I found out last night that some nitwit stole one of my photographs and entered it into a Jeep photo contest in Mexico. I found out because my image won first place netting the thief a free vacation (not overall grand prize, so really my image came in second) and people started emailing me about it. So now I've reached out to Jeep and am hopeful with Chrysler being a major business that they will not want to award a prize to a fraud. Sadly early signs are it's going to be a pain to get them to right the situation.
This has opened up a can of worms on sharing media online and whether watermarking is a good idea or even effective (esp. if watermarked tastefully). Anyone want to give their thoughts on the subject? In some ways, I sort of chalk up online image theft as inevitable if you post images online and someone wants one badly enough. On the other hand, before I had my images online I sure didn't have 3.5 million views on my work either so the entry cost almost seems worth it. Perhaps it's just the cost of doing business in the digital age? Am I hopelessly optimistic/naive?
Here's the link to the contest and this is my "winner":
And here it is on my flickr stream from when I uploaded it in 2007:
Fright Flight of the Snow Geese by Fort Photo, on Flickr
The sad thing is that I've found folks winning photo contests with my work before. Last time someone won a smaller contest on Deviant Art with one of my Teton images. Deviant Art very quickly made the situation right in that case, I only hope Jeep responds equally well.
This has opened up a can of worms on sharing media online and whether watermarking is a good idea or even effective (esp. if watermarked tastefully). Anyone want to give their thoughts on the subject? In some ways, I sort of chalk up online image theft as inevitable if you post images online and someone wants one badly enough. On the other hand, before I had my images online I sure didn't have 3.5 million views on my work either so the entry cost almost seems worth it. Perhaps it's just the cost of doing business in the digital age? Am I hopelessly optimistic/naive?
Here's the link to the contest and this is my "winner":
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
And here it is on my flickr stream from when I uploaded it in 2007:
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Fright Flight of the Snow Geese by Fort Photo, on Flickr
The sad thing is that I've found folks winning photo contests with my work before. Last time someone won a smaller contest on Deviant Art with one of my Teton images. Deviant Art very quickly made the situation right in that case, I only hope Jeep responds equally well.
