someone is using my image online...

nomnomnom

I have a small business, with a website, manufacturing soft furnishings. Just discovered that a company in Ireland have stolen a photo that we took of a job we did and are using it to sell same stuff.

I am trying to find out what I can do to stop them - they are ignoring emails and tried to call but no answer or even an answerphone! What can I do

pcombo

whats the websites im keen to see what these pics look like

TEDDYRUKSPIN

Use a solicitor. International law. A simple letter of telling them to take the picture down is suffice or legal implications.

pcombo

The best guess is they didn't steal it. was probably listed on google images or something like that.

Bikertov

We had a dodgy travel company use an image from our company website. They even had the cheek to just link to it, rather than copy the image, so we had a load of traffic using our bandwidth.

So I sent a 'cease and desist' letter, and within 2 days the image was changed.

davb

pcombo wrote: »

The best guess is they didn't steal it. was probably listed on google images or something like that.

Google images only index the images and link to the original site, and when you click on them Google displays a message at the top of the screen "Image may be subject to copyright." If there is a copyright notice on that site, then using it without permission is stealing.

Bikertov

davb wrote: »

Google images only index the images and link to the original site, and when you click on them Google displays a message at the top of the screen "Image may be subject to copyright." If there is a copyright notice on that site, then using it without permission is stealing.

I would have thought that even without a copyright notice ? Surely you should explicitly say it is free from copyright ?

In any case, it is always good practice to put a general copyright notice at the foot of each page.

buglawton

Check if they copied your image to their site or linked to the image on yours. If the latter, relocate your own image and place an image of your choice at the link they are using. Could be an advert for your own biz for example.

CHR15

buglawton wrote: »

or linked to the image on yours. If the latter, relocate your own image and place an image of your choice at the link they are using. Could be an advert for your own biz for example.

better still Donkey P0rn or Midget Wrestling.

elektra-2007

Im not sure theres a lot you can do but you can get free programes where you can water mark your pictures, that will stop people in the future. And im sure you can get a programe where it stops people right clicking on your pictures.
If you take alot of pictures then you can buy programes that will watermark your pics in bulk.

pendulum

In a lot of cases it's actually the web designer who's used images without permission and the owners of the business are totally unaware of it, just something to bear in mind. They should see to it that the image is removed quickly though.