Question about blogshop stealing my photos/review without attribution

[cannedpineapples]

Hi guys,

So a blogshop recently contacted their customers (including my girlfriend) and said that if we did a review on their clothes, they would feature us.

So we did, and posted it up on her blog (I provided the pictures).

What happened next was infuriating.

The blogshop lifted the words from her review and downloaded my pictures and put them on their own site without attribution. No link back to us, no saying that it came from us.

This seems to me like clear copyright violation. Any tips what I can do to get back at them? We tried contacting them already to ask for attribution (without legal threats), but they refused. It strikes me as a very distasteful way to do business and I'm very upset.

Clarification: we were doing our own unpaid review on clothes that we bought from them at full price, not for the purposes of a review.

 

[sjackal]

Find out who is their server/hosting and write to the hosting company, provide clear proof, the hosting site may shut down their site. If its those cheapo free blogs, its even faster. And if its using US based hosting, try filing a DMCA complaint.

If all else fails, the power of social media.

 

[Ian]

Firstly before you do anything go and READ the TOS (Terms of Service). Many sites including a lot of the major Social Networking and Blogging sites have buried deep in their terms of service that anything you post (images, words etc) may be used by the website for promotional and or other purposes without the consent of the original poster of the material, without attribution and without payment of anything.

If you aren't sure, post up a link to the TOS and let those who know what they are talking about read it and see what they think.

 

[edutilos-]

The blogshop lifted the words from her review and downloaded my pictures and put them on their own site without attribution. No link back to us, no saying that it came from us.

This seems to me like clear copyright violation. Any tips what I can do to get back at them? We tried contacting them already to ask for attribution (without legal threats), but they refused. It strikes me as a very distasteful way to do business and I'm very upset.

Clarification: we were doing our own unpaid review on clothes that we bought from them at full price, not for the purposes of a review.

Link the blogshop.

Also, do what Ian says. If it doesn't check out in their favour, you can always send them a bill for the pictures.

 

[cannedpineapples]

The blogshop is Agneselle- their blog is here, and if you scroll down you'll see that they screwed over a few different bloggers. Nobody got credit. http://www.agneselle.com/blogs/news

We are using blogspot for our original review. I understand if Blogspot uses our photos and words, but a separate blog doing the same? http://www.blogger.com/terms.g

"Your Intellectual Property Rights. Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third-party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content at its sole discretion."

 

[sjackal]

Have you contact them for removal of your pictures and review yet?

 

[cannedpineapples]

Not yet. My ideal situation is for them to attribute me, or to link directly to our review. Otherwise, that content is really useless to me too.

 

[sjackal]

Not yet. My ideal situation is for them to attribute me, or to link directly to our review. Otherwise, that content is really useless to me too.

You have to make your request known to them first, whether you want them to credit you, or link to you, or both, OR remove all your photos and words.

Otherwise is way too early to cry foul when you didn't even give them an option to say yes or not.

 

[at0m87]

Hmm IMO i feel that the blogshop is totally at fault as they are reproducing the photos without consent and furthermore for commercial purposes; although not selling the photos but using it as a form of advertisement to generate revenue. And again IMO, i feel the copyright owner can definitely sue the owner on this argument for sure. TS owner should sent a cease and deist order to the blogshop.

read the singapore copyright act from which i quote:

"Exclusive Rights and Infringement

12.1.7 The CA confers on the copyright owner the exclusive right to do, or to authorise others to do, certain acts (‘primary infringements’) in relation to a work, or subject matter like sound recordings, and films, such as:

• to reproduce the work in a material form;
• to publish the work if the work is unpublished;
• to perform the work in public;
• to make an adaptation of the work or to do any of the above in relation to an adaptation;
• to communicate the work to the public;
• to make a copy of the sound recording or film;
• to enter into a commercial rental arrangement in respect of the recording; and
• to cause the film, insofar as it consists of visual images, to be seen in public.

12.1.8 Copyright infringers are therefore those who do any of the above acts without the copyright owner’s consent. The owner’s rights are also infringed by such acts (‘secondary infringements’) as

• importing, selling, offering for sale and exhibiting in public of any article where the infringer knows, or ought reasonably to know, that the article was made without the copyright owner’s consent;
• falsely attributing the authorship of a work or the identity of the performer of a performance; and
• falsely removing or altering the rights management information electronically attached to a work.

A copyright owner can sue an infringer in respect of any of these primary and secondary infringements, seeking any of the remedies referred to in Section 12.1.16 below."

 

[spree86]

Any updates regarding this issue? My girlfriend buys clothes from them too.