Theft of images of PBase photographers on Hong Kong site

[sheila]

Two days ago I was alerted by another photographer of the theft of 2 of my images which have been purported to have been the work of a person called fbijohn(email fbijohn@yahoo.com.hk) on the dcfever.com site out of Hong Kong. Today I have just received an email from Karen Nichols, another PBaser, that she has had 27 images stolen by the same guy, again purporting to be his images and she has listed many other photographers who have had images stolen by this guy and I now have four images stolen. The site seems reluctant to do anything about it but may do when they receive a letter from my firm (I work for a large Australian law firm with an office in Hong Kong) when I return to work on Monday.

I know the topic of right clicking has been debated on this forum but I am sure that Slug can do something about direct linking or have software which can at least slow the b#$%^&ds* down or alternatively deny fbijohn access to the site (yes, I know he can change his email address etc etc). I don't mind folk copying my images (with my permission) for wallpaper or stuff for their own personal use but I draw the line at passing off.

Over to you Slug!
Cheers
Sheila

[srijith]

This is indeed sad I can think of one way that can slow down these guys (but may not fully prevent them).

Step 1 - Use Javascript to disable right click. So no "Save Picture As"
Step 2 - pbase.com server configured to prevent serving anyone whose HTTP_REFERER is neither *.pbase.com (that will take care of load balancing) or user defined *.mydomain.com (that will take care of direct links).

I know slug and team has a lot of work to do and is already fully into doing a lot, but this can become a very nasty situation. Better be nipped in the bud.

[karen1109]

Just posting to say "ditto" to Sheila's message -- although he stole 37, not 27 images from me (and at least 34 images from other pbase photographers). I really believe that in this case, fbijohn (the thief's username on the dcfever.com site) would have gone away and poached images from another site if right-click had been disabled on pbase -- He systematically went through several of my galleries and right-clicked on every single one of the images displayed therein to steal them. I have the right-click disabled on my personal website and believe it's a little like using "The Club" to prevent car theft --- determined thieves will steal the images one way or another, but for the joyriding opportunists, right-click disabling will either slow them down so that they steal far fewer images or they'll leave my site and steal images elsewhere.

If pbase does not implement right-click disabling (and I'd pay a premium for it), I may need to remove my images from pbase (which I hate to do). This incident left me so incensed I can't think straight!

[slug]

i'll go research and implement the javascript no right click option.
as long as it doesn't break a single browser out there, or slow down page loading, it shouldn't hurt anything.

but let me say again it will be nothing but a false sense of security.
for example, the two browsers i use, Konqueror on Linux, and Safari on MacOS aren't affected by such javascript at all.
and anyone running a browser that is affected by it simply has to disable javascript temporarily while they grab the images they want.
i'm sorry you're having image theft problems, but i'm afraid that javascript will not really be the solution.

-slug

[srijith]

slug, you might find this useful incase you decide to go for the javascript option:

Code: Select all

//Disable right mouse click Script
//By Maximus (maximus@nsimail.com) w/ mods by DynamicDrive
//For full source code, visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com

var message="All content on this site is Copyright © the photographer.  All rights reserved.\nImages are not licensed for any use other than personal viewing on this site\nwithout the express written permission of the authors. Thank you!";

///////////////////////////////////
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}

function clickNS4(e){
if (document.layers||document.getElementById&&!document.all){
if (e.which==2||e.which==3){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}

if (document.layers){
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
document.onmousedown=clickNS4;
}
else if (document.all&&!document.getElementById){
document.onmousedown=clickIE4;
}

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("alert(message);return false")


[sheila]

Thanks Srijith. And thank you Slug for your prompt response. It would appear that many more of my images have been stolen by this untalented moron than I had first thought as I am getting responses via email and my guestbook from the close knit group that photographers have become!

Cheers
Sheila

[mikelly]

Thanks Srijith. And thank you Slug for your prompt response. It would appear that many more of my images have been stolen by this untalented moron than I had first thought as I am getting responses via email and my guestbook from the close knit group that photographers have become!

Cheers
Sheila

Sheila, why don't you add a visible 'watermark' across your photos so that they will be useless to these types of scoundrels? or, reduce the original sizes to 640x480 before you upload so that they do not make decent prints.

Mike Kelly
Houston, Texas

[altofran]

Hi,

It's really sad that this guy stole pictures from PBase users. But as Slug said, disabling right-click is a false sense of security. I use Mozilla, and this script can be avoided. Even if it worked there are other simple ways to steal images, but I won't say how, I don't want to help those people.

Anyway, one of the efficient ways to discourage these people from doing so, is to add a "© Yourname» inside your pictures, at least he couldn't pretend he took them! Of course, unless he crops the pictures, in that case he will lose parts of them.

Still, when we put a high-res pictures on the web, unfortunately the price to pay is that there are always stupid people like this guy. Try different things at the same time: disable right-click, © symbol, maybe this will help.

Take care.

[mikelly]

Check the photos on this site. They have added their names across the subject of the photos to discourage theft. I'm not sure that I like this technique as well as using a lower resolution.

http://www.u3racing.com/photogallery/

Mike Kelly
Houston, Texas
http://www.pbase.com/mikelly

[sheila]

Thanks Mike and Nacef. The images involved were low res (nowadays I never post images more than 640 at the longest) and placing ©Sheila Smart can always be cloned out in PS. The watermark might be the way to go. I can make this part of my "action" when uploading. My Hong Kong lawyers are in the process of contacting the site. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers
Sheila

[karen1109]

My last resort would be to add the copyright to the actual image, since it is easily cropped or cloned out and looks so bad. If I were to do it, it would be small enough not to detract from the image, which would be really easy to clone or crop out. I do digitally watermark/track my best images, but because the cost of tracking is based on a fixed number of images and is charged per image, it's way too expensive to do it for all of the images I upload to pbase. Going foward, I am sizing down my images even more - to 600X450 or less, to ensure that the thief does not have an image large enough to produce a decent print.

Even though I'm livid over these events, I still think the tradeoff is worth it --- the exposure value significantly outweighs the risk of theft.

[thresholdprod]

Let me add don't save the photo and watermark/copyright in the layers mode. It makes it easier to take it off.

[sheila]

Update: The Hong Kong office of the Sydney law firm for whom I work contacted the principle of the site and upon hearing from my lawyer that he was calling on behalf of his Australian client in relation to an action for breach of copyright, the owner of the site hung up and refused to speak to my lawyer! When I got home last night, I had received an apologetic email from the site advising that fbijohn had been banned from the site and all photographs had been removed. One for the good guys. My lawyers both here and in HK suggested that if we got nowhere, we should report this passing off to the HK police. If this happens again, I may just do that!

Cheers and thanks for your support.
Sheila

[srijith]

Thanks for the update Sheila. Lucky that you worked in a law firm and things sorted out. I wonder what an average user could have done?

[tprice]

someone tell me how do you know if someone has stolen or linked to your photos