While browsing ebay.ph last night, I instantly became a blogger police. I recognized that one seller's photos came from someone else's blog and were not credited. To add insult to the injury, both photos were cropped to hide the owner's watermark.
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| Source |
Here are the original pictures (from Sasquatch Swatch):
Here are the photos presented on the seller's page. Uncredited and tampered. The owner's watermarks were deliberately cut off.
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| Mirror Source |
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| Mirror source |
How difficult is it to cite sources these days? It's way easier than taking a photo and making an extra effort to crop the watermark, right?
I still remember Erica's copyright issues with a fellow blogger. Similar problem: unsourced diagrams with watermarks taken down. What makes this case a little bit special is that the offender dealt with watermarks that were difficult to remove. Offender took screenshots of the owner's Youtube tutorial that showed the diagrams. End-result? The entire blog was shut down.
So what can we do to protect our blog contents? Lorelle has the best tips in dealing with this issue. Click on the blue button below if you want to know more.
I hope no one among you has gone through a similar case. What are your thoughts on issues like this?
Yikes! That is scary kasi the seller might be a scammer pala kasi he/she doesn't have photos of the products being sold and he/she just stole photos from bloggers. Bad bad bad. It's great that you noticed it!
ReplyDeleteThat happened to me before. One of my artworks naman that was posted in Multiply (this was when my Multiply account was my default blog) was stolen by someone who used it as her headshot! I messaged her about it but was ignored. Grrr naiinis pa rin ako pag naaalala ko eh.
Picture stealing for financial gain in my opinion is the worst. =(
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered whether I should watermark my pictures.
I've been seeing a lot of those on eBay (from that seller to be specific) and most pictures are from that blogger naman. Bad.
ReplyDeleteI agree, how hard is it to credit?? It's harder to crop pa nga e! :| Some people are just not born with net etiquette :(
ReplyDeletenangyari na din to sa akin. an indonesian seller cropped my photos from my BB cream review then she claimed that Im using their whitening cream =(
ReplyDeletehmm to be philosophical about it theyd say there is nothing original left in this world...
ReplyDeleteat any rate, intellectual property theft really sucks but what can we do? even our own supreme court justice is not above plagiarism
here from GT
they should put the watermark in the middle part :D para wala na sila ma-cropped :))
ReplyDeleteI'm actually ok with people taking my pictures kung re-blog lang and basta walang explicit words saying something to the effect na they took it.
ReplyDeletePero para sa mga nagbebenta ng product, ayaw ko i-take yung pictures kahit pa i-credit ako or i-leave yung watermark. Kapag scam yun, baka ma-associate pa yung blog ko.
Also, I used to have an online store, and I always post pictures that I took, in the rare case na wala, I take pictures from the official website ng product and credit that site.
Kapag ang seller kasi na nagkukuha lang ng pictures sa iba, it gives me an impression na TAMAD sya and makes me doubt his/ her character.
Parang common ethics (?) na yan, kapag pinaghirapan ng iba, i-credit mo sila. Para lang ding sa opisina diba, give credit where credit is due.