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Identity Theft and Copyright fraud,I am a victim 2
Ok, so this is the second time this has happened on Myspace.com. Someone is claiming to be me and is using photos from my portfolio as their own. I emailed Myspace , but they don't take it seriously. Need your help what should I do? THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! Keep in mind that a good portion of the photos that this person is claiming as theirs were taken by photographers on Modelmayhem.com. Would appreciate your input, I want to pursue this person. I have purposely left out the myspace link so that I can pursue this person before they take down the page and then just start a new one again with another screen name as they did in this case. Thanks Amanda Jul 18 06 12:27 am Link Amanda W wrote: That's one of my pet peeves about Model Mayhem, anyone can download the pics and use them. Jul 18 06 12:29 am Link It's MySpace - what do you expect? Jul 18 06 12:32 am Link William Kious wrote: Thanks for your help! Jul 18 06 12:34 am Link this is a plague @ myspace given their own terms/conditions the copyright infringement angle ought be pursued but you will need the photographers for this. the identify theft issue requires more cooperation from the website. are they using your name or using the images to represent themselves? this is a problem on dating sites as well and escort sites. i would love to see a major website like myspace taken down for this. to do that would require some serious money though. a class action could be explored if you're pissed off enough and willing to see this through. i know of 18 others suffering the same problem. best of luck. if you need to contact the others for a class action, let me know. Jul 18 06 12:36 am Link Brennan Barrett wrote: It's not a Model Mayhem flaw; it's an Internet flaw. Every photo on the Internet can be downloaded and used illegally. Jul 18 06 12:38 am Link Brennan Barrett wrote: as opposed to?? you do realize that there is NO image copy protection method for the net that can't be easily defeated do you not? Jul 18 06 12:38 am Link Sorry to hear that Amanda. Not surprised though. You are hot and the perfect example for ugly people to steal from. Sad very sad. Adopt me, let me be your lap dog and I will bite the bastards next time. Or at least poop on their beds or pee on their grass. Jul 18 06 12:39 am Link oldguysrule wrote: Disagree. Jul 18 06 12:41 am Link Get the all photographers to file cease and dessist orders to their abuse e-mail address for copyright infringement. Jul 18 06 12:57 am Link Leonard Gee Photography wrote: On what grounds, please? Be specific, and take note of exemptions for publishers and service providers - you'll need to cite grounds for avoiding section 240. Jul 18 06 01:01 am Link Amanda W wrote: Read the Terms Of Service. They are not liable for this sort of thing. Like it or not, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy on MySpace. Anything you post on MySpace is fair game. Amanda W wrote: That's why I don't post very many pictures there - or any personally identifying information that I'm not willing for the world to see (and use.) Amanda W wrote: To what end? Could you potentially have legal recourse? Perhaps - but it's hardly worth the time and money to "pursue" the issue. If you're that worried about it, set your profile on MySpace to private. Better yet, stop using it as a "networking" tool (you're not going to attract serious clients there anyway.) Jul 18 06 01:19 am Link By the way, did you follow the instructions MySpace gives you for reporting this sort of thing? Jul 18 06 01:21 am Link As you already know identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America and it is also the number one crime in America. A thief can steal your identity in seconds but it can take years and a lot of $$ to restore it. So do you know what to do to protect yourself or help yourself if you become a victim? Many banks and credit card company offer i.d. theft monitoring but if you become a victim you're on your own. Well I am an independent associate for a company that is over 30 years old and on the New York Stock Exchange company (you can do your research). The company has been featured in magazines such as Forbes, Fortune, Black Enterprise, The Wall Street Journal, and countless others. If you keep your business options open r you would like protection for a very reasonable price please visit www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/shirleyidumonyi ASAP! you don't want to miss this opportunity. If you have any questions I can be emailed directly on the site and I will get back to you in a timely manner Take care, Ms. Idumonyi Jul 18 06 02:08 am Link Amanda W wrote: i haven't had a problem getting pages taken down on myspace. just take a photograph of yourself with a sign that says myspace and email that to them. they'll get the page taken down. Jul 18 06 02:13 am Link There are many things in the old Digital Millenium Copyright Act that suck, but this is not one of them. They are required to have a copyright agent. MySpace's is accessible here: http://collect.