They steal pictures. What to do with the theft of personal photos on the VKontakte social network? Found a content thief - what to do next

July 7th, 2012, 07:23 pm

Unfamiliar with the Civil Code Russian Federation the reader may immediately object: “You yourself posted the pictures on the Internet! Why worry now? Nobody owes you anything! Photos on the Internet are free as air! Do not mind it!"

My dear freebie lovers. Photos do not appear on the Internet themselves. Each photo has a creator who still puts in some creative effort to make the image appear. Also, the author of the photo bears certain costs for the purchase of photographic equipment, means of processing and publishing images on the Internet. And if the subject of photography is not near the photographer's house, then add here also the transportation costs.

Each author is free to dispose of his photos at his own discretion. He can give out his photographs to everyone free of charge, he can organize the sale of images, the author of which he is. I do not have a phrase in my blog “Take photos, whoever wants. Do with them what you want. " On the contrary, I suggest that you contact me and discuss the use of my photos. I wonder who is interested in my photographs and where they might be used. Maybe interested persons need the full size of my photos, not 900x600 pixels. I store all my photos in RAW format. I don’t have a clear “only sell photos” or “give away for free” directive. In each case, the issue is considered individually. I can just give full-size photographs, I even buy them later print editionwhere the photo is posted. Sometimes I sell my photos. The highest price for one photo was paid by Reuters - about 1400 rubles. (although they immediately deducted 13% of personal income tax from the royalties). The common thing for my photographs sold and given away for free is that when using these photographs the author must be indicated, i.e. I. All the interesting uses of my photos outside of the blog are me.

How to find which photos of me were stolen and who stole them.

Here are two common ways to find stolen images.

* Method one. Go to Yandex.Pictures, click the advanced search .. Click the "Find" button. We get to the page with. We will be interested in photographs that have the caption “similar”. By clicking on the photo with the caption “similar” (not by the caption, but by the photo!) We get to the page where it is written in detail on which sites this photo or its copy is posted. Search on Yandex.Pictures clearly shows the scale of theft. Almost everyone steals. From photographs of pea soup to photographs of children's toys, from photographs of Dolgoprudny at night to photographs of motor ships and their interiors. Photos are safely put on copyright, the author's right to the name and inviolability of the work.

Method two. We look at which sites the copies of the photo are posted. We use Mozilla Firefox () with an extension called “Who Stole My Pictures?” (). We move the cursor to the photo, for example to this one.

01.

Right-click on the photo, select the item “Who stole my pictures?”, Open the services in separate tabs. And ... Here are the search results for Yandex.Pictures. Yes. We have already learned that photographs are being stolen from the previous method. The fact that in such volumes can also somehow be explained. But the fact that news reports about “Bulgaria” included a photo of the motor ship “F. Joliot-Curie” (the name of the ship is in full stern in the photo!) I can only explain by the lack of sight of the corresponding newsmakers. Or, these search results are a clear example of photo theft, and theft is completely thoughtless.

What if a photo is stolen?

If your copyright has been violated, then there is no need to invent anything. No need to write royalties letters. The copyright infringer can ignore the emails or simply remove your photo from their site. We will act strictly in accordance with the Law. To begin with, a few excerpts from the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

By virtue of Art. 1255 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, intellectual rights to works of science, literature and art are copyrights.
The author of the work owns: the exclusive right to the work; copyright; the author's right to a name; the right to inviolability of the work; the right to publish the work.

According to Art. 1257 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, a citizen is recognized as the author of a work of science, literature or art, creative work which it is created. The person indicated as the author on the original or a copy of the work is considered to be its author, unless proven otherwise.
Copyright applies to both published and unpublished works expressed in any objective form, including in written, oral form (in the form of public speech, public performance and other similar form), in the form of an image, in the form of sound - or video recording, in volumetric-spatial form.
For the emergence, exercise and protection of copyright does not require registration of the work or compliance with any other formalities.

In accordance with Art. 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the objects of copyright are works of science, literature and art, regardless of the merits and purpose of the work, as well as the way of its expression, including photographic works and works obtained by methods similar to photography.
It should also be borne in mind that the lack of novelty, uniqueness and (or) originality of the result of intellectual activity in itself cannot indicate that such a result was not created by creative labor and, therefore, is not an object of copyright, which is indicated in the Resolution of the Plenum The Supreme Court RF N 5, Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation N 29 dated 26.03.2009 "On some issues arising in connection with the introduction of part four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation."

