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Yes, I have found four of my images that have been used without my permission. They are only currently displayed on Flickr so that is where they were take from.
They are:
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/2
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/9
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/15
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/17
infringing upon
flickr.com/photos/neversaydie/382777457/
flickr.com/photos/neversaydie/381907941/in/set-7215759417...
flickr.com/photos/neversaydie/358351284/in/set-7215759417...
flickr.com/photos/neversaydie/361859394/
I have also submitted an infringement form with Yahoo...nothing.
Does Yahoo stand up for international copyright laws? Or is Flickr just a site for free stock photography!?
Posted 63 months ago.
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I wonder if you should try again to report a Notice of Infringement. Also, the second link you've included should be edited out.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Don't forget Alfie that 30 hrs ago was during the weekend & it is now only 6.30am if San Francisco.
I'm sure when they get into work they will deal with your problem.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Yeah Mark, I know.... plus I think it is Yahoo that deal with this not just Flickr so a few links on the chain to go through.....
But I run a web company as well and if I offered stuff like Flickr/Yahoo, i.e available globally 24/7 and I was as big as Yahoo I would have some staff able to attend to things as serious as this in their own time zone.
When I open a second office in Tokyo at Christmas my company will be able to offer support 16hrs out of every 24 as my close of day at 5pm is my UK office's start of the day at 9am.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Alfie | Japanorama edited this topic 63 months ago.
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I have emailed a few others who I fear may also be on that site.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Nice one MB. The more the merrier.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I just emailed Lost America.
His image was also taken.
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/25
flickr.com/photos/lostamerica/302833833/
AND
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/34
www.flickr.com/photos/lostamerica/227231573/
Posted 63 months ago.
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Desolate Places edited this topic 63 months ago.
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They got Pastor Rick too.
www.kataweb.it/multimedia/media/611567/4
flickr.com/photos/90211545@N00/418092976/in/set-721575943...
Posted 63 months ago.
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Filing a Notice of Infringement with Yahoo is not going to help much; it's not Yahoo or one of their users who is infringing your copyright, and Yahoo, having no control over La Repubblica's website, can't do anything to take down the images in question.
The images are not being directly linked to Flickr's website, so they can't even block them from being loaded; all they could possibly do would be to try to block every IP address that's downloading the images to put on that website from accessing Flickr at all, which would certainly be a challenge.
Someone familiar with Italian copyright law might be able to tell you if they have something similar to the DMCA's takedown notice provision; in any event you'll probably need to complain directly to the website hosting your images.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Email their advertisers and complain that their advert are appearing on a copyright infringing website.
Posted 63 months ago.
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The Notice of Infringement process (NOI) is used when flickr.com (or some other Yahoo! property) is hosting the copyrighted material.
I'll dig around the site and see if they list out what their process is for reporting abuse/infringment.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Only one of those was mine.
Has kataweb been contacted to cease and desist? I sent an email to their legal department.
Are they making money from the usage?
Let me know how this progresses.
Good luck,
Troy
Lostamerica
Posted 63 months ago.
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Yeah, there's not much Flickr can do if the site using your images doesn't belong to them. You need to contact the website yourself, I believe.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I have emailed the Director General of the Company about this, in Italian and not Italian generated by Babelfish but translated by a friend of mine in the media.
We shall see.
If they persist past tomorrow to have these images on their site I will be phoning their legal department.
I will keep you all posted.
The notice on NOI docs posted on here in the help/FAQ section is unhelpfully ambiguous about what Yahoo/Flickr can do to help so an update to that would be welcome.
"The Flickr team greatly respects the intellectual property of photographers. Issues of infringement are handled for us by the specialists within the Yahoo! Copyright Team.
Please file a Notice of Infringement (NOI) with them. Once they have received the NOI, they will work with us for the takedown:"
That text suggests that Yahoo would fight anyone infringing my copyright which is now patently not true, by what people are saying.
I know my rights by the way, just so all of you replying to this thread know. I welcome advice but I did study photographic copyright law as part of my time at art college. A long time ago now but the basics still apply.
Alfie
Posted 63 months ago.
