Appropriating a picture on FB

[GrammarNerd]

Situation/Question: You take a picture of a couple of people and put it on your FB wall.  You tag the other people.  You then find out that within minutes, one of the people has taken your picture, copied it and pasted it on her wall with no mention that you took the picture or where it came from.  (She didn't share it.)  Is that cool?

More BG: I posted some pictures of a sporting event that I went to.  They were good action pictures.  Two girls that I knew that were in the event/pictures (teenagers), and I tagged both of them and their moms.  (FYI that I am FB friends with them all--kids and adults--so that's not a problem.)  Typically, I might post a picture like this for the participants/parents b/c I have a good camera and can get some good shots occasionally.  Typically, the parent will say thanks and might 'like' the picture, and will share the pic if she wants to.  That's fine.  However, one of the moms this time went to the point of copying one of the pictures, pasting it to her wall, mentioning the event but never saying a word about where she got the picture from, or even that someone else took it.  She didn't even 'like' my original post or the picture that she appropriated!  Furthermore, someone even left a comment for her on 'her' picture post, "what a cool picture!' and she still didn't say that someone else actually took it.  If you go to the trouble of copying it for your wall, wouldn't you at least somehow thank the person who posted it for you to use?  I always give credit if I use something that someone else posted, and if it's one of those public funny pictures, I'll at least say that I got it from someone else.  So I'm annoyed.  Not mad, not going to lose any sleep over it, but I'm still annoyed. 

Would anyone else be annoyed with that or am I alone in my annoyance?

[Margo]

I'd be irritated-I think it's rude.

In your place, I'd be tempted to add a comment - something like "I'm glad you like it -the others I took are on my page if you're interested" which corrects the ownership of the picture while leaving it open for you/her to assume that her failure to credit you was an oversight.

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

I'd be irritated-I think it's rude.

In your place, I'd be tempted to add a comment - something like "I'm glad you like it -the others I took are on my page if you're interested" which corrects the ownership of the picture while leaving it open for you/her to assume that her failure to credit you was an oversight.

POD, and done that. Relative copied a photo of a mutual family member to their own album, which I didn't mind so much as the fact that they didn't at least ask first, and didn't give credit. Someone else commented on it, and I replied, "Thanks, it was the first photo I ever took with a 35mm camera, and I'm quite proud of it."

[PastryGoddess]

I'm a avid amateur photographer.  I don't share every picture on facebook, but the ones I do share get a small watermark on an integral portion of the picture.  It's worked out pretty well.  I've only had a few pictures where I've had to go and post a comment to make sure the picture is attributed to me.

[GrammarNerd]

OP here...The mom also just posted on my original post (on my wall, the one she never liked or commented on in the first place  ) and said that if I got any other good shots, please send them to her so she can put them in the class slideshow.  Um.....torn about that one.  Don't really want to go out of my way for her anymore, but I know it would be nice for some of the kids to see their pictures.  Maybe I'll see if there's another contact I can send them to, under the auspices of it being for the school website or something.

[Two Ravens]

Do you actually think there is malicious intent here? Or is it possible that this other mother is just a bit clueless when it comes to crediting photos? Why don't you just give her a heads up that you would preferred the photos be credited to you?

[PastryGoddess]

OP here...The mom also just posted on my original post (on my wall, the one she never liked or commented on in the first place  ) and said that if I got any other good shots, please send them to her so she can put them in the class slideshow.  Um.....torn about that one.  Don't really want to go out of my way for her anymore, but I know it would be nice for some of the kids to see their pictures.  Maybe I'll see if there's another contact I can send them to, under the auspices of it being for the school website or something.

You don't have to share photos if you don't want to.  They belong to you.  If you want credit, then you have to tell her that you want credit.  Some photographers may not care, others like you do care.  However, it's not on the other Mom to read your mind and know what you want.

If it is really important to you to be credited, then you should be adding a watermark to any photos that you share in order to prevent unaccredited use.  There are several free and low cost watermark programs out there.  I use photoshop and a brush, but there are lots of different options available.

[cwm]

OP here...The mom also just posted on my original post (on my wall, the one she never liked or commented on in the first place  ) and said that if I got any other good shots, please send them to her so she can put them in the class slideshow.  Um.....torn about that one.  Don't really want to go out of my way for her anymore, but I know it would be nice for some of the kids to see their pictures.  Maybe I'll see if there's another contact I can send them to, under the auspices of it being for the school website or something.

