p.1 #1 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
Hello,
Yes, you read correctly. I have one or more pirated photos on my site that I need to identify and remove. For the past month I have been working on a new website for my photos that is being hosted by ZenFolio. Although the site is technically live, it is weeks away from being ready for me to officially announce and promote it.
This afternoon I got a call from a photographer who said that I was using one of his photos illegally! After I got over my initial shock (I am very sensitive to copyrights w.r.t. photos), I apologized and said I would remove it right away. The problem is that I was very distracted when I took the call and I did not get his name or contact info and I am not sure which image he is referring to.
After much thought I could only identify two potential culprits (after all I am posting my own photos ). The first is my logo. I wanted a simple logo that consisted of a Canon DSLR with a 70-200 F2.8 lens and my name. I was working on it late at night and in a moment of brain freeze went online and found a suitable photo from Google. I did not see any copyright info on the photo itself, so I imported it into Photoshop, masked out the background, added my text, and exported it as a GIF file. My bad! FYI, Zenfolio asks for three sizes of the logo - one for the home page, one for videos, and one for the favicon.
The only other possibility is that my site does have three photos another photographer took of my daughter in a dance competition. These photos are located in a private folder for my viewing only. Maybe I missed some privacy setting? I am also using this site as an online backup of my photo library and I do have maybe 50 or so "third party photos" out of my 25,000+ images.
I am hoping someone in the forum can help me identify the culprit. To this end, I created a new gallery and uploaded all the possible photos into it. You can find the gallery here:
EDIT 2/3/12: I deleted the gallery and removed the link. After creating a whole new logo I did not want anything online that may cause problems.
In terms of the logo, today I remade it the way I should have in the first place. I took a picture of my camera and then rebuilt the logo.
Thanks in advance for your help. Once we identify the culprit I will delete the above gallery and cleanse my site.
Thank you!!
PS. After I got over my shock I was very impressed that this photographer was able to track me down. First off, the site has only been indexed by Google for a week or so. Second, it has a PR of 0. Third, if it is the logo I am surprised his info can survive the Photoshop process I used. Can anyone tell me how he did this so I can correctly apply the same protection to my photos? Is there some kind of hidden link back embedded in the code? How could he have found my site unless he knew my name? Or can you run a Google Image search on your EXIF data that excludes your own website?
PPS. Moral to the story, do not work on this site after 1 am when the brain is half asleep.
p.1 #3 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
Hi Dave,
Thanks for helping out. The tricky thing is that I do not think I ever uploaded the 40D pic to my site. I put it in that folder just in case. Can you see the EXIF for that pic?
p.1 #5 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
ChipinSD wrote:
In terms of the logo, today I remade it the way I should have in the first place. I took a picture of my camera and then rebuilt the logo.
That's not really a "logo". It's a photo with some text underneath. BTW, I'd lose the music on the page, I closed it asap.
p.1 #7 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
My guess would be the "logo", but again, that's only a guess. You cannot use the Canon logo or a recognisable Canon product as a part of your logo anyway, so you'd better come up with something different.
I have a question: How do you get thumbnails on the "Group" folders? I have no problems doing that on the gallery folders, but I can't figure out how to implement it on the groups.
p.1 #8 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
My guess would be the "logo", but again, that's only a guess. You cannot use the Canon logo or a recognisable Canon product as a part of your logo anyway, so you'd better come up with something different.
I have a question: How do you get thumbnails on the "Group" folders? I have no problems doing that on the gallery folders, but I can't figure out how to implement it on the groups.
Thanks for the input on the logo. This weekend I will change out the picture to something completely different that I create.
In terms of your question, I open up a gallery in Edit View. Then I select the picture I want to use and click on the little arrow that offers the option to "Select as Cover Thumbnail". Once I do that I see a new popup that says "Assign Selected Thumbnail." Then I see a directory of my groups with the folders under the groups. I simply select a group folder and it is done. Hope this makes sense. I just changed the cover thumbnail for my basketball folder if you want to see. Let me know if this helps.
How do you like Zenfolio? I have read that they do not allow you to add alt image tags to your photos, which greatly hurts SEO. Zen seems to have other SEO shortcomings, but I am still learning.
p.1 #10 · Help Identify "Pirated" Photo on my Website
alohadave wrote:
Could it possibly be the picture of the 40D? The one with the web address in the upper left?
As for finding the picture, he probably used Tineye.com
Hi Dave,
Somehow I missed your suggestion. I checked the URL and it is from Middleburg, Pennsylvania. The caller said he was from eastern PA and Middleburg is kind of on the eastern side of the state. So you may have found him.
). The first is my logo. I wanted a simple logo that consisted of a Canon DSLR with a 70-200 F2.8 lens and my name. I was working on it late at night and in a moment of brain freeze went online and found a suitable photo from Google. I did not see any copyright info on the photo itself, so I imported it into Photoshop, masked out the background, added my text, and exported it as a GIF file. My bad! FYI, Zenfolio asks for three sizes of the logo - one for the home page, one for videos, and one for the favicon.