Surf photographers fight back against Facebook image theft
A group of professional surf photographers have launched a Facebook page to highlight how people are stealing their images and using them to funnel web traffic to their commercial websites.
The Facebook page, called Don’t Steal Our Work, has garnered more than 11,500 likes in the week since it launched and aims to shine a light on the issues around copyright theft of photographs on the social media platform.
“One of my peers had huge issue with a whole bunch of websites ripping off his photos and using them,” said Nate Smith head senior photographer at Tracks Magazine, who is one of the organisers of the Facebook page.
“He had huge legal issues because Facebook don’t allow a share request button and so people can just take copyright material and then it just goes on and on and on.”
Smith, who says he has also had images taken and used, says a group of photographers contributing to surfing magazine Tracks Magazine decided to come together to highlight the issue and in particular how people are generating traffic from using other’s copyrighted Facebook image.
“Many people will then fail to acknowledge or link back to the person who created the image,” said Smith.
“What we are finding is this is a huge problem, and you actually have people are running multiple Facebook pages where they have ripped off other people’s surfing photographs in order build attention to their pages and then direct traffic back to their own website.”
According to Smith some of the Facebook pages that are siphoning traffic to particular websites have as many as 350,000 likes. “They are generating online advertising revenue based on stolen images,” he said.
The Facebook page ‘Don’t steal our images’ aims to combat the problem by highlighting examples where people are taking copyrighted images of surfing and using them to drive traffic to their online site. In the last few days the organisers have posted the details of a number of website who have allegedly taken images without permission
“The Facebook page we have created is designed to generate attention around how good photographer will invest $40,000 plus in equipment and then spend all our time creating the images that people share, all we want is credit where credit is due, ” said Smith.
“We also have a lot of trouble dealing with Facebook, we would like them to be accountable for what is happening.They are a big business and you can talk to them if you’re bullied or harassed but if you’re image and copyright is stolen there is nothing you can do.”
The campaign is also being supported by Smith’s employer Tracks which has highlighted the campaign.
“A lot of the guys who are having their images stolen work for us,” said Ben Augden, deputy editor of Tracks Magazine. “We thought we’d step in and help out by writing about the campaign and giving it some publicity.”
Nic Christensen
Facebook is a place where people share stuff, if you can’t understand that, why are you there?
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What are the websites that are stealing them?
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There is something that a lot of people don’t seem to know or understand when signing up to Facebook and hence why I have not.
It clearly stipulates in their terms and conditions “that Facebook actually owns the rights of whatever you post onto one’s Facebook page”.
“For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.”
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
Or their
user agreement:
“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
I don’t think many people understand or realise this?
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Hey ‘Billabollocks’, can’t you read? The people ripping off these guys hard work, are using it to sell things. The point is they are not ‘sharing’ their profits. Do you go to work for no pay?
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@Billabollocks – if you are running a page/site that is commercial then you shouldn’t be sharing content you don’t have the rights to.
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Watermark…
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Billabollocks, you are completely missing the point. This is not simple sharing. The photographers watermarks are being removed, and their photos used to garner likes in an attempt to sell advertising space. 350,000 people is a lot of missed exposure for a photographer, not to mention these pages are infringing on moral copyright and the photographers have every right to ask that their work be credited or removed.
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@Billabollocks If you can’t understand the difference between stealing and sharing, you are gravely dim.
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Isn’t it pretty clear in the T&C’s of Facebook that any image uploaded to their platform becomes their property and they are absolved from any copyright infringement?
So any copyright issues after the images are uploaded to Facebook are purely Facebook’s concern if they wish to pursue them, and the original publisher doesn’t really have a leg to stand on if they see the image used somewhere because they no longer own it (provided it was taken from Facebook for use, not from the publishers own website)?
Notice both my sentences end in question marks, so please correct me if I am wrong.
