PSA: safety reminder for photographers and models

So I was making my rounds on Flickr, checking out my contacts photos when I came across I WAS ROBBED. Turns out a photographer on Model Mayhem was swiping pics from Flickr and posting them as his own. Now I know stealing shots is nothing new but, the scary thing is this guy is advertising his services as a photographer. I posted this more as a reminder to those who know anyone that wants to be a model. You never really know who you are meeting. Who's to say what this person's intentions are? Same could also go for aspiring fashion photographers. Wouldn't take much for someone to create a profile as a cute model and email you to do some trade for portfolio work only to have them show up with 10 of their friends and jack you of your equipment. I'm not trying to be skitzo alarmist but, just want to make sure everyone has a SAFE and happy holiday season :)

I hate thieves~

Thanks for the reminder! Sometimes I tend to get a little to comfortable and figure EVERYONE always has honest intentions. Unfortunately this is not so.

This is one the the biggest reasons I have no desire at all in portrait photography. For me the saying is who needs people they just get in the way. I stick with my landscape shooting

Ray Still

What a looser. I hope those models are cautious when they meet new photographers.

Did you report the thief to Model Mayhem?

Glad you discovered it. Sorry it happened.

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Originally Posted by Xia_Ke

So I was making my rounds on Flickr, checking out my contacts photos when I came across I WAS ROBBED. Turns out a photographer on Model Mayhem was swiping pics from Flickr and posting them as his own. Now I know stealing shots is nothing new but, the scary thing is this guy is advertising his services as a photographer. I posted this more as a reminder to those who know anyone that wants to be a model. You never really know who you are meeting. Who's to say what this person's intentions are? Same could also go for aspiring fashion photographers. Wouldn't take much for someone to create a profile as a cute model and email you to do some trade for portfolio work only to have them show up with 10 of their friends and jack you of your equipment. I'm not trying to be skitzo alarmist but, just want to make sure everyone has a SAFE and happy holiday season :)

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Originally Posted by manacsa

Did you report the thief to Model Mayhem?

Glad you discovered it. Sorry it happened.

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Lou's post caused a ton of people to report him. By the time I saw it, the person's profile had already been bombarded with comments and numerous reports made. I wasn't the one who discovered it, someone else on Flickr spotted it. Just thought I would post about it here as a reminder.

I once spent weeks doing a drawing of Aboriginies in a traditional dugout canoe and within weeks of having the work published not on the web but in a book on traditional boats, one of the US's leading wooden boat designers had stolen the drawing and used it on his web site home page, as his logo.

I felt both cheated and flattered. That is a few years ago now.

Do you know the term, the price you put on yourself is the price others put on you? ... when we publish our images on the web, we have already set our price. Welcome to the greater art theft.

I'm used to art theft. When I completed my higher school certificate my major work in art, that was submitted as my major work for the final year and sent for external examination was stolen by the school's senior Art Teacher when it was returned to the school. The school janitor Mr Ernie Rumble, bless his dobbing heart, busted the senior art teacher and dobbed her in. She soon left teaching in Australia and she returned to the US.

When the schools senior art teacher, Mrs Vidivicic from California stole my painting ... I knew I was destined for fame ... while she was destined to loose her job here in Australia.

Warren.

I hate to hear stuff like that. Unfortunately, copyright infringement on the web is rampant. One of the best things you can do, from both a legal and protection stand point, is to watermark your images. That accomplishes three things: 1) a legal term called "notice," which means the person viewing the image knows without a doubt whose it is, 2) if someone wants to rehost the photo, he has to go through the extra effort of removing the watermark, and 3) if he does remove the watermark, he's committed yet another violation of the Copyright Act. Those things entitle you to presumptive proof and greater damages in court - very nice bonuses for little extra effort on your part.

Moral of the story: watermark your images. It must include your name, the copyright symbol, and the year it was taken. It won't stop theft, but it makes it more difficult. Thieves steal images b/c they're lazy; if they have to stop and crop out a watermark, they're less likely to do it.

It doesn't have to be obtrusive, and if you don't know how to do it, this is an excellent freeware program that I use to resize/watermark all of my images: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...492413_394.jpg

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Originally Posted by brmill26

I hate to hear stuff like that. Unfortunately, copyright infringement on the web is rampant. One of the best things you can do, from both a legal and protection stand point, is to watermark your images. That accomplishes three things: 1) a legal term called "notice," which means the person viewing the image knows without a doubt whose it is, 2) if someone wants to rehost the photo, he has to go through the extra effort of removing the watermark, and 3) if he does remove the watermark, he's committed yet another violation of the Copyright Act. Those things entitle you to presumptive proof and greater damages in court - very nice bonuses for little extra effort on your part.

Moral of the story: watermark your images. It must include your name, the copyright symbol, and the year it was taken. It won't stop theft, but it makes it more difficult. Thieves steal images b/c they're lazy; if they have to stop and crop out a watermark, they're less likely to do it.

It doesn't have to be obtrusive, and if you don't know how to do it, this is an excellent freeware program that I use to resize/watermark all of my images: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...492413_394.jpg

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Thanks for the link!