May 14, 2009

Your Thoughts


It makes my heart sink to think people are using her for their sick little games. So should I go private?? I just don't know. I love sharing my pictures but I don't like that people are stalking my blog and claiming my pictures as their own, especially my own daughter! And I would hate it to happen to any of my clients. If I keep my blog public this will just continue. Should I just put my watermark over the faces? Maybe that might help... Sheesh, the internet is such a wonderful but terrible thing!! I know I'm not the only one who has had this happened, if this has happened to you, what did you do? How did you get those weirdos to remove your pictures??


23 comments:

Lp Photography said...

I have not had this happen to me and am so sorry this is happening to you! How did you find out this was going on? If you don't decide to go private, I would definitely watermark the heck out of the photos to make it harder for just anyone to use them. Hope everything works out for you!! Love reading your blog and admiring your work!! :)

Liz said...

I love your blog, so I thought I would share my thoughts... Like I said in my previous comment something (definitely not as severe as what has happened to you) happened to me. I made my blog private for awhile, but that posed problems with my family being able to log in... So I made it public again and I am just making sure I don't post any private info... But I can't even imagine what you are going through with your children being involved. If you weren't a photographer then I would definitely recommend making it private... But websites/ internet it such a crucial part of what you do... I know many people have asked about my wedding photos and I have sent them to your website because they admire your work. Is there any way you can program your photos so no one can copy or even right click on them? I think (not sure) that there is a way you can do that so no one can remove your pictures from your website, but I am by no means computer savvy. Again, I am so sorry this is happening... I hope this helps... :)

Jenn said...

Just wanted to pop in and say I really enjoy your blog. I'm so sorry you have had to endure such a mess. I would definitely water mark everything on your blog. You might also consider nicknames for your sweet kiddos?!? I would miss your blog and think having personal info is what makes it stand out as...well...personal. It stinks that you feel pressured into having to go private :(

Hope you are able to resolve it soon!

Jenn

Birgit said...

Hi Melissa,
I´m from Germany and I often visit you blog and I like it so much. I´ve got a blog and I like photographing too. When I publish a photo of my kids, I sometimes have a bad feeling because I don´t know who will see it. But I have the "live traffic feed" and so I can see, from which country or city somebody is on my blog. It´s only a little help for me.
Sorry about my english,I left school a long time ago ;-) but I hope you can understand me.
Your photos are soooo wonderful and I hope I can see a lot more.
Lovely greetings from bavaria,
Birgit

Leigh Ann Hines Photography said...

Sorry this has happened to you. It happens to me a lot because of my subject matter (I'm a music photog mostly so many people steal the images to use without permission). Anyway, if you want the images removed from any online site, you can send a DMCA letter and by law the site has to take the photo down. You send it to the site host. Here is a link for a tutorial on how to write a DMCA letter. Hope it helps. And yes, watermark the heck out of the images you post online.
http://www.musicphotographers.net/guides-and-tutorials/dmca-letter

The Nelson's said...

I just wanted to say I love your blog and your pictures. I was refered to it from my friend Angela, I think she said you two when to school together???

Anyways, I'm sorry this happened to you! I hope it doesn't again!

Missy said...

Hi Melissa, I'm a fellow photog and read your blog often. I found this article online and thought it might give you some good info. I think if people that try and steal your pictures realize you're not messing around then they will stop. Nobody wants a lawsuit right? :) Best of luck to you!

Alyssa Peppers said...

Melissa,

I'm sorry all this is happening to you.

Have you ever thought about getting a blog site to where nothing on the site can be right clicked and saved?

The Kazmaier's said...

First of all, I love your work! You inspire!
I have hear of this happening to photographers before...stealing photos and claiming them as their own to profit from future business. It's sickening. Especially if images of your own children are involved...I would be terribly upset to see someone else with my own children's photos. I would watermark the heck out of them!

Kristal said...

I honestly don't mind being private. Yes, it did drop my comments by about half, but I'm not in it for the comments. I feel TONS safer. Like I said though, I've never done searches or anything to see if anyone every took from me, but that psychotic Utah lady was enough to scare me with the freaks out there. It's really not a hassle, and it's soo great knowing that you know EVERYONE that is seeing your blog.