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu … Subject=29 Send them the following: Dear Sir, The photo at (url) is a copyrighted image owned by myself and used without permission or licensing. I demand that you remove it within the timeframe required by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I swear under penalty of perjury that the above statements are true. Sincerely (copyright holder) It's gone. It's gone real fast. Otherwise you have grounds for a fat lawsuit. Jul 18 06 02:28 am Link Amanda, I understand your frustrations with MySpace and how there are so many people who steal images and make FAKE profiles from those images. There are several things you can do about this. It wont completely eliminate stealing but will hinder those who did it. First, post only images that are watermarked ... the copyright and your name! Then reduce the size of the pixels so that if someone does copy it, it's not only going to have the watermark, but it's going to reproduce in poor quality. Really there is no reason to post your best pictures on MySpace, right? So don't! If you have a website, then make sure that your webmaster/photographer has watermarked any images that are going on the website. There are also tricks that webmasters can do like disable right click, use Flash, etc. which will not 100% prevent everyone from stealing, but WILL stop some and make it more work than they are used to. Reporting violations to MySpace admin is also important! It takes them a bit of time, but they are pretty good about removal of profiles that are violators of the TOS of the website. If you see your images on Yahoo profiles or groups, they work much the same way about dealing with violations. I also have a exclusive "group" on MySpace called the FAKE BUSTERS but you need to contact me on the site so that I can invite you to be a member. There are a number of models and photographers I know personally or could verify who they are before letting them join. We then proceed to keep an eye out for FAKES and post those links to their profile so that we can do our part in busting them. BTW, I searched for your profile and can't find you by using your first and last name! There are quite a few Amanda Wagner's! So please send me an invite to be "friends", ok? I also know who Larry White is! Excellent photographer! Patrick Walberg Bellaimages Jul 18 06 03:00 am Link William Kious wrote: Amanda W wrote: Read the Terms Of Service. They are not liable for this sort of thing. Like it or not, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy on MySpace. Anything you post on MySpace is fair game. Amanda W wrote: That's why I don't post very many pictures there - or any personally identifying information that I'm not willing for the world to see (and use.) I do not have an account with myspace, my mother does to keep in touch with out of town family. She does not have the modeling pictures on there that are being stollen either. I only network through Modeling sites such as this one. Jul 18 06 04:29 pm Link Disagree. Which is why my photos have obnoxious watermarks. They're too much of a hassle to Photoshop out to warrant stealing. I used to find fake personal profiles with my photos all the time before I started watermarking (worse were the profiles created just to attract traffic to sites advertising paid singles' chatlines, grr!) but I haven't seen more than a handful of isolated single-image incidents in the last few years. Jul 18 06 06:10 pm Link I found one today too! Now I have to take a pic of myself holding a sign, proving my identity and send it to myspace! grrr http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu … D=56915771 Jul 18 06 06:54 pm Link The good news is you found this one. The bad news is you foun donly one because if they post one, they probably took all of them. Then again nobody ever posts a photo on just one site if its not thiers to begin with. Jul 18 06 07:01 pm Link Amanda W wrote: Okay, then I have to ask - out of the millions of MySpace users - how did you find these pictures on the other person's profile? It had to be someone you either know or are associated with in some way. Jul 18 06 09:17 pm Link Happened to me too- Only it was some creep on craigslist.com - impersonating me as a photographer. Heisted my whole OMP portfolio and said it was him...... Photographers watch out! -Surfy Jul 18 06 11:50 pm Link William Kious wrote: One of my friends saw it and clued me in. I don't think it has to be someone I know- it could be anyone with internet that saw my pics! Jul 19 06 09:43 am Link William Kious wrote: Someone else found it and sent it to me. Jul 19 06 11:30 am Link |
