 1:58 pm
?? You ever heard of ‘water making’ your photos before posting them where thay can be copied??
June 29, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Thanks everyone for the help and comments you left on flickr. I really appreciated them.
@pobept – my photos on flickr are watermarked. The watermark was removed before they were posted to Tulsa7035’s account
June 29, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I see she’s (?) deleted them now. What a shame someone would feel it appropriate to post someone else’s work under their name. Glad to hear you caught it!
June 30, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Tulsa has stolen my photo today. She blocked me. What can I do? Where can I report abuse on Flickr?
June 30, 2009 at 3:56 pm
File your complaint with Flickr via: http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html
June 30, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Great posting. I was one of the first victims of Tulsa7035. A friend informed me that she had one of my fractal art pieces on her page. I also helped “out her” but Flickr did not like that at all. Now, I really feel discouraged with Flickr. I like the community of artists but I’d like to see more protective methods/policies implemented. I also have a smugmug account and it facilitates better protection of posted images. What is missing, though, are the active communities of users.
June 30, 2009 at 4:08 pm
HB – sorry to hear about your problems with Tulsa7035. I’ve just emailed you a copy of the letter I used to get Flickr to pull my photos from her account. It took them about 36 hours to act – but they did remove the photos. Hopefully it will work for you as well.
Manny – thanks for providing the link and info. I’ve been notifying a few people who’s photos I’ve been able to identify in Tulsa7035’s account. Hopefully if enough of us file complaints – Flickr will suspend her account. She is clearly violated their TOS – to say nothing of federal law.
I’m still posting to Flickr – but nothing will get posted larger than 600 pixels in the longest dimension, Level 8 or 9 Jpg and with a watermark. I have to believe that most flickr users are honest – and that Tulsa7035 is not representative of the community.
Thanks both of you for commenting
June 30, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I really don’t understand why folks post photos on Flickr when so few people there seem to understand copyright. If I were in Patty’s shoes, I’d be completely wigging out, getting lawyers involved, etc. NO ONE should take credit for your work. Cropping out Patty’s copyright notice shows clear intent to violate copyright law. Go after her — and Flickr — with the big guns. Make a huge stink. Hold her accountable.
PLEASE folks, if you do post your good work there, put honkin’ HUGE watermarks on them.
July 1, 2009 at 6:16 am
Member banned for posting stolen photos to this group
Jun 30, 2009
Posted at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/butterflyrainforest/discuss/72157620795168782/
Ryan Brookes says:
Dear members,
This is to inform you that this person http://www.flickr.com/people/tulsa7035/ has been banned for posting stolen photos to this group.
I have listed below a few links to the photos that have been stolen from various websites and uploaded to his/her photostream followed by the link to the source. Do not believe that any of these images have been posted without the knowledge that he/she is violating the copyright laws for this person has been reported by several members before and is fully aware of his/her fraudulent activity.
I advise you not to leave comments on any of these photos for he/she is deleting these images soon after it has been publicly disclosed that it is stolen property and thereby wiping out substantial evidence of the theft. Instead, I think it is better to inform the copyright owners of the stolen images and leave it to them to take whatever action they find necessary.
Regards,
Ryan (Group Admin)
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3653607990/
Source: http://www.treknature.com/gallery/photo182749.htm
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3656929155/
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29446253@N00/174379297/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3656962541/
Source: johnbokma.com/mexit/2007/06/27/butterfly-safari-near-san-…
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3653598846/
Source: davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/394/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3653598834/
Source: http://www.fotothing.com/dragonspeed/photo/82bea643602fbe9baacf7...
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3653598864/
Source: dallas.about.com/od/recreation/ig/Fort-Worth-Nature-Cente…
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3656946275/
Source: http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/wood-satyr-butterfly-vibrant-p...
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3656946277/
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pattyhankins/2789271260/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulsa7035/3656946261/
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pattyhankins/2788418081/
July 1, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Well, it seems that, after an avalanche of complaints, Flickr came to its senses and took action against her by summarily deleting her account.
July 1, 2009 at 8:10 pm
This has me laughing and shaking my head. Not laughing at you at all though, believe me.
This mythical tulsa7035 made me a contact on Flickr earlier today. I’m very picky about who I reciprocate with, because my contacts can view my photos large, and I make a living doing this. I can’t afford to have someone stealing my photos.
Anyway, I checked out “her” photostream, and realized immediately that he/she/it was a complete and total freak.
I ignored the contact request. Went back later to look at the pix again, just for a laugh, and saw that their account had been removed. Curious, I googled tulsa7035, and landed here.
I hate dishonest people. I’m really sorry this happened to you.
July 2, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Glad to see the account was finally deleted by flickr considering so many people have been burned by this user.
Sadly though, she’ll most likely join again with a new name.
July 2, 2009 at 3:48 pm
She’s already opened an account on Zoomr. So far – it has photos of her pets and family.
My guess is there will be many people (including me) keeping an eye on that account to see what else shows up
July 3, 2009 at 8:08 am
For those of us who want to reamin watchful for any future copyright violations, her Zooomr link is: http://www.zooomr.com/people/tulsa7035
Manny
July 3, 2009 at 4:08 am
[...] Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement. This is the letter that I used this week with Flickr when 3 of my photos were stolen. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Links – July 18 2008Links – December [...]
July 5, 2009 at 8:42 pm
bomobob said: “Anyway, I checked out “her” photostream, and realized immediately that he/she/it was a complete and total freak.”
I just checked her out on Zooomer (using the link Manny shared) and have to agree: she IS a freak. But at least she doesn’t seem to be stealing anyone’s photos there.
Yet.
So glad Flickr acted.