Bit of a ‘what would singletrack do’ type enquiry here.

A while ago I posted some images on my Instagram account (as you do). I also shared them in a specific hobby group on Facebook too. This was a good few months ago now. The image in question was taken by me, of my property, on my property.

In the same group I posted another image and one of the comments was that they recognised the car in question (it’s an RC car group) from an eBay listing and asked if I was the seller of the parts.

Long story short, looks like someone the other side of the road (Australia) has poached my images for use on their commercial eBay listings.

Not sure what I should do about it (if anything, I’m not a professional and in effect the images are in the public domain having been posted on SM).
I have some sausages in the freezer but can’t travel to Oz right now…what would Singletrack do?

Don’t ever go on Alibaba Express… its littered with stolen Instagram images

I was sent images by a friend that had been lifted out of my instagram account that were being used by a seller to sell knock-off Giro helmets. Not just pictures of parts either – actual pictures of me and my wife riding our bikes!

Its part of the risk of putting pics out in the public domain.

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

As above – not much you can do about that sort of stuff. Had it been a brand using images without your authorisation then it would be a different matter (not that pictures being in the public domain is sufficient argument legally, but it just wouldn’t be worth the hassle).

You could contact eBay and report the fraud with evidence of your pictures. That’s about it.

Pretty sure that pics posted to FB become their property. As they own Instagram……
There was a change of terms of the google photos setup that changed it from being their property to remaining yours but they are allowed to mine the data for advertising purposes. Think that is now in line with most other image storing services. Only way to do it safely online is to use general file storage. You then lose a lot of the benefits of google photos and the like.

If it was in the same country and you can prove some commercial loss of revenue or something you might have a long expensive court case.

Internationaly, not worth worrying about other than making some noise about it.

Pretty sure that pics posted to FB become their property.

No they don’t. When you upload them, you grant Facebook a licence to use them for certain (probably far more than is reasonable) purposes but you still own the images.

Maybe watermark your pictures in future so it’s obvious they are not the persons photos.

No they don’t. When you upload them, you grant Facebook a licence to use them for certain (probably far more than is reasonable) purposes but you still own the images.

That makes more sense than how I understood it. Granted it was early FB days that I looked into it (trying to understand what I was getting into).

Yeah I’m not that bothered and I’ve certainly not lost anything financially as I’m not a professional.

It just grates a bit when someone does something a bit cheeky like that across you! Quite flattering that they thought it was a good shot to sell their items…wonder if it’s worked for them?

Have you considered contacting them and pointing out they’re using your images? If it’s a company trying to use them for sales they may offer something in return.

Not very optimistic of that but it can’t do much harm can it?

Many years ago my brother took his film to our local camera shop to get developed after his walking holiday (pre digital cameras). One of the photos was a really nice view of the Cuillins.
A couple of weeks later his photo appeared in our local newspapers ‘photo of the week’. It was 100% his photo, however he never sent it to the paper.
The name the photo was credited to?… the lady who owned the camera shop!
We made sure never to use them again.

There’s a UK MTB guiding company whose entire branding was stolen from my Flickr account…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/As4kks]dirty2ride 5[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

The chap in the photo, Luca (an Italian MTB guide and Enduro racer) was mightily pissed off to see their van in his home turf!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/A8ZEou]dirty2ride 3[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Yeah I’ve sent an eBay message but I guess being on the other side of the globe they’ve not picked it up yet.

That’s proper cheeky @footflaps, did anything ever come of it?

You own the copyright to those images. Just because they’re on Facebook they’re not public domain. So, one course of action could be to send a friendly and reasonable invoice for a license to use them. This is bread-and-butter stuff for many lawyers but it’s probably not worth the trouble of suing them. However, the MTB guide above, that’s a major settlement in the making. Especially as he’s Italian and they have strict privacy laws in Italy. I know of cases where pictures were published of people without permission and they received five-figure settlements.

I’d definitely be issuing an invoice to the mtb company for that use.

I know photographers whose entire business model is chasing infringements.

I know photographers whose entire business model is chasing infringements.

STW gets threatening emails on a regular basis, generally of the “I’m an important lawyer and I demand…” variety. They very occasionally have a point but five nines of the time they just get referred to the prior legal precedence set by the case of Arkell vs Pressdram and we never hear from them again. (And aside from anything else, the forum doesn’t host photos…)

Honestly, they’d get taken more seriously if they just asked nicely but that never happens. And I expect there aren’t many regular readers who will be surprised at the response received when anyone goes from zero to lawyer.

That’s proper cheeky @footflaps, did anything ever come of it?

Nope, I could have sued them but hardly worth the hassle….

STW gets threatening emails on a regular basis, generally of the “I’m an important lawyer and I demand…” variety. They very occasionally have a point but five nines of the time they just get referred to the prior legal precedence set by the case of Arkell vs Pressdram and we never hear from them again. (And aside from anything else, the forum doesn’t host photos…)

Honestly, they’d get taken more seriously if they just asked nicely but that never happens. And I expect there aren’t many regular readers who will be surprised at the response received when anyone goes from zero to lawyer.

Yeah, the guys I know who do it aren’t the most impressive photographers so make up for their lack of skills with indignant outrage at people using their pictures. Either that or teaching.