Question about someone using my images

[dewd]

hey

i was one of the first to have a xbox360 presale on ebay

and since then everyone has copyed my ebay AD

and i had alot of pictures on it, now since then i have noticed alot of bandwidth useage on them pictures which i didnt really care to think about at the time, until now i checked stats and there is alot of ppl using them for thier auctions/websites

so far this month ( dec 1st to dec 8th ) each picture has about 8.3 million requests

i have a list of near 5 thousand ebay listing # where my pictures are used, also on many web sites


now, should i remove the pictures on the domain and give everyone a headacke?

or photoshop them and advertise some of my sites?

or photoshop and say host-your-own-pics?

let me know what you think

 

[Gene]

I would print in bold red letters across the face of each image "IMAGE STOLEN FROM ____.COM!" Use a copy of the images renamed for your own use.

 

[mch]

Agree with Gene! Kick their asses! :D

 

[WhiteWebServices]

It's not as fun as Gene's suggestion, but I'd turn the image into an ad for your site. 8.3 million impressions / week is a lot of exposure to get for free.

 

[Gene]

I'd turn the image into an ad for your site. 8.3 million impressions / week is a lot of exposure to get for free.

I would be careful with this, as it may get you blacklisted for spamming.

 

[Palyriot]

I don't think you'd get blacklisted for this, when they are stealing your images. You have the right to put whatever you want on them. If it were me, I'd put something funny or po*n, get them all banned haha.

 

[WhiteWebServices]

I would be careful with this, as it may get you blacklisted for spamming.

Ah, there's a good reason to go Gene's route. Fair enough.

 

[guile]

I don't see how you would get blacklisted by editting a picture? l would advertise your own autions or sell some advertising spots

 

[Kate]

One way around this is to perform image substitution using mod_rewrite. At least if some people are stealing your bandwidth you might return a modified image such 'image content stolen from yoursite.com' etc.

Here is an article which explores the issue:
http://www.webmasterstop.com/62.html

 

[godinu]

as the above have said, definitely tag the image as your own. Put your domain name in the picture and anyone who steals it will be advertising your site.
Another way to help prevent image thieves is to disable the rightclick function for images on your site. That way no one can steal your photos ubless they did a screen capture than edited it down to size (too many steps for lazy photo thieves).
I work for a company which has a merch area and i've already seen people buy our merch and resell it on ebay with our own images! hmm, time to implement these suggestions myself

 

[DomainSage]

A few options here

From your log files you can go after the people stealing your image, as long as you can show it is yours.

You canuse it for advertising,I would put something up along the lines of ' This is a illegal trader, buy from www.youname.com ', after all they are trading illegaly if the infinge copyright.

Alternatively, sell advertising space Withe that many graphics being shown I am sure somone would be interested in the exposures even if they don'y get a link

All the best.

Richard

 

[Palyriot]

Not allowing right click does nothing, just go to View -> Source and search through the <img src="">'s.

as the above have said, definitely tag the image as your own. Put your domain name in the picture and anyone who steals it will be advertising your site.
Another way to help prevent image thieves is to disable the rightclick function for images on your site. That way no one can steal your photos ubless they did a screen capture than edited it down to size (too many steps for lazy photo thieves).
I work for a company which has a merch area and i've already seen people buy our merch and resell it on ebay with our own images! hmm, time to implement these suggestions myself

 

[DomainSage]

If someone wants to steal you images there is very little you can do to stop it, don't forget that with a bit of programming ( especially now with the .net platform ) any program can basically treat instructions from the server as text strings and ignore what they were meant for in the first place.
However what we are talking about here is very low tech and from people that probably don't even know much about how the internet works.
They are stealing bandwidth and copyright !
Let all of us know where the images are being used and we can start posting questions to the seller about where they get the images from,believe me with the increasing exposure of fraud on the internet ( and e-bay ) if someone views one of their auctions and sees these questions then they will think twice about ordering

All the best.

Richard

 

[dochlaggie]

I have had this done to me. My reaction was not nice but got immediate results. I renamed a very XXX image and uploaded this one to my server as a replacement. In a short space of time the item had been removed from ebay.
Gene's solution is a very good one.

 

[zanzan]

I have had this done to me. My reaction was not nice but got immediate results. I renamed a very XXX image and uploaded this one to my server as a replacement. In a short space of time the item had been removed from ebay.
Gene's solution is a very good one.

the person who had stolen ur images might have an headache when he sees his "stolen" pic change to an XXX pics.. lol

 

[localpub]

It's a strange thing nobody suggested an 'official' no-hassle way to protect yourself from bandwidth thieves. You can create a .htaccess (note the dot in the begining!) file with the following in it:

RewriteEngine    on
RewriteCond    %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond    %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([-a-z0-9]+\.)?YOURDOMAIN\.TLD [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|gif)$ /allowed/hotlink.$1 [L]

This particular example will protect from hotlinking to jpeg/gif files. You might want to add any other file extention you feel like somebody is stealing. Also, you might want to change YOURDOMAIN and TLD parts.

Upload it to the main directory of your webfiles.

Good luck!

P.S. As a side note, I'll go for XXX stuff. Anybody stealing your images will be banned from eBay for good for dispalying them on their auctions.... :hehe: If you need some images to start with, please pm me.

 

[skrilla]

i agree xxx or advertise. people think its ok to steal just cuz its pictures. well i say give em pictures,lol. I got a few you could use as well. haha

 

[JMJ]

How would you get blacklisted for spamming? If anything they are going to hurt your google rankings on the domain because of a large number of incoming links over a short period of time. They are they ones stealing the images and bandwidth. I wouldn't even have to think twice before I changed over the images to "This image is was stolen from and bandwidth costs being paid by MySite.com"

 

[mch]

Hey j0e, come on tell us what did you do at last?

 

[dewd]

i havent done anything yet

the requests are climbing everyday