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I don't infer that from the text in the FAQ at all; in any case I wouldn't imagine that some random corporation would be willing to fight for me when a 3rd party infringes my copyright. Particularly not across international borders.
Posted 63 months ago.
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OK Wooble, but we give Flickr money in return for services. If I paid a book publishing company to include my pics in their annual guide to photography, as I used to do, then they WOULD normally do some fighting on my behalf as it could have been from their publication that my pic might have been stolen.
Plus, I am in the EU. Italy are signed up and that helps me.
Random implies Flickr just sort of by accident happens to be involved. This is not true. They are involved, they are the publisher of my photos. Therefore, apart from the responsibilities I have to block pics in certain ways, attach various flavours of license to my work on here, Flickr/Yahoo do have some responsibility in this matter.
Whether you think so or not there is nothing in that statement about Yahoo and NOI that says they will not fight on my behalf either.
If Flickr were a shop in which my pics were for sale [not so far from the current truth] would I as the photographer be expected to pursue shoplifters?
Posted 63 months ago.
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Alfie | Japanorama edited this topic 63 months ago.
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Read the same about another Flickr member, Luca Zappa, just this morning. Also his photo has been stolen by "La Repubblica".
You see his photo here:
www.flickr.com/photos/lucazappa/35388086/in/set-779300/
and the post in his blog here:
www.lucazappa.com/2007/04/01/plagiato-da-repubblicait/
Contact him, two is better than one ;)
Posted 63 months ago.
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Actually Matteo, that makes four of us now. ;-) Thanks for the tip.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I have been thinking about some of the items in this thread ...
1. Walwyn: you said to email their advertisers. Good point, especially for myself and DuffSuds as one of the site's advertisers is VW. We have both had pics of VW's stolen. It might come to nothing but it is worth a shot.
2. Violentz: "there's not much Flickr can do if the site using your images doesn't belong to them" - maybe not much they can do but they should be doing something.
They are effectively the publisher of our work and they should have some responsibility. But, like most other large corporations, they have obviously indeminified themselves against practically every possible eventuality so that's that out of the window I guess....
3. Does Yahoo/Flickr have a partnership with La Repubblica, Kataweb or any of its subsidiaries?
If so, perhaps they would like to tell me now so I can stop wasting my time and/or money with lawyers as, if Yahoo is in bed with these people, then perhaps the rights they have under the terms of service of Flickr to use our work...
[With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.]
...also extend to distributing it to other people.
La Repubblica's site search is powerd by Yahoo, maybe their content-gathering methodologies are too.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Well, well, well......
All of our images have been removed from Kataweb, which is part of Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso Spa, which owns La Repubblica newspaper.
But, I want an apology and as they had two week's free usage of my pics, I want paying too.
So I will keep you posted.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Alfie | Japanorama edited this topic 63 months ago.
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Alfie: "They are involved, they are the publisher of my photos"
Not really. It would be closer to the truth that you are actually "self publishing" and using Flickr as your display medium. Not a lot different than any web hosting service globally anywhere. If you make your own website, and host it at "Best WebHosting", and then someone steals your stuff from your website, the web host has no responsibility to protect you from that.
In other words, you're renting space on Flickr. The garage you park your car in doesn't go after car thieves for you, they just cover your car. If my apartment is broken into, the landlord doesn't repay me for my losses or hire a strike team to go after the thief.
Flickr has some power to go after infringers outside of Flickr/Yahoo, if they're using Flickr tools/API/links, etc. And they do, and quickly. But stuff like this, totally outside of their sphere of control/influence, is just a fact of the internet: people will steal your stuff. It isn't Flickr's responsibility, it's yours. You and others in this thread are correctly doing what you can, directly with the publisher of that paper, and it seems like it worked [images removed].
[PS: also, the takedown notice mentioned here is part of the DMCA, a solely U.S. law. probably not a lot of help on the international stage.]
Posted 63 months ago.
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This whole experience is souring me on Flickr as a whole...there is definitely a perceived amount of protection when you pay Yahoo to host your images. Why the neck should we bother with the little cc? I bet if I went to the Flickr homepage, right clicked and stole the little kid with the blue feathers, then used it as a header on a website somewhere that I would be getting cease and desist letters continuously.