Kate said...

That is terrible. I've been reading your blog for a while and we emailed a long time ago about your actions.

Anyway - I think it stinks what happened. I've been hearing that a lot lately. I can't believe people are that sick and twisted.

Good luck with your decision. I'd hate to stop seeing your beautiful photography but understand that your family comes first!

DoubleDeej said...

I think watermarking the images is a good start. Not ideal, but you need to do something.

Another option would be to find a Flash-based photo viewer to use on your blog instead of posting the pictures directly. This won't totally prevent the images from being stolen, but it sure makes it a lot harder. This way there is no "right click and Save Picture As" at all; gathering the images would require many more complicated and time consuming steps.

Of course you could always get the FBI involved too. Copyright infringement is a federal offense.

Betancourt Family said...

I don't know a penny about any of this stuff but one of ym good high school friends is a photographer with a lot of knowledge in the business. So my help, is contact her info@staceyreeves.com. As far as making things private...well, I've been thinking about it too and the live feed might help but it's a difficult thing to consider. Good luck! Sorry that you're in this sucky situation.

Unknown said...

What about doing slideshows on your blog instead of still photos. Can they steal the slideshows? I'm really freaked out now and trying to figure out what to do myself. How did you find the pictures of Clara? I have two little girls and am getting really worried about posting their pictures on the net.

Brandi said...

Melissa,

It's a shame people have done this and made you feel this way. I think it'd be really sad to go private, as well as possibly harming your business. I think changing to a slightly more obtrusive watermark is a good start, and also disabling right click for less savvy thieves as well. Good luck! I hope you stick around :)

The Hilles said...

It really stinks that you have to deal with all this. I'm glad at least one of the thieves on Orkut is obeying your wishes and hope the others do as well ASAP. Have you tried reporting them to Orkut to get their accounts removed? Well, a good thing coming out of this is the awareness of how much we need to protect our images, especially of our children. I know I've taken more measures to protect my images and hope others have as well. :)

Tracey

The Leflett's said...

Hey Melissa. Hopefully watermarking your pics up can help prevent others from stealing them. (Although it stinks seeing a watermark all over a lovely face).

But the down fall to preventing the right clicks, people can still screen shot the page w/ the picture in it, and then photo shop the picture out and keep the pic, so watermarking might be your best bet for now.

Good luck though!!

Elise said...

I just wanted to comment and let you know that I love your blog and your photography. I found this link online when I was trying to find out how to disable the right-click functionality on my blog. It is just some HTML you can add and it changes it so that when someone right clicks anywhere on your blog it just pops up with a message instead of the options to save the pictures. Here's the link, hope it helps http://bloggertricks.com/2007/12/how-to-disable-right-click-in.html

Screwed Up Texan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Screwed Up Texan said...

Let me try that again...

I just tried Elise's suggestion and so far it works on my Recipes blog at http://screweduptexanrecipes.blogspot.com. I am probably going to add it to my main blog www.screweduptexn.com b/c I have had photos stolen in the past and although some may consider it "flatery" I consider it theft. Good luck.

Screwed Up Texan said...

Thought I'd add one more thought--The code does disable right click, however it stops no one from left clicking and then copy and pasting from there. It is a quick fix that combined with creative watermarking can deter some stealers of your photography work. I think it is great that you are looking into a solution for this, however most people are vulnerable to this problem in one degree or another. I think combining a few safeguards is really all that most can do. It is a shame that someone would steal your photos and even photos of your children, but that is unfortunately the risk we take publishing websites/blogs. I will investigate this further and see if there is a way to disable clicks entirely on our photos. I think I remember seeing it somewhere.

Sally said...

Wow, that's crazy Melissa. And scary about your kids' pics. I think you should just do lots of watermarks--everyone will still see how talented you are. (Even my sister in law said she loves looking at your blog! :) Good luck--let us know if you find more info, we'll be looking too.

Andrea said...

hey I want to know how did you find out about the pictures on the other site? I want to make sure that there are not any out there for tessa.