photography.com stock photos without permission

wheresdavid · December 23, 2007

i was checking where visitors to my smugmug site came from and i noticed that there were some that came from photography.com stock photos. i went to photography.com and did a search by my last name and sure enough there were 250 of my photos.

i don't recall ever signing up for an account or giving them permission to use my photos. hase anyone dealt with them or had an similar experience?

i did send an email to photography.com asking how my photos got onto there site but i haven't heard back from them.

Holiday greeting from Hanoi

dave

gus · December 23, 2007

Well i searched 'brisbane' & i found heaps of mine on there as well.

What a pack of thieving arseholes.

.

wheresdavid · December 23, 2007

maybe not ...
i read a little bit more about the website and it says that it is a search engine for photos. if you click on "your/my" photos you are taken to your/my smugmug account.

dave

gus wrote:

Well i searched 'brisbane' & i found heaps of mine on there as well.

What a pack of thieving arseholes.

.

gus · December 23, 2007

wheresdavid wrote:

i read a little bit more about the website and it says that it is a search engine for photos. if you click on "your/my" photos you are taken to your/my smugmug account.

dave

I dont care...i did NOT give permission to ANYONE but SM to use or hold my photos. Im not here for the money so i dont care if they claim they are trying to help. They actually had access to a private album of mine. I logged out & tried several things & each time i clicked on my image..i was taken to one of my private albums.

entropysedge · December 23, 2007

I think I'm lucky ... nothing of mine up there ... yet ...

maybe their system searches out common names and phrases to hook nto images ...

Angelo · December 23, 2007

it's just a search engine, no big deal. it's actually a good thing for your business

if your images are coming up that means you've done a good job with key-wording

Andy · December 23, 2007

Angelo wrote:

it's just a search engine, no big deal. it's actually a good thing for your business

if your images are coming up that means you've done a good job with key-wording

They are not doing anything that Google doesn't do. Click on your resulting searches, people, before you get up in arms

Andy · December 23, 2007

gus wrote:

They actually had access to a private album of mine.

Send me the search query on photography.com and also the album on your site

photocat · December 23, 2007

I have 350 photographs on there. I only hope that the links comes back to my smugmug, so I can earn something on it. First I did not find myself, and found it rather depressing, because I WANT to be picked up in search engines...
The minute I gave in photocat it was bingo.
I just hope that it comes back to us...

Angelo · December 23, 2007

photocat wrote:

I have 350 photographs on there. I only hope that the links comes back to my smugmug, so I can earn something on it. First I did not find myself, and found it rather depressing, because I WANT to be picked up in search engines...
The minute I gave in photocat it was bingo.
I just hope that it comes back to us...

did you click on one of your images? did it take you to your own site?

photocat · December 23, 2007

Angelo wrote:

did you click on one of your images? did it take you to your own site?

yes it did. But I also noticed what previous poster said that it shows even my protected galleries, I am not to keen on that one. If I do families and I promise the family a private gallery, there should not be a possibility for people to view them.
I don't know if Smugmug could address this... I don't care if my public galleries go out, but I do mind for the private galleries...

Andy · December 23, 2007

photocat wrote:

But I also noticed what previous poster said that it shows even my protected galleries, I am not to keen on that one.

Send me a link, and the search string you used to find the photos.

gus · December 23, 2007

Andy wrote:

Send me the search query on photography.com and also the album on your site

I moved the photos that were coming up in a private file...maybe my cache

Odd though as i signed out of SM..changed my password & this site still took me into it.

I dont really care mate...they are using my stuff to market with. I didnt agree to that. As you well know...im not into photography for money.

photocat · December 23, 2007

Andy, here is the string...

http://www.photography.com/stock-photos/index.php?searchstring=photocat&page=11&catid=23&pid=

Of course, the people have to find me when looking for photocat, but still... I can not be bothered by public galleries, but it is another matter for private ones!
Thanks for looking into it... ;o)))

Richard · December 23, 2007

I just found some of my stuff there, though sadly, I wouldn't say it's my best stuff. Like the others, I found links to pics in my private archive gallery, but I think this is normal behavior as long as external links are permitted. As far as I know, all private means is that the gallery does not show up on my home page. But anyone with the URL can still view it. Right?

As for permission, I don't see it as an issue since clicking on the pic takes the viewer to my Smugmug site. As Andy said, it's just like Google images. If they were selling my pics, it would be a different matter.

gus · December 23, 2007

rsinmadrid wrote:

I found links to pics in my private archive gallery, but I think this is normal behavior as long as external links are permitted. As far as I know, all private means is that the gallery does not show up on my home page. But anyone with the URL can still view it. Right?

