stolen photo wins contest

[haven]

Here's a tale of image-making in the modern age: An unscrupulous person "borrowed" a photo from a well-known photographer's web site, edited it, and submitted the result to a photo contest. And won the first place prize.

http://imageandview.com/notes1/how-a-stolen-photo-became-a-contest-winner/

Audio "mashups" are a routine part of the music industry. Will this become an acceptable way to produce images, too?

 

[aluke0510]

Well it violates copyright laws which are accepted by most countries and is prosecutable by law. It just comes down to if it is worth it. This has been a problem since the introduction of scanners and the internet, nothing new.

Best way to protect your images is only uploading very low res files to your website. Putting a water mark does nothing in this day in age as it is easy to remove unless you water mark the entire image which defeats the point. The problem becomes when you sell images and if you sell based on number of usages per user or sole rights to the photograph. Sole rights mean it is mostly the problem of the buyer to deal with; sure you don't want somebody else taking credit for your work but you don't deserve any compensation from the usage.

The winner should be refused his prize whatever it was and all recognition removed.

Back a while ago there was a professional photographer that broke the entry rules for the BBC photographer of the year and one with a picture of captive animals (wolves I think). Everything was taken from him but by the time they found out it was too late to take it out of the book which was already printed and on the way to stores. He is bared from ever entering again.

 

[Chazz Layne]

Will it become acceptable? No... at least I certainly hope not.

It has certainly become common though, I deal with similar issues all the time (just never with this much publicity). It's time consuming, so I don't go after all of them. I'll often ignore imagery that's been "borrowed" for use in an article, as long as I don't disagree with the article and I'm at least credited. If it's something I'm against or don't want to be associated with, or uncredited corporate/government use I go after them (yes, I've even had to go after the feds ). So far, a simple letter has always been sufficient to get the image pulled.