Photography

24 readers

1 users here now

A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

communick@viewfinder.pro

Illegal Print (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by aardbeienjazz@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

62 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone,

I'm a photographer from Belgium. I discovered one of my photos has been printed illegally and is on one of the walls in a cruise ship. It's a major US company. I discovered this because a passenger recognized my work and sent me a photo of it.

Does anyone now what's the best thing to do here?

Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TinfoilCamera@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

It's a major US company

OK - the cruise ship (and by extension the line) is probably not at fault. Whomever they bought it from is the actual infringer.

First things first - before contacting a lawyer you have to register the copyright on your image, presuming you haven't already.

You can not litigate copyright infringement or even threaten to without registering the copyright first - and it has to be registered, not simply filed for. File for the copyright and then contact an attorney - they can send a demand to the cruise line to reveal the source they bought the print from. The cruise line does not have to answer that demand because there's no litigation yet - but they will. Once you know who to go after, your lawyer will take it from there.

Note that this is worth litigating - willful infringement of a copyrighted work is worth treble damages and it's per infringement... and if it's in one cruise ship it's probably in more than one, and elsewhere as well. All kinds of infringements might come to light once subpoenas start getting tossed around.

tl;dr -- file for your copyright today, then call an attorney.