Sure...however i moved all the photos (just a big garbage file of 'should be thrownouts') into another album & even when i was signed out of SM & with the new album, i was still able to see the album.

Andy · December 23, 2007

photocat wrote:

Andy, here is the string...

http://www.photography.com/stock-photos/index.php?searchstring=photocat&page=11&catid=23&pid=

Of course, the people have to find me when looking for photocat, but still... I can not be bothered by public galleries, but it is another matter for private ones!
Thanks for looking into it... ;o)))

WHen did you make the gallery private and passworded?

Tango · December 23, 2007

the search engine is finding pictures you have never posted or shared anywhere, and are in protected galleries?
key is the photos have not been posted before anywhere right?

i will be watching this thread with concern.

gus · December 23, 2007

Andy wrote:

WHen did you make the gallery private and passworded?

Mine was passworded from day dot...maybe 3-4 years. Signed out..still got access to the album...changed the entire album over to a new title & could still see the album.

Surely this is a cache thing perhaps

OsirisPhoto · December 23, 2007

Isn't new for sites like this..

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=77028&highlight=stock+photos

I don't mind if photos are used so long as it's clear what the deal is regarding copyright, etc.

But I wouldn't have thought that private galleries on SM could have been indexed

Angelo · December 23, 2007

photocat wrote:

Andy, here is the string...

http://www.photography.com/stock-photos/index.php?searchstring=photocat&page=11&catid=23&pid=

Of course, the people have to find me when looking for photocat, but still... I can not be bothered by public galleries, but it is another matter for private ones!
Thanks for looking into it... ;o)))

I was blocked at the password page. You're probably seeing your gallery because it's in your cache.

photocat · December 23, 2007

Angelo wrote:

I was blocked at the password page. You're probably seeing your gallery because it's in your cache.

Lets hope that this is the reason. I wondered about that one...
I can't clear my cache now as I am working on some things, but if anyone else could test it out I would be grateful...

Phyxius · December 23, 2007

Hyperbaric wrote:

Isn't new for sites like this..

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=77028&highlight=stock+photos

I don't mind if photos are used so long as it's clear what the deal is regarding copyright, etc.

But I wouldn't have thought that private galleries on SM could have been indexed

Re: copyright....how can their thumbnail versions be missing the watermarks?

Andy · December 23, 2007

Phyxius wrote:

Re: copyright....how can their thumbnail versions be missing the watermarks?

Copyrights and Watermarks are different things... watermarking thumbnails is a user-choosable thing on SmugMug.

Gary Peterson Photography · December 23, 2007

Questions....

Andy wrote:

Copyrights and Watermarks are different things... watermarking thumbnails is a user-choosable thing on SmugMug.

I checked my name, and DBA on there, both brought images that I have on my Smugmug site. Interstingly enough, when I right clicked on several of them, I was able to save them on my computer, even though those images are supposedly right click protected on Smugmug....

This happpening to anyone else?

Phyxius · December 23, 2007

Right click protection is available from smugmug. If you post that image anywhere other than your right click protected smugmug pages (like a forum or personal website) people can right click and save as.

Andy · December 23, 2007

Gary Peterson Photography wrote:

I checked my name, and DBA on there, both brought images that I have on my Smugmug site. Interstingly enough, when I right clicked on several of them, I was able to save them on my computer, even though those images are supposedly right click protected on Smugmug....

This happpening to anyone else?

To be clear, you are speaking of the thumbnail images, yes?

You can disable external links, and then your photos won't be linkable on sites like this one.

OffTopic · December 25, 2007

I noticed that only my photos that contain the search word(s) in the caption show on their site; having the search word in my keywords isn't enough.

I hate putting seemingly redudant captions on photos in a gallery, and it would be tough to write a caption that includes all of the appropriate keywords. I feel like I'm never going to get the hang of this keywording stuff!

claudermilk · December 25, 2007

Interesting thread. Upon checking I have nearly 1000 images showing. So far I've only found public galleries & since I'm logged in on this machine, I can see everything. I guess I'm doing a decent job of keywording.

saurora · December 25, 2007

photocat wrote:

Lets hope that this is the reason. I wondered about that one...
I can't clear my cache now as I am working on some things, but if anyone else could test it out I would be grateful...

I was also blocked out of your galleries.

photocat · December 25, 2007

saurora wrote:

I was also blocked out of your galleries.

thanks for having a look Saurora... Much appreciated!
So my private galleries can not be seen?
Thanks
Have a merry christmas...

photography.com stock photos without permission

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