[Roxy]

Last year I bought a young filly from a lady I know.  She breeds her ponies, and is also a keen photographer.....just for herself, not as a business.  At the top of her website, she has a lovely picture of one of her ponies, and the one I now have.

Well, she was searching for something on the internet, put in the breed of the pony.....and lo and behold up came something on ebay.  She could not believe her eyes, when someone had "stolen" her pic, and was selling "professional photos" using it, and also t shirts etc featuring our ponies!!!

Now me, I think its not on.  It does say on the website that all photos are her property.  If someone wanted to use one in a magazine for example, the polite thing to do is ask, surely.  Most reasonable people would agree.  But just to use the pic to make money?  When I looked at the ebay stuff he had for sale, there were lots of horse pics, and also vintage scenes.  Which set me thinking.....nothing to stop someone using the one I put on this forum, of my uncle and auntie haymaking with their horse and cart!!

There again, people would say he is using his initiative, and making money.  I have noticed he has removed the pics of our ponies, and also changed his user name .....so he must think he has done something wrong. Although when challenged he said he had just got it off the web, not her website.

So just beware, it could happen to you!!

[doganjo]

Copyright is a huge subject in law, but is well documented and proven.  Basically the person who takes the photo owns the copyright - not the owner of the animal.  But if your friend specifically says on her website that they may not be used then whoever uses them is breaking the law in any case and could be sued.

[ballingall]

Exactly- and the polite thing to do is ask. I have a friend who is a very good and keen photographer but is not professional. He keeps most of his photos online on flickr, and he has twice been asked for permission to use an image, which is what should happen! I would be upset if I discovered someone had done that with a picture I took of my goats.

Beth

[sagehen]

Isn't there an intellectual property law or something that stops people from using your private stuff without prior permission. She ought to report to ebay, and she is entitled to a percentage of his sales. If he agrees, she can even ask for audited accounts. If he refuses, she can take it to Trading standards, and if she decides to take it to court, provided she can show proof of dates and that the pics are hers, she'd win easily.

[bazzais]

You should send him a cease and desist letter.  (plenty of free templates on google)

If he does not remove the images report it to ebay and his web host.

Hosting companies usually take any report very seriously as its them holding the copyrighted information on their servers, they will inturn ask the user to prove ownership beyond reasonable doubt and freeze the account if its obvious that they have stolen the images.

Take screenshots of any offending images now while they are still online.

If they are hotlinking to your images then you can have some fun

Its not nice and its not on when people steal your images/work for personal gain and without your permission.

Ta

Barry

[sellickbhoy]

the problem with stealing images from the internet is that the theif never actually knows where the image originated

there are a couple of large companies that sell images - getty images being the main one - that have a digital signature on each of their images and they aggressively track and sue anyone who uses their image without permission

so, the person who stole this image got lucky that it wasn't a getty image - but there is nothing stopping her issuing a xease and desist letter

in fact, they could claim compo and could complain to ebay too