Organized photo stealing from TE!

[dta]

Bonjour ,
Il y a ausi une photo de Nicou , représentant le village de Biel , sur Switzerland-travel-guide.info .

[thor68]

they seem to be random and changing every couple times you go on the site - my photos have all disappeared at the moment.
maybe some of the others recognize theirs.

[Merline]

I think I'll ask them to pay me a trip to Iceland, they took one of mine from there :-).
Changing is probably a way to do it, by the time you complain they are gone...nevertheless I think we should write to them, individually, to make the point.

[dumbo]

I can still see at least some of your photos thor. For example that church photo from Ireland. Did you wrote them?

I'will write a snappy letter for them and ask for some payment=)
Let's see what happens.

[thor68]

no, i did not write yet, first thing in the morning, and i will ask for 50 euros per photo they are using - and i have seen 6 from me until now.

[dumbo]

I will also write them tomorrow morning...
But what I think is going to happen is that the whole site disappear or then absolutely nothing happen.

But see you in morning.

[oochappan]

small correction of the title of this thread:

Photo stealing ORGANIZED BY TE

TE hides itself by the saying 'anything posted on the net can be stolen, there is no protection'
while the TE-system itself pushes your photos in top ranking search on the net
while TE never took any action against theft in spite their 'Copyright © 2009 TrekEarth' annotation
while other sites try at least to protect more explicit photos of their members

in the view of 'the created opportunity makes the thief'
leaving a ladder unprotected outside your home is seen in many countries as an offence
that brings us back to the question:
Who are in fact the real offenders ?
Those who steal,
or,
as well as those who encourages theft by negligent unprotection
while aiming for top ranking advertising rewards ?
Your choice to feed second option ... but then again,
you shouldn't complain about it here as you chose the option to encourage theft organized by TE.

[robiuk]

Well explained, Henk!

And you - rest of our dear TE members, remember these words and remember this man! His words are worth diamonds!

Cheers,


R.

[thor68]

yeah right, lets all stop posting here!
then nobody can take away our precious pics...

[kryger]

Hi, as the author of one of the stolen photos (Cologne Cathedral used as the banner on the top of german-travel-guide.info) I must admit that I'm partially shocked and a bit disgusted, but at the same time - proud. BTW. thanks Thor68 for identifying my photo and letting me know!

It's obvious that most of us are hobbyist and probably would agree to make their photos available for free, in exchange for being mentioned on the "about us" page or something like that. Of course everything changes when they violate this rule. The very fact that they thought that nobody will notice so they can do it without our permission makes them common thieves.
Has anybody of you already reacted and contacted them? I think it would be a good idea to send one, 'official' email listing all the photos we identified or at least be consistent in our 'demands'! :)


As for the more recent part of the thread (in fact it motivated me to post my reply in the first place) - the responsibility of TrekEarth... I couldn't believe my own eyes - do you really think that it's their fault that some guy simply browsed the gallery, right-clicked the pictures and selected "Save Image As"? I can't see how they encourage or make it easier for the potential thieves, all photo hosting sites I came across are the same, and the only workaround at web level I can think of if to disable right-clicks (which is in fact more annoying than effective).
You tried to suggest that that theft was encouraged or even organized (sic!) by TrekEarth - but I honestly can't see any connection between these facts (perhaps because I'm not really upset by the fact my photo was used, all my photos on Flickr are on free Creative Commons license and If TE allowed it too I would probably go for it)


Cheers,
LK