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@Billabollocks. The photographers are not sharing them on Facebook. The photos are being taken from the photographers’ websites and then shared on Facebook without permission by rogue facebook pages. These rogue facebook pages are using the content to build their own fan base – some of them have more than 300K followers now off the back of content they have no right to use. Facebook does nothing even when you report a copyright violation, and why would they? They’re making moola from the ads they run alongside the stolen content.
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Facebook`s rules and T&C`s allow these people to steal and profit. Why would they change the T&C`s when they are making so much money ?
Facebook do need to address this issue as its a very real one and its world wide.
New guidelines and rights need to be created for the Photographers who use social media for their business.
Facebook make huge profits from selling Ad space and that is what these guys are also addressing, that people are stealing their images and making fake accounts to direct to their own sight that sells its own Ads space built from these stolen images. It’s not just these Surfing Photographers it’s far more spread than just this.
How long before people start to walk away from Facebook as they did Myspace simply because they failed to address these issues that plague these Social Media sites.
I’m glad these guys are making and taking a stand and why shouldn’t they ?
And @Billabollocks, look who failed reading class at School !
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Very simple solution. I had a whole lot of my yachting photographs stolen, so now if i do post anything, I shrink it down so small and resolution is so poor no one would be able to use it or do what I normally do And do not post, anything you do not want to share.
Which to me now is basically everything I shoot I do not share at all.
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You’re not a lawyer are you Nicole.
Those terms are what actually makes Facebook work.
If you didn’t assign Facebook the *non-exclusive* rights, then friends couldn’t share cat photos with other “friends.”
The “right to grant” bit is key to this story as those sharing the surfing images didn’t have that right.
Do I need to expand on this basic concept of social media and copyright?
Billabollocks, you’re a tit.
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It’s pretty ironic to use Facebook to complain about Facebook. They probably couldn’t be bothered to take action against the DSOW page either.
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to all that don’t know and understand. these folks that pirate these images simply drag the images of fb to their desk top, open in photoshop and either crop or clone out out the copyrighted watermark. they then repost on their fb page. How do i know this? my images have been stolen many times. to the more uninlighted persons on this thread, that disclaimer for fb that u think is lagit wouldn’t hold water in any court in the US.
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Doesn`t not sound like these guys are having a big go at Facebook, more like they want Facebook to makes some changes that will help prevent this stealing issue which appears to be rather a large problem and to bring attention to some users who exploit their work.
Its not rocket science and why Facebook don`t make these changes is beyond me.
I too probably have enjoyed looking at one of the many pages that have these stolen images on them, and now i`m aware thanks to this Dont Steal Our Work page i will gladly follow the Photographers who took these wonderful images not the pages that stole them.
Nice work people and i hope Facebook are listening to you and your plight although i`m sure they really do not care.
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A lot of work has gone into DSOW … For those who don’t understand … Do ANY of you that work for a living, or those of u who have an archive of decades of work, wish to have your works used for free for commercial value? I didn’t think so … The issue here is plain and simple. It’s a game to these Pirates of the Internet, setting up pages that saturate the sport & great lifestyle of Surfing … It’s called ‘Grande Theft Image’ ! When everyone thought MySpace was the ONLY cool social media gig around, it came adrift, & tumbled from grace. With the attitude of other Social Media outlets, why is it not possible for the same fate? It’s just a matter of adjustment & recognising that Photographers work extremely hard for their money, and it’s not open slather for their Copyright to be abused & Pirated! DSOW is simply attempting to change attitudes & tackle the awful gift, so many seem to have of ‘greed’ ….. It’s making the ‘average punter’ photog aware that its not cool to simply use others work, even friends on Social media. So many who never really understood the word Copyright in relation to photographs, now have an idea as to what it’s about & are sympathetic to our cause. The numbers of interested individuals who have responded is evident. Thanks, from the team of DSOW. Mahalo. LP
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This is as extreme as facebook image theft gets check this out:
http://tmphoto.com.au/2012/naught-mr-blogger/
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