How tedious. Yesterday I discovered that Apuldram Roses in the UK was using my photo of Austin's 'Teasing Georgia' to flog the rose on their web site. (This happens dozens of times every year, and more and more often, the offending party is a nursery using the images to sell their product! The same image was also found on the web site of Bay State Perennial Farm, who has likely by now deleted the photo, after I contacted them by phone. The attitude I got from them was five different flavors of pass-the-buck)I sent a message to Apuldram Roses requesting the removal of the photo, as it was copyrighted work and I did not authorize their use of it. Here is the response I got from an Apuldram rep:
"Dear Paul When in need of an image (if we don't have one of our own) we regularly go to Google images. This is where we got the image and there is no mention of copyright. Perhaps you should review the uploading of your images to the internet. Apologies for the obvious distress this has caused you and we will remove the image straight away." (emphasis mine)
Did you catch that, the part about me reviewing how and what I upload to the Web??! In no uncertain terms this suggests that I am to blame for the misuse of my photo! Outrageous. Note also the remark about the apparent lack of a copyright statement in connection with the photo as presented in the Google images browser.
Google has a clear policy about the terms of use of the Google Images feature:
"Image use permissions The images displayed in a Google Image Search may be protected by copyright, so we can't grant you the right to use them for any purpose other than viewing them on the web. If you'd like to use images from our image search, we suggest contacting the site's webmaster to obtain permission. To learn how to find the webmaster of a site, please visit http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=910"
From the URL: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?&&answer=9299
Prior to the Internet, it would have been inconceivable for a company to assemble a catalog using content that was not acquired legally and by paying for the rights to use it for marketing. Sadly, it appears that ethics are no longer regarded as an obstacle to acquiring advertising content. Here's the long and short of it: If you did not create the content, or if you did not obtain permission to use it and/or pay a fee for that usage, then its not yours to take. If you want to use it, ask. If you can't be bothered to ask, then hands off my work.
Period.
Did you catch that, the part about me reviewing how and what I upload to the Web??! In no uncertain terms this suggests that I am to blame for the misuse of my photo! Outrageous. Note also the remark about the apparent lack of a copyright statement in connection with the photo as presented in the Google images browser.
Google has a clear policy about the terms of use of the Google Images feature:
"Image use permissions
From the URL: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?&&answer=9299
Prior to the Internet, it would have been inconceivable for a company to assemble a catalog using content that was not acquired legally and by paying for the rights to use it for marketing. Sadly, it appears that ethics are no longer regarded as an obstacle to acquiring advertising content. Here's the long and short of it: If you did not create the content, or if you did not obtain permission to use it and/or pay a fee for that usage, then its not yours to take. If you want to use it, ask. If you can't be bothered to ask, then hands off my work.
Period.
