Stolen! What would you do?
 

I just discovered that someone has illegally stolen a photo from my website and is selling it on eBay. The picture was taken in 1999, I think, at Williams Grove of Kasey Kahne in the Zemco #1.
What would you do about it?

http://cgi.ebay.com/KASEY-KAHNE-RARE...3286.m14.l1318

Above is the eBay link and below is the photo from my website.

http://www.pbase.com/consoli/image/93458630.jpg

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al,
e-mail the the seller & give him a choice to remove the auction or you will take action.he can end the auction early with a couple clicks on the keyboard.still has 7 hours to do so.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Looks like your name is gone from the pic so......not much u can do about it. I'd say from now on have your name close to the car in the pic.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

If I was going to steal anyone's pictures, it would be yours, AL! You do some of the best work in that field that I've ever seen.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Here's what I would do....... Not sure if it is the exact corrcet procedure though.

• bid on the pic (with no intention of buying) it to make sure nobody else wins it.
• email eBay to let them know about the fraud.
• By winning the auction, you'll have access to the sellers name/address. Send him a cease and desist letter (preferably from a lawyer).

I guess it depends on how seriously you want to protect your copyright rights to your work.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al,
Do you see anymore of your pic's on list list?

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZretired*from*nitro


Plus it looks like he sold one already..

http://cgi.ebay.com/KASEY-KAHNE-RARE...QQcmdZViewItem

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I posted an alert to eBay, via my eBay account, that this scumbag is violating Copyright laws in his auction(s). Probably too late to stop him on your photo, but I'll be on eBay's a$$ until they take action on this matter. Did you notice that he trimmed the bottom of your photo just enough to remove your copyright imprint?

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Dano, that's a good idea but, If Al uses eBay or intends to, bidding on and winning items and not actually paying for them can get you in trouble with eBay and diminish your reputation as a buyer and seller. I would contact eBay first and let them know what you're doing. They might, then, go along with it and not penalize you.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I'm not saying that this is the case, but it is possible that the seller received the photo as a gift from someone else that pirated it, and he's selling it without knowing that.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I forgot to mention that if you follow the above procedure, I would not contact the seller until after you win the auction. Also, if you're able to use an eBay account that doesn't identify you, so much the better....... Or you could temporarily change your info.

I used a very similar process to recover a stolen physical item, except because it was a physical item, I involved the local autorities after I won the auction.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

How can anyone do anything? Al's name is no where on the pic. No proof that its his.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

If you tell eBay, they may tell you NOT to bid on the item and let them handle it, but they aren't always as prompt as they should be. If Al otherwise has a good record, I don't think that one bad mark (with an explaination) will hurt him. If the seller gets kicked off or otherwise reprimanded, I'm sure eBay would remove it anyway.

If you read my next post (posted before I saw all these replies), I had a situation where I was trying to keep a seller from sending a stolen physical item from being sent to another buyer, and this process worked for me. I was able to jerk the seller around long enough to get the authorities to take action and get the item recovered and he never knew that I was the auction's winner. And, I never got the negative, either.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Joe, the guy has 245 photo auctions oneBay right now. He must get a hell of a lot of gifts for your scenario to be the case.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I asked the seller if this was his pic....or has permission to sell it. Should be interesting to see his reply.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I'm no expert on copyrights, but I would think that the pic with his name/copyright on the website would be pretty good proof that it is his intelectual property. He can show that it is the same pic with that info cropped off and ask why it would be cropped if not to remove his name/copyright.

Now, he may not be able to prove this to ebay in 6 hours, or eBay may not want to intervene, but outside of the eBay system, Al has a case to make and if he wants to protect his copyright rights, he should persue.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al, I know John Mahoney has faced this same problem several times. You might email him to see how he handles it.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Well, the first thing I'd do is cut his balls off.

But, given that we live in a society with laws, here is how this works.

1. Send an email to eBay asking for the item to be taken down. Provide eBay with the copy of the photo that you feel is the same as the one the seller is offering. This is what the lawyers call a "take down notice". No lawyer needs to be involved in this step.

2. If you find that the item has been sold already, then you need to determine if the seller represented the photo as being his own. If he did then you have copyright violation. What you can do about that in terms of suing for damages depends on whether or not you registered that photo with the U.S. Copyright office. All photos have an implied copyright granted the person who took the photo but you cannot seek monetary damages for copyright infringement unless you go through the motions of actually documenting the copyright.

Here's a link to a page covering this: http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/com...s/register.php

Copyright office procedure and forms link here: http://www.copyright.gov/forms/

It would be easier to just cut his balls off. :wink

Personally, I don't care if people use any of my photos in promotional efforts for their own team as long as the copyright stamp is not removed from the photo and I am given credit for the photo. But when someone goes and sells that photo like is being done here to Al, that's just outright theft. That thief did not stand out in the hot sun to take that shot. That thief did not put their life at risk standing trackside to shoot that. And yet they feel insulated in their act of crime because they can do it semi-anonymously on eBay. :angry-smiley-007:

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

what gets me he cut off Al's name then puts a camera in the other corner like its his !!!Randy Smith