The provisions of Art. 1301 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, it is determined that in cases of violation of the exclusive right to a work, the author or other rightholder, along with the use of other applicable methods of protection and measures of responsibility established by this Code (Articles 1250, 1252 and 1253), is entitled in accordance with paragraph 3 of Article 1252 of this Code to demand, at his own choice, from the violator, instead of compensation for losses, compensation payments: in the amount of ten thousand rubles to five million rubles, determined at the discretion of the court.
Considering cases on recovering compensation in the amount of ten thousand to five million rubles, the court determines the amount of compensation within the limits specified by law at its discretion, but not higher than the claim stated by the plaintiff.

Be prepared for the fact that you need to prove the authorship of the photos. For this, we store the photos in RAW format, save cashier's check, a delivery note and a warranty card for the camera, the serial number on the camera body must also be kept. In some cases, it will be necessary to prove that the photographer was at the time of the photo shooting in the specified place. The saved vouchers and tickets will help to prove authorship. A saved series of images will also help. And if in this series the photographer himself appears in the pictures, then even better.

There is a certain sequence of actions for copyright protection:
1. Fixing the fact of copyright infringement. If the stolen photo is printed in a newspaper or magazine, then we buy a copy of this newspaper or magazine. If the stolen photo is located on the website or used in a TV show, then notarization of the fact of illegal use of the photo is already required.
2. Establish a responsible person (editorial office of a newspaper, TV show, website).
3. Submitting a claim. Sometimes the issue of illegal use of photos can be resolved out of court.
4. We file a claim in court.
5. We seek the execution of the court decision.

Consulting group "Econ-Profi" works according to this scheme, which successfully protects my copyright. I believe that it is better to entrust the issue of copyright protection to professionals in this field, who, in addition to fixing the fact of illegal use of photographs, searching for responsible persons, attempts at pre-trial settlement, conducting cases in court and recovering compensation by court decision, have better means of controlling the emergence of new facts of illegal use of photos. It is also worth noting that the cost of the services of the consulting group "Econ-Profi" is extremely clear and clear from the very beginning, does not contain hidden and unexpected payments, without which it is allegedly impossible to further advance the case, like other unscrupulous lawyers.

What is one of the components of the work of the media? Publish news and, accordingly, get paid for it. What if the media publishes a stolen photo on the news? Then it already turns out to profit from the stolen. How can you constantly broadcast about copyright, the fight against piracy and counterfeiting and at the same time steal photos yourself? This state of affairs does not suit me. Because of this, I turned to the Econ-Profi consulting group for help in protecting my copyright after cases of theft of my photos.

I will give specific examples photographs stolen from me, who stole and the amount of compensation for copyright infringement, which we managed to obtain (or are in the process of obtaining under a writ of execution) thanks to the help of Econ-Profi.

Photo dated 08.24.2010 16:33. Samara. Diesel-electric ship "Bulgaria", "OS-16".

02.

"Moskovsky Komsomolets" - settlement agreement for 30,000 rubles.
VGTRK - 50,000 rubles.
"Look" - 60,000 rubles.
“AiF” - 60,000 rubles.
BCM.ru - 60,000 rubles.
“Komsomolskaya Pravda” - 60,000 rubles.
"Russian News Service" - 60,000 rubles.
Insurance broker Zashchita - 50,000 rubles.

Photo dated 08.24.2010 19:13. Diesel-electric ship "Bulgaria" in Zhiguli.

03.

"Look" - 60,000 rubles.
“AiF” - 60,000 rubles.
BCM.ru - 60,000 rubles.

Dear Readers. Fighting copyright infringement and photo theft is not an empty phrase and a waste of time. There is a result. Feel free to register the facts of violation and act according to the appropriate further scheme, or contact Econ-Profi for help.

* Now this method does not work, because Yandex has changed the image search interface. The way of presenting search results for images has also changed. Similar pictures are now really just similar, and not exactly the same.