Perhaps Flickr should be putting a little more effort into image security...
I have still yet to hear from any Yahoo representative about any of this.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Are you kidding?! Do you pay anyone to host your web site? or your blog? Do they offer any legal protections if your stuff is taken? doubt it.
There are certain minimum protections you would pay for a hosting service. A garage in the real world, or an apartment, you want good locks on the doors, intercom maybe, good lighting. But that's it. You can't blame the place that's housing your work for theft if they've taken an agreed-upon set of steps to protect it.
With Flickr, well welcome to the internet. To see your images is to be able to take your images. So you can watermark them, only allow small sizes to be seen (which if stolen for only online use doesn't really help either.) or keep them off the internet.
Thieves stole stuff. From a site with nearly half a BILLION images housed. If Yahoo or Flickr had some sort of agreement to protect all of them from the huge giant world of thieving thieves, it would probably keep them a little too busy to actually do anything else.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Searcher I agree...however we are not talking about some fly by night blogger, but rather a site produced in conjunction with a large newspaper.
I do dare to say that if they were your images taken that you would be in a different vein of thought.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Duff Suds: you're missing the point...
even if some high-faluttin' public figure stole my shoes from my apartment... it's not my landlord's job to track them down and make them give them back!
it's mine, the police, and the right processes!
Posted 63 months ago.
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The Searcher: "Are you kidding?! Do you pay anyone to host your web site? or your blog? Do they offer any legal protections if your stuff is taken? doubt it."
Any web host which has material in violation of copyright or other laws on their server is legally responsible. I f I have a web site with xYz.com web hosting and my site contains stolen (intellectual) property, xYz.com is legally liable for this, whether they know that material is there or not.
This is in the US. Laws in other countries, of course, may differ.
Posted 63 months ago.
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yes (thanks, Amanky) that was my point. It would totally suck if my stuff were stolen, it sucks when that happens to anybody. And with artistic stuff, you usually end up being the little guy, staring down the barrel at some huge megacorp's legal cannon. sucks all around.
But the size of the opposition doesn't change the fact that it's your material, stolen by them. There's no one else in the middle, just you and them.
And in this case, large as this thief was, it appears that a few well-placed yells their way got them to do the right thing (righter thing would be reparation, but that seems so rare when this stuff happens) because usually, when this stuff happens, especially at the larger places, they know better, and know right off when they've screwed up, and they tend to listen to the rights owner of the material, small guy or not, more than they'd listen to some other megacorp with a general demand.
[jshook: wrong web host. You personally can absolutely go after a web host if a site hosted by them is stealing your stuff. My analogy was for Flickr, or for the web host that the material was stolen FROM. They can't help you.]
Posted 63 months ago.
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The Searcher: Yes, I see what you meant now. I misread your earlier message. Sorry.
You're right, so far as I know. In my scenario, if another site hosted on aBc.com has material stolen from a site hosted by xYz.com, xYz.com has no legal standing to pursue remedies, even if they wanted to.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I agree with all of what Searcher has said as regards protection, the internet etc etc. I have a friend whose stock response when someone mentions 'invasion of privacy is;
"Dude, you are either on the grid or you are not.... if you are, stop complaining"
He is right and wrong at the same time.
So, yes, whilst I am slightly sour at Flickr/Yahoo it is - realistically - for having a Notice of Infringement and copyright related material in their terms that alludes to being of help when theft takes place when in fact they can't help.
My first port of call was the man in charge of the company who stole the shots, emailing him in his own language.
They seem to make a habit of it though as a guy called Luca Zappa has also had his worked ripped off by them too.
I am back on to them in the morning for an apology and reparation - for all of us.
These people need to learn that they can't do this shit.
I run a media company, web design business and work as a photographer. I am a little guy who works professionally for his clients so that on sites I run and sites I build for others no one has images that are not legally theirs.
I also dont drop litter on the street, I drive responsibly, campaign locally to get speed limits on dangerous roads, help out my local community and generally give a shit.
I won't stop doing this just as I wont stop going after arseholes who steal my work.
I thank everyone on here for their help and opinions.
