Furious! Someone's using my horse's picture

[Marty]

OK guys can someone help me out?

Someone is using a picture of my Prancers for an ad. Obviously stolen from my website. Needless to say, they have no permisson to do so and I would like them to remove it. Problem is I can't seem to find out the origin. I keep getting led around in circles. I'd appreciate any help. Take a look. Its Brite Star and Noelle, the black fillies with JOY and Christmas decorations taken in my barn that day.

http://www.shopping.com/home-furnishing/Horse-comforters-curtains/products~PG-3?KW=Horse+comforters+curtains

 

[REO]

Have you used the "contact us" link at the bottom and complain? I don't blame you for being upset Marty.

 

[eagles ring farm]

That's horrible I search around the site but see no place for reviews of their products. Let us all know if there is a way you find to contact them and we can all join in the joyous holiday bash.

 

[Marty]

I emailed Cafe Express as they have a huge list of FAQS and a contact email place but they never responded. I'm going to try again. I do think this is a really good heads up for everyone to watermark all their pictures so they don't become fair game like this.

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

Hi Marty...it took some doing for me to get cafepress.com to open and a half-dozen tries to open the Intellectual Property Rights Policy button at the bottom of the page, however, the complaint process is very clearly laid out. If you contact them with no resolution or reply from Lindsay Moore then I'd be pursuing legal action with your local DA...Julie

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

I checked the Coastallivingshowercurtains.com site with no hits as well--remember I'm mobile--so if I were you I'd focus on the Intellectual Property Rights contact first. Good luck and keep us posted!!

 

[Hosscrazy]

I don't see it on CafePress, but the image is definitely on shopping.com's website. Ath the bottom of shopping.com is information on copyright infringement:

Notice for Claims of Intellectual Property Violations and Agent for Notice

http://www.shopping.com/sc/terms-of-service

Liz N.

 

[Minimor]

I emailed shopping.com and told them the photo was being used without permission...

I cannot tell on my phone--is the picture on their own site or have they linked it from Marty's site?

 

[Lil Eowyn]

That would make me so mad! I hope everything works out.

 

[SampleMM]

This has happened to me as well and that's why I now watermark every photograph. I'm sick of people taking credit for my horses and one shot was of my daughter and her horse. It's terribly upsetting! So sorry you are going through this Marty.

 

[REO]

Do a screen capture for proof!

 

[Lizzie]

Remember, when you make a website, to make sure there is 'no right click' added to the html. Either that, or you can make sure if someone does steal your pic, when they open it up, all they find is a little blank square. If you do not do this, then all your pics are harvested by google and show up on the millions of google pics. This is actually where most people find and lift pics. Many think because they are on google, that they are free to use. Of course this is incorrect. Any picture, text, drawing, painting etc.etc., belongs and is copyrighted, to the original person who made it. Even if you find a pic you'd like to use for example, in a newspaper, you must also then, who the photographer was and obtain further permission from him/her. Copyright is quite involved. I discovered someone was selling Brussels Griffon products on the net, and was using pictures of one of my champion dogs to advertise. I did write to them explaining that what they were doing was illegal, but would gladly accept half of any monies they made, using my dog as advertising. They quickly took her picture off their website. I also had a man who lifted and entire page, html and all, off an old website of mine and placed it on his own website. I had been loaned and allowed to use, some of the pictures contain therein, by members of a royal family of Europe. Explaining this to the culprit and how it could go very badly and very publicly for him, proved to find the page missing, rather promptly. But there really is no way to protect everything we have on the net. There quite well might be many or even hundreds of our personal pics and text out there, being used by others. Sometimes others tell us about it and sometimes we just happen to find it on our own. We can do our best when making our websites, but it won't necessarily always protect us. The worst culprits, are those who steal pics of horses and use them to scam others with ads for horses for sale. We constantly see this in the tons of scam Gypsy Horse ads out there.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

They are not selling it- so they are making no money off it. The ad is for a "do it yourself" set of shower curtains using your own (not Marty's' ) pictures, so at least they are not making, nor intending to make, money off it. I would say this unfortunately means your picture is now in a "bank" somewhere on the Internet and has been accessed, probably legally, for use in the ad shown. I am sure they will take it down when asked, I would be more concerned with getting them to tell you where they got it from, however....

And the right click thing really does not work if you want to get the picture it is easy (obviously I am not going to say how....) Also, watermarking it does not work as...ditto, I am afraid.

What we really need is the equivalent of magic ink, that we can imbed in a picture so that it actually interferes with the programme of any "filcher".

 

[Marty]

Thanks so much guys. I'm going to also contact shopping.com as well. They seem to be related to cafe express as their faqs page seems to be the exact same one. I'm really shocked thinking someone would use that picture in a header for shower curtains of all things!

 

[KingsLuckyNight]

I'm blind xD. I don't see anything.

 

[Small_Stars]

Lizzie is absolutely right. If you "google" pictures of whatever, it will pull pictures from all over the net. You have to take responsibility for protecting your photos. Copyright them, watermark them and disable right clicking. But even then, it doesn't take much to go into the code and snatch the picture that way. Your best bet is to watermark the name of your farm of whatever across the front of the picture. At least then if they take it, it leads back to your farm. Be sure and put plainly on your site that all content and photos are your property and are not to be copied without permission. Make sure that the statement is easy to find and not in microscopic print. You can also hide pictures from showing up in your code as well so they can't take it from the code.

 

[Small_Stars]

Rabbitsfizz is right too. For code savvy people, it's not that hard to get the photo and take it. But you can, instead of imbedding the code for the picture in your page code, you can put it in another file and all that will show up in the page code is the "address" to where the picture is, but no access to the picture itself. That way they can't get to the code either. Or you can use PHP to pull the picture from a database when the page is opened and that will protect it too, but honestly is more work than it's worth.

Easiest way to do it is to put all pictures in a separate directory and set the permissions so that only that server can access it.

Good luck!

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Still easy to get at it, I am afraid, as is removing the watermark. In this case, however, either would have put them off....

 

[ruffian]

I had this happen, but it was another breeder! When I emailed them, they said it was their photo, and basically shut up. I then emailed back and told them that I had the original, and to get it off or face court proceedings. It came off and never heard from them again. Keep on them, you 've got some good ideas above.

 

[Lloydyne]

I think I would be honored if someone used my pictures.....just another side