I figured with all my photos posted across the internet on various newspaper websites and my personal blog, some images are going to be stolen every now and then. It is almost a given.
Today, a friend posted on Facebook a link to a little program called “Src Img”. It is a search program that is added to your browser’s bookmark toolbar and will perform a reverse image search on any image you click on.
For fun, I went back through my blog and clicked on a few images that I knew were stolen in the past. A lot of my Mizzou sports photos were stolen and posted on various fan websites such as BleacherReport.com and even on some guy’s website who sells college athletes’ jerseys, football gloves, shoes, jockstraps, etc.
When I plugged in this boxing photo that I took while working at the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2009, I got the weirdest results. I got so many weird results that I just had to share some of them here:
The original image I took in 2009 at a boxing match in Reno, Nevada. Apparently this is a fun image to steal…
And now some screen shots of this picture after it was stolen:
My boxing photo turned into a boxing lizard photo…
I am so honored to have my image used on a poster to sell boys clothing somewhere in Europe…
Perhaps one of my Korean friends can tell me what this says… That is Korean, right?
Not sure what is going on in this one…
So yes, I could send DMCA copyright take down notices to every single little blog and message board that steals my images, but that takes lots and lots of time. I did send DMCA notices to any website that was using my images to make money (i.e. the guy selling sports memorabilia), but it just isn’t worth it to send it so some personal blogger who gets maybe 5 hits a month on his blog… At some point you have to ask what your time is really worth.
I am sure most of the time, it is innocent enough. People just think that if it is on the internet, it is free to take. Some try to use the justification of “I gave you credit,” but guess what? Credits don’t pay the bills…
For those that do have their images stolen, here are some good links on how to write a DMCA take down notice:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/content-theft-what-to-do/
http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice.html
Now, stop stealing my photos and turning them into lizards…