It is often hard to think rationally when doing so from behind the red mist of anger.
We have done the right thing, some of the images have been removed and now I seek reparation and an apology. Printed apology, on their website.
Thanks all.
Alfie
Posted 63 months ago.
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The NOI/Copyright mentioned in Flickr and Yahoo's terms are for the benefit of people who find their copyrighted material hosted on Yahoo/Flickr servers. If someone steals your photos and puts them up on Flickr, you can bet they'll respond to your NOI.
Posted 63 months ago.
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yah we pretty much covered all this ground already, wooble. I think the main bone of contention [aside from an italian paper stealing images] came from a for some, poorly worded description of the 'in event of theft' faq, making it seem like a notice of infringement would sic Yahoo on anyone.
but it isn't hard to find examples in the forums of Flickr/Yahoo's swift response if it's in their jurisdiction.
Posted 63 months ago.
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ok I admit, this all lies in a poorly worded infringement faq. That being said, thank you for the thorough discussion. As Alfie says, being off the grid does have its advantages.
Posted 63 months ago.
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"If someone steals your photos and puts them up on Flickr, you can bet they'll respond to your NOI. "
Cos it saves Yahoo's ass from a law suit, right?
Part of my point is about who gives a shit about what and why. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it is the same old answer: saving one's own ass.
Like I said, I agree with Searcher's calming voice of realism. But, that this is not the first time that this leading Italian newspaper has been proved to be stealing pics from Flickr.
I am not going to apologise for thinking that it might be nice if Flickr/Yahoo were to come out and say; "Hey, leave it with us to have a quiet word with these folk about this..... cos it is wrong and they should understand that they can't do it."
If that were added to the individual voices of the photographers concerned, it might come across better.
Especially as these Italians have every part of every site they own powered by Yahoo searches.
I get all the analogies about garages, apartments and shoes..... but I have had work on show in galleries before [where there are locks, security cameras - all reasonable precautions] and where I have had work stolen from. The gallery paid up for it.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I don't see what yahoo/flickr can do about it. I think the best thing to do is to go for their advertisers, ask them whether they are comfortable with their products being associated with thieves, that sort of thing. i.e., whack their revenue stream.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I disagree. Why shouldnt Yahoo be interested that the biggest Italian media group is regularly stealing images from one of their websites?
I agree that I shouldnt expect Yahoo to fight my battles for me, I am happy to do that. But the issue of repeated theft from a Yahoo-owned website surely should be of some interest.
To use the garage or apartment analogies used by people above; if the SAME thief or gang targeted one carpark or one apartment block over an extended period of time, maybe the landlord/garage owner might take an interest in helping?
Posted 63 months ago.
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At best all yahoo/flickr can do is whine at them, how do you know that they don't?
If you want it stopped contact their advertisers they'll have far more influence over the publisher.
Posted 63 months ago.
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How I don't know they are whining is that they haven' t told me they are or they aren't.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I disagree. Why shouldnt Yahoo be interested that the biggest Italian media group is regularly stealing images from one of their websites?
Is the fact that they're big, Italian and a media group actually relevant or do you really mean, Yahoo should be interested in anyone who steals images from one of their websites ... because if you do, that's the answer isn't it?
They can't be interested in every case where someone steals an image because there are millions of images hosted here and any image that can be seen can be stolen. If you can't do anything to prevent theft you can hardly promise to go after every thief.
The people who should be concerned about one of the biggest Italian media groups stealing images from another website are the big Italian media group in question. That's who you need to contact and indeed that's who you have contacted and that's who has removed the images. Sounds like the right thing happened. Now send them an invoice.
Posted 63 months ago.
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I also think that maybe this isn't really yahoo-flickr's problem. If you put your images in the public space, then the chance exists that someone can use them for commercial purposes.
maybe it would be a spin-off industry for them - the flickr-yahoo copyright enfringement law team - we fight for U
I definitely see what you are upset about though - I have seen some questionable uses of my flickr-pics here lately and I feel a little of that anger too
All the precautions in the world are not going to prevent someone from grabbing a tiny thumbnail of your images and using it, if that is what they want to do.
