Image Thieves Burn My Butt!

Image thievery is a huge issue for me and virtually all other serious photographers who have websites or blogs.  I just don’t understand why some folks think they have the right to steal the images of others.  Social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest and tumblr are a big part of the problem (though it certainly exists elsewhere on the web).  Each of these sites has policies in their terms of service that prohibit members from infringing on the intellectual property rights of others and allows them to disable the accounts of those who abuse the policy.  For example, from the terms of service of Facebook: “If you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.”   Social media sites also have online forms that allow legitimate copyright holders to file Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notices with those respective sites.  Sadly, I’m coming to know these procedures well and some of those accounts have been disabled permanently because of repeated abuse. Below is just one example of how flagrant and egregious these violations can be.   This image of a male American Kestrel is in my Feathered Photography image galleries (link to the photo).  Every page and photo in those galleries contains this statement:  “All images are the property of Ron Dudley and are protected under international copyright laws“.         But last week I was alerted by someone who recognized my image on the Facebook page of someone else.  Notice that my copyright has been removed and replaced by the logo of Alessandro Pinna. …

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