Photobucket Copyright Violation

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Artists and photographers please be aware. Yet another website which encourages uneducated (or not) users to distribute our copyrighted material for download and print.

It is often impossible to notify the user, for no method of contact is available - Photobucket's complaints procedure being both ridiculous and time consuming, seems especially designed to put people off......rather clever, me thinks.

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Above, an example of my images distributed via Photobucket. This particular user has been careful enough to select only my oldest, most faintly watermarked works, which were originally uploaded at a much larger file size than that which I tend to use nowadays. Notice that when my images are stolen and misused online, the user very rarely takes the more recent, vividly watermarked samples. This convinces me that intention is most definitely behind the taking of these works. Not ignorance, as many have claimed in the past.

If this individual chances to read my blog, or my Flickr site, I should demand that you remove my work at once, for I do not allow ANY online distribution of my work without permission, and would never make it available to download and print for free. To do so is to violate my copyright, which contrary to popular belief on the world wide web is actually illegal.

This is the third time in the past 4 days that I have been notified about my work appearing on Photobucket (all different users), so it appears to me that perhaps this issue may become as urgent as the more well documented Polyvore fiasco, which began back in January of this year.

I have begun a thread within the Etsy forum, and a closed comments post at flickr to create awareness of this issue. 

For some detailed information regarding the older, Polyvore copyright infringement problem, do visit this ink.

I will return later with a long overdue update, I simply have not had a moment to spare this past weekend, although I had been planning to update with news of new prints (and 'The Conspirators' Limited Edition) last Friday......so I am late, as ever!

Please take care with your image uploads, and do remain aware of the problem above, which is quite evidently on the increase.

xxx

Comments

[Louise]

Nice to see others' comments about this travesty. I've been battling Photobucket for a few weeks regarding their thievin' ways. They don't seem to want to give out a phone number...no kidding? They dodge and weave in emails, saying that they can't find the images I've referenced, even though they've been provided with their own image numbers, screen shots, etc. Now, I am being asked to provide proof of copyright for these published and licensed images! (These images are sold worldwide with my name on them.) And Kodak should be ashamed of themselves: On their tandem site, I can buy my own image that someone else has uploaded without permission and create a t-shirt or mug, or large print. Who makes the money? Does the primary thief get any, or just the seconday thieves, Photobucket and Kodak Gallery? The victimized artist gets nothing.

I'd like to start a class action suit if only to hurt both Photobucket, Kodak, and the original thief enough to stop this print-someone-else's-images-for-free garbage. I'm not hosting a free service, they are. They need to do the hunting for copyright infringement, not the artist or photographer. Any other ideas?

[marjorie]

Oh no! Not again!! I had no idea about photobucket!

[Maria-Thérèse]

again! Those a*holes.
I'm glad I became aware of all these image thefts at an early stage. Even if some are deliberate thieves, others think what they're doing is so darn justified. It's online = it's free. Hey, there's a nice car out on the street, I think I'll go take it! What do you mean it's not okay, they left it there for others to see!