What's the etiquette rule?

[Rivka]

not surprised that its Norman's Orchids, i have had nothing but trouble with them and then not responding to my repeated requests for those problems to be address. i ordered a second time thinking the first was a fluke and got the same issues. silly me

[Discus]

Originally Posted by silken

your picture is vulnerable to theft as it is too hard to police this kind of theft.

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches. There are also other reverse image search engines like tineye.

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

For instance, a copy of this picture also lives at Xeric World Forums - smweaver's Album: Steve's miscellaneous photos - Picture

You can also digitally watermark images within the file itself (rather that spoiling it with a visible "stamp"), but this is generally commercial software. Most techniques of this kind use subtle manipulation of the colour levels of pixels to embed information (sort of like steganography).

[smweaver]

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. And I agree, PaphMadMan, that playing coy's probably not the best way to handle it. I'm just going to send them a politely written email and inform them that the photograph is mine and leave it at that. I actually don't mind that they're using it, and I don't want anything for its use, but I would have at least liked to have received a "would you mind if we used your image?" email from them beforehand. Now I'll just wait and see what they say.

[cbuchman]

Please let us know the outcome. I, for one, will cease using Norman's orchids and discourage others from doing so, if their response is unsatisfactory.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Discus

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches

Thanks. I didn't realise you could do this on Google. I had a lot of fun playing around with this.

[ronaldhanko]

Those who are interested should read this blog post about using others' pictures. This woman had legal action taken against her and had to pay up for using a picture on a blog, and has some VERY interesting information about using copyrighted pictures. The information you've been given is correct - your picture is considered stolen unless you have given express permission for its use.

Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog - My*Story - Blog - Roni Loren, Romance Author

[ronaldhanko]

Originally Posted by Discus

I don't know if you've come across it, but google now offers reverse image searches. There are also other reverse image search engines like tineye.

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

For instance, a copy of this picture also lives at Xeric World Forums - smweaver's Album: Steve's miscellaneous photos - Picture

You can also digitally watermark images within the file itself (rather that spoiling it with a visible "stamp"), but this is generally commercial software. Most techniques of this kind use subtle manipulation of the colour levels of pixels to embed information (sort of like steganography).

Thanks for the information. I tried it out, and the first two images of mine I checked had been stolen and were being offered for sale on a photography site. I've informed them that the images were mine and asked them to remove the images. We'll see what happens.

[smweaver]

In response to my email (and yes, it was polite, and not nasty in the least), the good folks at Norman's Orchids removed my picture--and promptly replaced it with another one of a spike of flowers that definitely looks like it's from a beautiful, full-segmented linebred plant (which probably means that they don't have the rights to that one either, or else they would have used it in the first place since the blooms are much nicer than those on my plant). I didn't receive any sort of reply from them, but that's okay. I will say (and I'm not trying to encourage anyone else with this comment) that I don't think I'll be ordering from them ever again. Thanks again for all of your support, everyone!

Steve

[Rivka]

yeah a quick reverse search shows that that picture they are now using comes from a results page of the A.N.O.S. where it won in a show in 2008. Of course we have no idea if they got permission or not.

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Discus

Go to images.google.com and drag your picture onto the search box (or type in a URL if it's on the 'net); it will upload that image and find everything on the internet it knows about that looks similar. Obviously, google hasn't yet found and indexed every picture on every website, but it's pretty good. This often works even for crops and resized versions of your images.

Not to take anything away from Steve's plight, but using this is REALLY fun!! I'm actually kind of flattered that people are illegally using my photos!!