Legal Recourse for Sites Using My Images Wihout Permission

[Snow33]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? MI

Hello! I was wondering if I have any legal recourse when websites use my photographs without permission.

I'm an amateur photographer and I post my photographs on my website and other places, as well as use my images on products that I sell in my online shop. I'm having an increasing problem of people stealing my photos and using them however they please. For places like Facebook or someone's dopey blog, I simply serve DMCA notices and have the images removed. My concern is with more "legitimate" websites--the kind with staff/employees, whose goal is to attract visitors and members to make money from their advertisers. Typically, they ignore my request to remove my images. Even more galling is when they have put THEIR watermark across my photo. So what can I do then? They have no right to use and profit from my work, some of which have won awards/contests and that I sell myself.

Thanks for any advice you may have!

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? MI

Hello! I was wondering if I have any legal recourse when websites use my photographs without permission.

I'm an amateur photographer and I post my photographs on my website and other places, as well as use my images on products that I sell in my online shop. I'm having an increasing problem of people stealing my photos and using them however they please. For places like Facebook or someone's dopey blog, I simply serve DMCA notices and have the images removed. My concern is with more "legitimate" websites--the kind with staff/employees, whose goal is to attract visitors and members to make money from their advertisers. Typically, they ignore my request to remove my images. Even more galling is when they have put THEIR watermark across my photo. So what can I do then? They have no right to use and profit from my work, some of which have won awards/contests and that I sell myself.

Thanks for any advice you may have!

Hi, Snow33.

I am not sure why your thread has shown up suddenly after all this time but it has. If you posted some links to go along with your post, the administrators of this site might have had to remove them.

Are the photos of yours, that are appearing in various and assorted places on the internet, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office?

If the "legitimate" websites are ignoring your DMCA takedown notices, your recourse will be to sue them for copyright infringement. If your works are registered, you are eligible to collect statutory damages in the amounts of $750 to $30,000 per infringed work or, if your photographs are not registered, you will need to register the photographs before filing a suit against the infringers - and you will be limited then to collecting only the actual damages suffered as a result of the infringement (your demonstrated losses, the sites' demonstrated profits).

If you did not have a watermark or copyright bug on your photos identifying the photos as protected by copyright and as belonging to you, and your photos have not been registered to indicate your ownership in the photos, you should know that trying to prove the photographs are yours may be a challenge, especially if some of these websites are claiming ownership.

I suggest that you have an attorney in your area review the situation. Perhaps the attorney will suggest a threat-to-sue cease and desist letter with a demand for compensation for the use of your photos. The letter, coming as it will from an attorney, might work where the DMCA notice failed. When the sites involved realize you have contacted a lawyer and may actually sue them, they might remove the photos.

If not, you will have to decide whether you want to enforce the copyrights in your works by filing suit. You will also have to consider carefully whether you have damages enough to support a legal action. Sometimes, if the works infringed were not registered in a timely fashion and prior to the infringement, the costs of litigation can exceed any profit/loss damages - and a suit in that case would not be worth pursuing from at least a financial standpoint.

Good luck.