What's the etiquette rule?

[smweaver]

Kind of funny that when I was recently on Norman's Orchids website (orchids, gift orchids, hobby growing) I was surprised to find that they snagged my picture of my large Dendrobium speciosum to use:

Den. speciosum var. pedunculatum ( x )

I guess it's not that big of a deal--and I'm kind of flattered in a way--but I would think that surely there's some sort of etiquette rule that's been breached when anyone (commercial grower in this case) uses someone else's photograph and doesn't give credit for it. Maybe I should send them a nice email and ask if the plant that's featured is theirs just to see what kind of reply I get. :-)

[cbuchman]

Wow. That doesn't seem very nice or at least not ethical. I would call them on it and see what they say.

[Call_Me_Bob]

thats definitely not cool! especially for such a large orchid nursery! if i were you, i would email or call them and tell them that they stole your photo and used it without their consent

[Ray]

It is not an ethics issue, it is a legal one, as it is a violation of your copyright.


Posted using Tapatalk

[silken]

There's been some long discussions on OB about this and even if you don't put a copyright symbol anywhere, you still hold copyright and it is legally yours and has been stolen. However, you would need a lawyer and have to go to court to fight it.

I would still contact them and inform them that you are aware of their theft. Asking if its their orchid would be fun You might get a free plant out of it or something!

And it is the case of if you put it on the internet, even tho it is illegal, your picture is vulnerable to theft as it is too hard to police this kind of theft. So don't put anything on that you don't want stolen. Keep us posted on what they say!

[Discus]

Originally Posted by silken

your picture is vulnerable to theft as it is too hard to police this kind of theft.

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches. There are also other reverse image search engines like tineye.

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

For instance, a copy of this picture also lives at Xeric World Forums - smweaver's Album: Steve's miscellaneous photos - Picture

You can also digitally watermark images within the file itself (rather that spoiling it with a visible "stamp"), but this is generally commercial software. Most techniques of this kind use subtle manipulation of the colour levels of pixels to embed information (sort of like steganography).

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Discus

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches

Thanks. I didn't realise you could do this on Google. I had a lot of fun playing around with this.

[ronaldhanko]

Originally Posted by Discus

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches. There are also other reverse image search engines like tineye.

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

For instance, a copy of this picture also lives at Xeric World Forums - smweaver's Album: Steve's miscellaneous photos - Picture

You can also digitally watermark images within the file itself (rather that spoiling it with a visible "stamp"), but this is generally commercial software. Most techniques of this kind use subtle manipulation of the colour levels of pixels to embed information (sort of like steganography).

Thanks for the information. I tried it out, and the first two images of mine I checked had been stolen and were being offered for sale on a photography site. I've informed them that the images were mine and asked them to remove the images. We'll see what happens.

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Discus

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

Not to take anything away from Steve's plight, but using this is REALLY fun!! I'm actually kind of flattered that people are illegally using my photos!!

[Bud]

Even if they used it for purposes of study, demonstration or research they still have to credit you as the photographer (after all its your photo)....but if they use your picture as a means of selling their plants and for monetary gain: they should pay you for it.
unless there is no means of identifying the owner of the picture; like when I post most of my orchid pictures in the net and dont put my name on it=then its for everyone to use commercially or whatever