Yes, it’s true. One of my photos was stolen!
When Kari Byron came to Eastern Illinois on September 26, 2007 (not 2006 as the EXIF data implies), I had use of a Canon Rebel XTi from the school. I took this opportunity to use the camera to take lots of photos of the Mythbusters star, and uploaded them to FlickR. All of that set can be found here.
I didn’t think too much of it till I tried (in vein) to get a few of my shots uploaded to Wikipedia’s article about her. I did the same thing for Jim Edgar. At least that one stuck.
Stumbling around the internet as I often do, I came across a website called Current.com and an article by an enthusiastic writer going by the moniker “Delia the Artist.” I was floored to see my photo accompanying the article. But i was even more floored when I quickly hit Ctrl+F to search for where they had attributed my work back to me. They hadn’t.
The article linked back to Delia’s webpage and, sure enough, under Interview Archive was my picture again next to the article. (Scroll down or just search for “Kari”)
/facepalm
So, I comment on the current.com article and @reply her on Twitter (@DeliaTheArtist). Still awaiting a reply, and not wanting my plight to go unnoticed, I also used the contact form on her website.
Delia,
As a photographer, I’m proud of the work I do. I work hard to make my work desirable. But I tend to get really pissed when someone takes my work out of context and presents it as their own.
You’ve done just that with your interview with Kari Byron. I read the interview (http://current.com/items/90091857_interview-with-kari-byron.htm) and actually rather enjoyed it. But, unfortunately, I’m not here to compliment you on the article. The photo you used for your interview is MINE.
I’m more than allowed to defend my own copyright for the photo of Ms. Byron (on FlickR: http://tinyurl.com/laqguo), as it was not a work-for-hire. I uploaded that whole set to FlickR knowing that it would receive lots of views and more than a few comments.
What I didn’t expect to was to have the photo stolen and used on a website without attribution (which is where the Creative Commons license comes in ).
There’s not even an attempt to link the photo (on current.com or your own website) back to my FlickR profile. The photo on your website is hosted on TinyPic.com. Thanks, seriously.
Now, I like to think of myself as a nice guy. But I worked pretty hard to make sure people knew that photo was taken by me. Whenever anyone on FlickR wants to use my photo, they send me a message, and I’m more than happy to oblige, with attribution.
I believe that your intent was not malicious, but I’d like to remedy this as soon as possible.
I wanted to make sure I contacted you in as many ways as possible so my message was not ignored. I’ve commented on the current.com article, @replied you on Twitter and have (now) used the contact form on your website. I don’t want to send a DMCA notice to your host, but that’s the next step I’ll take if I don’t hear from you soon.
Regards,
Mitch Surprenant
http://www.mitchsurp.com
I’ve also contacted TinyPic about getting it removed from there, so I guess we’ll see. I now know what content creators get so frustrated about when it comes to copyright.
I’d like at the very least attribution in the article and website and acknowledgment of wrongdoing. We’ll see what I get.
Update: Drama averted.