If you captured something truly amazing, like a ufo landing or something, and then posted to flickr - just see how fast your images would be copied the world over, copyright be damned
like the commenter above says "in the public space" has both good and bad aspects.
Posted 63 months ago.
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How I don't know they are whining is that they haven' t told me they are or they aren't.
And if they told that they were, how would you actually know?
Contact the infringer first, then their adverisers, then their ISP, somewhere along the line the images will get removed. If they repeat offend start with the advertisers.
Posted 63 months ago.
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If you captured something truly amazing, like a ufo landing or something, and then posted to flickr - just see how fast your images would be copied the world over, copyright be damned
It looks like the internet is viewed by a number of media outlets as a free source of images. By tagging our photos we even make it easier for them to find what they're looking for. One needs to make such activity more expensive than actually buying the content.
Posted 63 months ago.
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does opting out of api search thingee reduce ones exposure to this sort of theft? (reduce, not eliminate. i understand the whole if you can see it you can steal it part, just wondering about the finding it first part)
and have you considered starting a flickr group of peeps whose pics were stolen by them?
it might be a good way to coordinate efforts.
Posted 63 months ago.
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@Dave - the invoice went with the first email to the Italians.
Co-ordinating efforts is exactly what I have been doing. So far there are quite a clutch of people who have had their work stolen by the same people who stole mine.
Yes, I take the point that any theft is theft. It just hurts more when someone big who is also in partnership with Yahoo for some services they offer on their own group of websites just keeps on stealing and doing it to lots of people.
Anyway, they had the invoice again today so if by the end of the week I havent heard anything, I start on the ISP and the advertisers.
Posted 63 months ago.
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The links that Duff posted to to La Repubblica seem to be disabled. Can anyone else see them, or have they taken them down?
Posted 63 months ago.
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This Flickr site is relevant, though I don't know if it will help in this particular situation.
It's about photo theft.
www.flickr.com/groups/306293@N25/
Posted 63 months ago.
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So tonight I get the following message from Flickr.
Hello, Duff Suds!
This is an automatically generated copy of a warning we sent to your primary email address:
-------------------------
Dear Duff Suds,
We have received a Notice of Infringement from Michael
Bowman via the Yahoo! Copyright Team and have removed the
photos "The Barn and the Bumble Bee Bug", "Continental",
"Decaying With Dignity" and "A Case of the Willys" from
your photostream.
Subsequent NOIs filed against your account will result in
further action that may include termination without
warning.
If you believe that you were designated by mistake or
misidentification, or if you believe that you have not
infringed the copyright, you may submit a sworn
counter-notification as to the mistake or
misidentification. Please contact the Yahoo! Copyright Team
for more information on this process:
docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html
Wow, I think this site needs a MAJOR re-working.
Posted 63 months ago.
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What did you do? File a notice of infringement to Yahoo against yourself?
Posted 63 months ago.
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Is this you as well : www.flickr.com/people/mbbowman/ ?
Or likely someone playing a nasty game ?
Because if it is you, then you must be schizophrenic, or something has gone a bit wonky !
Posted 63 months ago.
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Stevekin edited this topic 63 months ago.
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Well, there's always this bit - "If you believe that you were designated by mistake or misidentification, or if you believe that you have not infringed the copyright, you may submit a sworn counter-notification as to the mistake or misidentification". I'd be doing that, and re-filing the NOI with the correct target name (the user who pinched your images)!
And if it is someone playing a game... yeah, nasty!
Posted 63 months ago.
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He mentioned above that he'd filed a NOI with Yahoo. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything Yahoo could do, because it was the Italian newspaper that had taken his photos that were on Flickr.
So, he filed a NOI and listed those 4 photos, and it appears that the Yahoo Copyright team took action and told Flickr to remove those 4 photos based on the NOI. Whether they should have known that the person filing the NOI *was* Duff Suds, I'm not sure.
Posted 63 months ago.
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Ah, I see now !
Apologies for not registering all information above Duff Suds.
Seems to be a case of left hand/right hand, arse/elbow and Yahoo not knowing which is which !
Hope this gets sorted asap for you !
Posted 63 months ago.
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