Keep an Eye on Your Images

It’s a common rumbling amongst businesses, professionals, artists, photographers, creative types, etc. in today’s world of the internet to find their images, logos or creative work borrowed, or simply flat out stolen.  When I rebuilt my website, I included reworking every single image/picture of mine to include a big watermark on each image.

Why?

Because alot of my previous work was simply stolen.  I am finding dozens of pictures, content and images that have been hijacked off of my old site.  It was around for 5+ years and had alot of good traction and search engine rankings.  Through this entire time, however, I was only contacted ONCE by someone to ask if he could borrow some of my work (Turned out he wanted some of my copy/text, and not a photo)

Here’s a Prime Example

About 4-5 years ago I created this little “Wedding Ceremony” graphic and used to show what equipment/services I provide for wedding ceremonies.  Here is the original web page that used it and described it.  To re-iterate, I currently do NOT use this on my site any more.  But others do . . .

I agree, it’s a bit cheesy (and the setup is not nearly as nice and clean as my current offerings) but it worked for years and years.  And apparently, many others thought so too . . .

Here the actual listing of all of the websites that have used that exact image/graphic.   Ya gotta love Google!

A few of my favorite Culprits

Taken from the list above, here are some of the different websites that are using this exact image:

• http://promobiledj.com/2010/05/wedding-ceremony-rigs/ This friendly chap wrote an article about DJ’s that provide sound systems for ceremonies.  Yo Pro DJ!  Did ya ever think to reference the actual Creator of the info graphic you used in your piece? Instead, he listed a bunch of other DJs. He used only the picture instead, and didn’t offer a tad of credit or link back.UPDATE: The picture is actually broken on the page, but the link is still here – http://promobiledj.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1074-300×194.jpg
• http://www.ryanmillerent.com/weddingceremony.html  **UPDATE** Ryan took down the picture, but  Hey, wait, that text/copy is still mine!
• http://aecentertainment.com/weddings.html – Nice work on cutting off my logo and watermark, sneaky one.  Hey wait, that too is my text and copy.
• http://www.7ramevents.com/Wedding_Services.html – Ahh, Mr. 7 Ram Events.  He was highlighted in my original article on Stealing Pictures the Wrong Way.  (The image is swapped as a result)  Yup, all of my text/content too.
• http://www.digitalsoundandlighting.com/mobiledj/lighting_effects.html – My favorite!  Scroll to the bottom. This clown actually took the time to Photshop all of my text, arrows, callouts, etc.  He did a shitty job too.

So, Have at it!

Now, I’ll be glad for anyone to borrow or use any of my images, since it’s quite clear as to who the proper copyright belongs to.   I put a phat watermark on every image.  Some may think it’s too much watermark.  Possibly. . . if I was a wedding photographer 😉

Inspiration? Thanks Jeff

Not only does this practice erck me to no end, this post and my recent ‘investigative’ work was inspired by Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives, a well-known logo and brand designer whom I respect and follow.  He has been spending the better part of the last few months uncovering dozens and dozens of rip-offs of his and others’ work.