[WARNING] On stealing photos and so much more
Today, Paul was supposed to make his very first blog debut here at Frannywanny.com. He was supposed to share with you his experience when he joined a couple of bloggers to visit the Gardenia plant. He has been extremely excited about it that he would bug me every night when will I finally publish his entry. I promised him that I'll have it up today. However, I have to break my promise due to some unfortunate incident that I stumbled upon this morning.
For some reason, I woke this morning thinking about the photos that I've posted here in my blog. I've been blogging for almost 4 years and have published a little more than 800 entries already. In every entry, I have an average of 4 photos. Majority were beautifully taken by Paul, some were shot by yours truly. Still I can say that we exert a lot of time and effort to create really good photos to match my story. At times, I have to borrow photos from brands or other websites and I can proudly say that all those have been credited for.
At a very young age, I was taught the importance of owning your work. Plagiarism and stealing is a very grave offense in my school and once violated, expect to face heavy consequences.
Let me go back to my thoughts this morning, I suddenly wondered if there's a way for us, bloggers, to check if someone else is using our photos without our permission. You may have noticed that my photos do not have watermarks on them and I know I am running a big risk of having my photos lifted by some nasty "blogger" that's why the thought bothered me even more. I really don't know what pushed me to log on to google and started to randomly search the net for possible photo-stealing activity going on. Thanks also to fellow blogger Aileen De Jesus for giving me the link to this amazing Google search engine that will allow us to easily track if our photos have been re-used without our permission.
So photo thieves out there...be afraid..be VERY VERY afraid.
Lo and behold, I came upon this blog: http://iteateverywhere.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-not-yucky-its-yakimix.html
At first glance, I know that the first few photos were definitely his/hers. Then I came to the last three photos where I felt my heart stopped. The quality of the photo suddenly shifted from grainy to clear and that photo with the chandelier and buffet table looked uncomfortably familiar to me.
I quickly referred back to my own YakiMIX entry: http://www.frannywanny.com/2011/07/yakimix-eat-all-you-can-at-podium-mall.html and truly enough, he/she have copied three of my photos.
Here's a clearer comparison:
I was busy getting upset over the photos when another fellow blogger also pointed out that the author seems to have also copied my entry. I really do not want to create a list of the similarities of our entries but seriously, the thief also used the term "happy camper" in the same entry? How coincidental.
I've left a message on her comment board and I hope he/she'd be ashamed enough to remove ALL of MY photos from the blog.
Really, no dignified blogger would ever be guilty of lifting/stealing someone else's photos and content. Come on...have some self-respect please.
Dear readers, I ask you to help us fight against acts of photo/content stealing like this. Feel free to let us know when you happen to come across another blog that gives you that "hey-i've-read/seen-that-before" feeling. Be it a copied photo or content we would gladly appreciate the heads up.
That photo thief surely ruined my morning... I will definitely devote a lot of my time this weekend to watermark my photos from now on. Beware!
For some reason, I woke this morning thinking about the photos that I've posted here in my blog. I've been blogging for almost 4 years and have published a little more than 800 entries already. In every entry, I have an average of 4 photos. Majority were beautifully taken by Paul, some were shot by yours truly. Still I can say that we exert a lot of time and effort to create really good photos to match my story. At times, I have to borrow photos from brands or other websites and I can proudly say that all those have been credited for.
At a very young age, I was taught the importance of owning your work. Plagiarism and stealing is a very grave offense in my school and once violated, expect to face heavy consequences.
Let me go back to my thoughts this morning, I suddenly wondered if there's a way for us, bloggers, to check if someone else is using our photos without our permission. You may have noticed that my photos do not have watermarks on them and I know I am running a big risk of having my photos lifted by some nasty "blogger" that's why the thought bothered me even more. I really don't know what pushed me to log on to google and started to randomly search the net for possible photo-stealing activity going on. Thanks also to fellow blogger Aileen De Jesus for giving me the link to this amazing Google search engine that will allow us to easily track if our photos have been re-used without our permission.
So photo thieves out there...be afraid..be VERY VERY afraid.
Lo and behold, I came upon this blog: http://iteateverywhere.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-not-yucky-its-yakimix.html
At first glance, I know that the first few photos were definitely his/hers. Then I came to the last three photos where I felt my heart stopped. The quality of the photo suddenly shifted from grainy to clear and that photo with the chandelier and buffet table looked uncomfortably familiar to me.
I quickly referred back to my own YakiMIX entry: http://www.frannywanny.com/2011/07/yakimix-eat-all-you-can-at-podium-mall.html and truly enough, he/she have copied three of my photos.
Here's a clearer comparison:
Original photos in my blog vs. the photo thief
I was busy getting upset over the photos when another fellow blogger also pointed out that the author seems to have also copied my entry. I really do not want to create a list of the similarities of our entries but seriously, the thief also used the term "happy camper" in the same entry? How coincidental.
I've left a message on her comment board and I hope he/she'd be ashamed enough to remove ALL of MY photos from the blog.
Really, no dignified blogger would ever be guilty of lifting/stealing someone else's photos and content. Come on...have some self-respect please.
Dear readers, I ask you to help us fight against acts of photo/content stealing like this. Feel free to let us know when you happen to come across another blog that gives you that "hey-i've-read/seen-that-before" feeling. Be it a copied photo or content we would gladly appreciate the heads up.
That photo thief surely ruined my morning... I will definitely devote a lot of my time this weekend to watermark my photos from now on. Beware!
Recent update: The blogger who got 3 of my photos have removed it from her site. While the content still sounds the same, I'm glad the photos are gone. Thank you for your support! ♥ (08/12/2011)
Case closed: The blogger has closed her previous blog (iteateverywhere) and has transferred to a new URL. Still no word from her via email yet I hope she has learned the importance of using her OWN photos and content in the future so as not to victimized other bloggers.