I'd respond to her how excited you are to hear about a slideshow, and you'd love to work on it because you really like controlling how your images are presented. That lets her know that you DO want to control how your images are used. Also, I'm going to go along with everyone else and say to add a watermark to images.

I'm not sure how well it would work on FB now, but I know years ago my sister and I added images to a third-party image hosting site and then marked to disable right-click functions on the images, so nobody could right-click on the image and save it as their own. It's worth looking into this option as well. It's still technically possible to take other people's images even with this, it just makes it a lot harder.

[Lynn2000]

I can see why you might be irritated, but I would be more likely to assume ignorance/carelessness rather than intent to deceive or be malicious. I like the idea of commenting on all unattributed photos, something that indicates you took it, in an indirect way. Some people just don't think about that kind of thing.

Now that you know the mom wants more photos for something, you have an opportunity to draw her attention to the attribution issue. I do think that if you feel proprietary about photos you've taken in general, it would be good to look into the watermark thing, if only because photos can be passed around the Internet so easily.

[MrTango]

There is also an option to report the photo to Facebook.

View the photo and at the bottom, there is a button labeled options.  Choose Report.  A dialog box will pop up and there is a link at the bottom that says "is this your intellectual property?"  Click that link and it will give you options.

[*inviteseller]

Unless they were taking actual credit for your copy righted material, I wouldn't say anything.  You tagged her in it and IMO, you are giving permission for them to use it.

[sammycat]

I'd be irritated-I think it's rude.

In your place, I'd be tempted to add a comment - something like "I'm glad you like it -the others I took are on my page if you're interested" which corrects the ownership of the picture while leaving it open for you/her to assume that her failure to credit you was an oversight.

My thoughts too.

As for the slideshow, is the other mother organising it? If not, I'd contact the person who is in charge and offer them the photos directly, with a watermark on them (assuming you want to have them included). 

If other mother is organising it, I'd (personally) be too irritated to get involved, and I'd see about contacting the families directly and offering them online/digital copies of the photos.

[GrammarNerd]

It's a fine line, I think.  I don't necessarily want all of this praise or credit or glowing theatrical comments about my awesome photography skills.  But it annoyed me that it was reposted RIGHT AWAY and there was NO mention at all that even someone else took the picture.  Not even a 'thanks to the mom who took the picture...you know who you are!' or something like that.  (And that would have been fine.)

I was trying to figure out a way to explain it, and I guess it's kind of like giving someone a birthday present.  You expect a 'thank you'.  You don't give the present BECAUSE you want to be thanked, but you still do expect it.  It's just one of those societal norms.  And if you don't get the expected thank you, it skews your perception of the event, or the person, or the situation.  Perhaps you don't need a gushing 15-minute dissertation of how you picked the perfect present, but you do expect some thanks, appreciation, acknowledgment. 

I don't want to go through the hassle of watermarking my pictures.  Most of the time, I don't even edit them.  If I do edit, it's very basic software that I use.  And I've honestly never run into this before, where someone would go to the trouble (lots more steps) to do it the way she did rather than just share it. 

Incidentally, the other mother involved shared the pics and said a very nice thanks.  No problem there at all.  She even tagged her daughter again.

In answer to a question, I don't think there was malicious intent, per se.  But nor was there, shall we say, honorable intent.  I just think it was rather thoughtless and like I said, annoying.   Inconsiderate.  I'll just cross them off my mental list of 'people to take pictures of' (yes, I know that's not grammatically correct ) 

Oh, and I did post a comment on her wall similar to Margo's wording, so thanks for that idea.

Now I'm off to bed, where I will not be losing any sleep over this, and I'll be dreaming happy dreams (hopefully)!

[Lynn2000]

I don't want to go through the hassle of watermarking my pictures.  Most of the time, I don't even edit them.  If I do edit, it's very basic software that I use.  And I've honestly never run into this before, where someone would go to the trouble (lots more steps) to do it the way she did rather than just share it. 

For sharing vs. reposting, it's possible she's also somewhat clueless about how Facebook works. I know my boss goes through some torturous steps on the computer to do things, even though she works on the computer a lot. She just doesn't trust/remember/feel inclined to use the shortcuts. I think the woman should have mentioned that she got the photo from someone else, but reposting instead of sharing could just be another indication of cluelessness, as opposed to an attempt to sever the photo from association with you.

[delabela]

It would not occur to me to.credit a non-professional photo on facebook - if I was showing someone physical prints, I would.probably not say "so and so took this one". So tell her you'd like to be credited.