Most bizarre theft ever for one of my photos

[davidc]

Finding people stealing your images can be reasonably common depending on how much you spread them around the internet but this one of mine I've found has to be the weirdest (and probably annoying) yet.

I give you "Dental Pigeons" from that bastion of the internet UAEPigeons.com

http://www.uaepigeon.com/vb/uaepigeon15104/

Not only have they nicked my danbo/pigeon photo they've actually gone further than any other thief and added their own watermark! Needless to say action is being taken against them.

We do not have a suitable emoticon to express my feelings...

[Rose]

Good grief ! Some people have no shame...
How do you do your image searching ?

[davidc]

I have used an automated tool to download all my images from Flickr at 1024x resolution (the most common size I post online) and drag into google image search. Google can scale them up/down to some extent too so the source resolution doesn't matter too much. I then look at where they have been used, mostly it's flickr/500px/our forum but periodically others have stolen them. I've had people steal my images and claim as their own on instagram, facebook and even Linked In but a UAE website dedicated to pigeons takes the top spot!

[Rose]

Interesting... can you share the tool David ?

[davidc]

http://sunkencity.org/flickredit

You need to authorise it to get read only access to your flickr account but after than you can set it up to automatically down all "standard" sizes of your photos locally (so small, medium, large and original).

You can run it from that site or download it to your PC, I chose to download it and run from there. Handy for getting all your work downloaded in bulk without having to go into each image separately.

[Mike Farley]

Finding people stealing your images can be reasonably common depending on how much you spread them around the internet but this one of mine I've found has to be the weirdest (and probably annoying) yet.

I give you "Dental Pigeons" from that bastion of the internet UAEPigeons.com

http://www.uaepigeon.com/vb/uaepigeon15104/

Not only have they nicked my danbo/pigeon photo they've actually gone further than any other thief and added their own watermark! Needless to say action is being taken against them.

We do not have a suitable emoticon to express my feelings...

This certainly is a weird one and it does not get any less strange after running the page through Google translate. So far as I can tell, it is some kind of forum and the actual thread is to do with the digestive system of pigeons. Still, you should be flattered as the post apparently ends "Hallelujah Hallelujah and praise the great".

What does intrigue me is how you intend to pursue this, especially as it has been posted in a part of the world which is not renowned for its respect of IPR. My "Brighton or Bust" image has appeared on a few forum threads, but I did not pursue the matter as I reckoned that those threads were unlikely to be seen by many people and it was more hassle than it was worth to get them removed.

[davidc]

Had they not watermarked the image as their own I'd have likely ignored it too but sticking their own label on it was too far. If they don't accede to the request to licence it, or take it down, I'll chase their webhost.

[Rose]

http://sunkencity.org/flickredit

You need to authorise it to get read only access to your flickr account but after than you can set it up to automatically down all "standard" sizes of your photos locally (so small, medium, large and original).

You can run it from that site or download it to your PC, I chose to download it and run from there. Handy for getting all your work downloaded in bulk without having to go into each image separately.

Thanks David - I tried, but my Mac won't let me open it

[davidc]

Try this perhaps - http://clipyourphotos.com/bulkr - claims to support mac?

[Rose]

Try this perhaps - http://clipyourphotos.com/bulkr - claims to support mac?

NJope... same problem ! LOL... oh well