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al generously has posted some of his photos for us to enjoy on indianaopenwheel.com. Copying those images even for ourselves is theft. Most people do not realize that what is copyrighted is the actual image, not the physical reproduction of that image.
How many people on this board have copied Al's photos? Each person who did is guilty of theft.
There may be no good answer for the present, but maybe Al's solution for the future is to no longer share his photos with us.
Jim Morrison

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Looks like he is running...He ended all his midget and sprint stuff early...:Steer


http://search-completed.ebay.com/_W0...*nitro&guest=1

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Found two of his images from here:

http://nascarfz.com/photos/photos-ol...-to-the-dream/

one of Stewart and Miss Eldora in victory lane and one of Kyle Bush

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

From the wording on the old Richard Petty description, it almost sounds as if this is is a collectibles dealer who is selling some sort of inventory of old racing photos. I agree that this is a load of crap that someone feels that they can steal Al's work and thinks that they can semi-anonymously make a profit off of it on EBay and no one would be the wiser. Once again the racing community makes me proud, standing up for one of their own!!

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

That is not necessarily the case.

You can copy pictures from the net if you only use them for your own personal use. You can't sell them to anyone nor display them in public. If you did display them in public or sell them then you are guilty as that was the case with the entire Napster deal. It was the mass trading of copyrighted material.

I am more familiar with the music side of the law on copyright infringement. If you have legally purchased the songs you can rip them to your computer and you can burn them to a CD. If you trade music with a friend you are allowed to do that provided you are not doing it for money OR doing it to an excessive amount (typically more than three shares of the file).

That was the way it was explained to me by a student who was doing a study of the Napster fallout while he was in college. His info came from a massive amount of studying the cases and rulings that came from and still coming from online file sharing.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

[QUOTE=Pitpass;54516]Found two of his images from here:

http://nascarfz.com/photos/photos-ol...-to-the-dream/
Just to make sure, you aren't saying that I stole images to put on my site, nascarfz.com?

Or were you saying that someone stole images from my website?

If someone stole images, I would appreciate it if you would send me an email to kyle@nascarfz.com. They may get in trouble with Getty cause I can turn them in directly.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

I would issue a Cease and Desist. If you want, you could get in contact with a lawyer. its gonna be hard to prove though. What he has done is cut off your name and added his trade on it. If you put them side by side its obvious to me that they are the same.

Here is a sample of a cease and desist letter.
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/INTELLEC...ract/cease.htm

I would also email him and say that you could work something out where he would have to give you a certain cut and leave your watermark on the photo.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

The Hasting Law firm is what you need, Thomas Hasting supports racers so we should in turn support him. Toll Free 1 866-686-1101 If he can not help he knows some one that can.

Jerry #66j
www.joshspencer.com

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al I'm going through the same thing with a client of mine. One of the images we took is being used in a online article about USAC's weekly Regional series. The image we took is watermarked with our logo however it was cropped out, which really gets me going. I issued a Cease and Desist letter which the owner of the site claimed the photo was not the same, until I showed proof his organization visited the site, oops. All we ask for is credit, and its to bad that in this society people cannot give credit when credit is due. I cannot lock down, or watermark all my clients images because they need to be shared, however using them without permission is a violation.

Issue a Cease and Desist and hopefully the madness will stop, unfortunately though for every one letter you issue, there's probably hundreds more that need to go out.

Keep up the great work Al!

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al! Contact a lawyer immediately... Once you take the shot its automatically copyrighted to you. However I'm assuming you haven't sent in any thumbnails to the copyright offices in order to get them registered. Registering them enables like a "super protection" essentially. If you don't your rights to prosecute and obtain reimbursement are limited to the value of the photo... not the value of work behind the photo, future, or past.

However, you have proof your watermark was edited off the photo, this would hold up in court... Anyways, contact a copyright/intellectual property lawyer ASAP!

To Everyone: Credit to a photographer does not pay bills... Your photos and time are worth something charge for it!

Alex
www.figzphoto.com

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

Al...for future postings...don't put your pictures online so big....that makes it so much easier for people to take them off and print them up....i have seen so many pics online that i could make 8x10's all day long cuz the photog put a huge file online...
Keep Up the Great Work!!!

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

If you own the negative, you own the photo. These days this kind of stuff is so hard to police. I had a guy tell me one time that he only wanted a little picture so he could take it home and copy it enlarge it and pass it out to his sponcers . So I took the picture , tore it up into about a hundred "little" pieces and asked him if that was small enough, then I just dropped it on the ground next to him. I quit taking pics shortly there after.

Re: Stolen! What would you do?
 

so, Dirty White Boy, my solution would still be the same. Don't post pictures and people cannot copy them. Or post them in so bad of a quality setting that no one will want them.
And, I believe your comparison to what that student told you about purchasing a CD, or a music download, falls a little short. The artist has been paid at least something by an individual. In most instances, a photographer has not been paid a dime for an image downloaded.
What really ticks me is people think there's nothing wrong with it. Or, what happens when someone pulls into a gas station and pulls away with a free downloaded tank of gas? Imagine going to a movie theater, making a copy of it and then giving it to a friend. Or buying a ticket to a movie, using it and then turning and giving to a friend so they can use it also.
Downloading a picture is just as wrong and the courts will ultimately uphold that position.
Jim Morrison