Below is a photo taken by myself, using my own DSLR, taken on march 1, 2008. It was a Thai Mango Salad picture that I posted on my flickr and food blog, Foodilicious Malaysia. I love to share pictures and recipes, I am a food blogger, as many of you are.
And below is a picture, showing MY PICTURE above, being used without my permission (or should I say stolen... STOLEN!). And they actually FLIPPED the photo and cropped it a little, to make it look "different". Nice try. Next time, take your own damn mango salad picture!!
My sis took me to a Southern Thai style restaurant for breakfast last Saturday. I told her I wanted to try the Nasi Kerabu, and so we went to this place located in one of the shop lots in Ampang Putra.I noticed my picture, on the banner. And I noticed many other very beautiful pictures featured in the restaurant, that I highly sucpect belongs to victims of this irresponsible restaurant owner. Copyright infringement is bot bothered by many. People and businesses use other people's photography without permission and expect to be free just like that. Yeah, we victims are the one feeling frustrated that out beautiful photography are just being used without permission.
I am contemplating taking legal action against offenders and THIEVES that steal my intellectual property to ensure my photos are being used rightfully.
Way back in March '08, most of my photos were not watermarked, thus the reason it was easily stolen. So guys, be careful and invest in an extra minute to watermark your photos before you post them on the world wide web. The w.w.w. are visited by a gazillion irresponsible idiots who uses stuffs in many wrong ways...Anyone knows the owner of this restaurant, do drop me an email. Meanwhile, I'm going to protect all of my pictures to ensure irresponsible copy idiots do not misuse my photos.
Those who would like to use my pictures, please do ASK from me. I have no issues with sharing pictures. You may also link the pictures back to the original post, or at least credit me for the pictures...
Others I found:
Here's also the same picture being used by Wan Norizan of Resipe4u.com in her post, Resepi Kerabu Mangga:
It was not referenced/linked back to my blog or picture. And not to mention she watermarked the picture as 'hers' with her blog link.(Updated 8 Jan 2010: This post has been removed from the original site & per it's author, per below comment had apologised and post removed.)
Nothing to frust about! The more they copied that also proved your food actually really looks great! Am I right? You should be happy instead. =D
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to read about that. Hope you can bring those involved to justice. Though I suspect it would only bring you even more frustrations in the process. :P
ReplyDeleteChin up! Your kerabu looks really good by the way. So does your char koey tiao, and otak-otak, etc, etc..
That's just plain ignorant and irresponsible of them. I say sue away! Teach them and other photo thieves a thing or 2. Back in 2004, my wedding photo was stolen by another bridal boutique who displayed my face all over her shop and claimed that her shop did my makeup and bridal gown!! I was angry and felt violated but I was already in UK when I found out about it, so didn't do anything much to my regret later.
ReplyDeletewah senang2nya amik gambar org.. dah tu tak malu lg letak mcm hakmilik sendiri isk isk isk..
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear about this. The same things happen to me many many times. When I wrote to these iresponsible thieves some took it down, some add a link and some even had the cheek to tell me that my photos is all over the internet so they can used it. It is frustrating and I don't think we can do much about it. The only way to protect our properties is put the watermark right at the middle of the pictures :(
ReplyDeleteHi... thanx for the warning. I'm very sorry about the "kerabu Mangga' pic. The pic already removed.
ReplyDeleteAbout the banner at the stall... I don't know anything about the banner.
I'm really sorry... Actually I got the pic from google search image.
my little space - yes, it can be complementary, if only they;ve they courtesy to reference it. But I understand that this happens to almost everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - thanks for the cheerup :-) glad u enjoy some of my work!
Lina - so so sorry to hear bout that, i'd get so angry if someone did that to me wed pics! the only way is to spread words around about these thieves, hoping that they'd be known for their wrong doings.
Umiyumi - nak curi senang, copy and save as aja... tapi kenalah reference/link balik ke original post, kan? thanks for ur comments...
icook4fun - thanks for the inputs, i guess this is what usually happens. sometimes, the stolen pics are then used by others whom do not know the original owner of the pictures...
Wan - thanks, appreciate it. I do hope your pictures are referenced back to their original posts, plagiarism is not to be tolerated these days. Understand you might of taken the pics from image searches but do be careful, and pics should not simply be used if they aren't yours.
It also happened pretty bad to Rasa at Rasamalaysia. Search the site for 'copyright' to see the story or go direct: http://rasamalaysia.com/meet-organic-chef/
ReplyDeleteIts without a doubt upsetting
Anonymous - yes, i read Rasa's similar experience and it is appalling really. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDelete