Both of these photos look pretty dang similar, right? The one on the left was created by me back in 2009, as part of my 365 project, and the one on the right is the stolen version of my image. Lé Nàbis, an Italian "freelance photographer" who calls himself a "crazy dreamer" took my image, converted it to black and white (real original, dude), and passed it off as his own original work.
This is THEFT, and it makes me feel stabby. I shall insert an obligatory rage gif.
Not only did this gem of a human being plaster my stolen image on his personal flickr and facebook pages, but he also had it FOR SALE on various sites such as 500px and deviantArt. For sale! He was profiting off of my stolen work! THIS IS ALSO THEFT.
This is certainly not the first time this has happened to me, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But I'm always stumped as to what drives a person to pretend he or she made something that wasn't theirs to begin with. Is it insecurity? Does he feel that his own photography is so unworthy of sharing? Did he used to post his own stuff, but received little to no positive feedback? I mean, for pete's sake, I've got tons of photos on my flickr that I'm not that proud of or slightly embarrassed by, like that HDR phase I went through, and when I used stock textures on nearly EVERYTHING, but still. They're mine and I own up to them. It never once crossed my mind to steal someone else's work. That's just crazy, and I'm a rational, law-abiding citizen (okay I jaywalk sometimes, but let's not count that, shall we?)
When I first saw my stolen image on his flickr page, I noticed that it was getting quite a lot of positive comments from other flickr members. "Great job!" "So creative!" This wasn't surprising; when I originally uploaded mine, I received similar comments. But how could this guy read each and every comment on a stolen photo without feeling like a complete and utter fraud?? What was going through his head? Is he mental?
Or maybe this is just some ignorant teenage kid who honestly thought that by changing my photo to black and white, it made the image completely "new" and "his property" and he could sell it on websites like it's no big deal. Maybe he really had no idea that what he did was copyright infringement. Could he be that stupid? Or lazy? Or all of the above?
The upside to all of this is that action has been taken and (some)results have been made. As soon as a flickr follower of mine alerted me to the thief's shenanigans, I promptly took screenshots of my image on his various photography sites, messaged him privately, and reported the theft to the sites where he had them for sale. I also reported his photo fuckery to both flickr and facebook (yep, he had it posted on his personal facebook page). The photo is no longer up on 500px, deviantArt, or his flickr, but it's still on his facebook page.
So this whole post was mostly to vent, but I kind of hope this guy comes across this blog post and understands why what he did was SO, SO WRONG. It is WRONG to steal someone's intellectual property. It is WRONG to pass it off as your own. It is WRONG to monetarily profit off of someone's intellectual property. If you want to call yourself a "crazy dreamer," start by dreaming up your own original work. You'll get a lot further in life that way.
And I won't have to write a rage-y blog post about a complete stranger.
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