At the beginning of 2016, I took one site for full service: content and promotion. After publication, the site began to appear in good places in search enginesah, and immediately there was a serious problem: content theft. Savvy competitors completely and completely copied the text and pictures, and some were even too lazy to remove backlinks to our web resource.

Yes, I, as a copywriter, feel good - the articles are interesting, since they are copied. But this is bad for the client and the site. I already wrote about why it is important to fill a web resource with unique content. Therefore, there are at least three ways out when stealing:

• to order new text - these are additional money and time costs;
• allow copying an article with a link to the source - uniqueness is below, but additional external links to the site appear;
• to force the thief to remove the copied texts - you will have to spend time and effort.

Each owner of a web resource decides for himself whether to fight thieves or not. In this article I will describe what I do when the text is stolen from the site. The instructions will help you to remove the content copied from you from other people's portals.

Before you fight the thief, you need to catch him. I use several methods to determine which resource and which article was stolen. Let's consider each option in more detail.

Backlinks in PS Webmaster

Very often, inexperienced content thieves cannot remove all links from the article to the internal sections of your site - this is an additional plus to use linking. Links are indexed and appear in the webmaster of search engines: both Yandex and Google. See information in the section: "Incoming links" - "External" (photo below). Track the indicator periodically, and you will be aware of changes.

Anti-plagiarism batch check

There are many services for determining the uniqueness of both a single text and all content on a site. Having studied various tools, I opted for the "Etxt Antiplagiarism" anti-plagiarism. The program is installed on a computer and makes it possible to check the uniqueness of all articles on the site absolutely free of charge and without restrictions. One of the key disadvantages of the service is the need to enter captcha. On average, checking one small web resource takes several hours. As a result, you get a summary report and can see which article and who stole it. detailed instructions.

Special scripts for the site

There are special services that will automatically check your site for plagiarism. For example, free Tynt. But I am personally against installing additional scripts of third-party companies in the site code, and specifically asked my friends about this service: their verdict is unambiguous - undesirable. Therefore, I do not use this service myself, but many bloggers advise.

Found a content thief - what to do next?

1. You need to contact the resource administrator and ask them to remove the stolen content. Usually, each web resource has contacts, links to social networks or a feedback form for communication. I duplicate my letter in all contacts so that the message reaches the addressee faster. The text of the letter and correspondence are below. If there is no answer within 2 days, go to the next item.

1. We write a letter to the hosting, on the server of which the thief's site is located. Plus, we attach a claim to the provider with the requirement to remove the stolen texts from the pages of the thief site. You can find out the hoster of any site through special services for site analysis.

Excerpt from the commentary of a lawyer: “Claims are written in free form, they are not statements of claim in court, where the requirements of Articles 131, 132 of the Civil Procedure Code must be observed. But to show the seriousness of your intentions, the claim must be made legally competently. "

1. If there is no response from the hosting, we send a complaint to the technical support of search engines: Yandex -, Google -.
2. Then we either go to court or use informal methods of influencing the thief. Be sure to keep the entire history of correspondence and other materials, which will then serve as an evidentiary base in the trial.

So far, the first two points were enough for me: a letter to the admin plus a message to the hoster so that the stolen content would be removed from someone else's site. Plus, while studying this issue, I talked with programmers and other specialists in web resources. From their experience, they confirm the effectiveness of contacting hosting and even the initiative on their part in case of copyright infringement. For example, real story from one website designer:

“I made a website on my own hosting. I did everything and handed it over to the customer. A couple of days later, a threat comes from my hosting that I have a complete duplicate of that site, and if I don't talk to the owner of the content or delete the site myself, it will simply be blocked. "

So these methods work. Do not give up and do not be afraid to defend the copyright for the content on your site. What to do if the text is stolen from the site - you now know. You have to work hard, but it's worth it.

How to protect content from theft?

There is no real copy protection. Any script can be bypassed in 2-3 clicks. On the Internet, there are many step by step instructions, armed with which even a teapot can steal text, video or picture from your site. Yes, some people use right-click locking in the hopes of preventing content from being copied.

But such protection can stop completely inept users, and even less will help from an experienced programmer. Plus, it only bothers readers, impairing the site's usability. Yes, and for me, as an administrator, it is very inconvenient to check and configure the resource. Thus, there is no protection, and everyone is uncomfortable.

Confirmation of authorship for texts

How to prove that the content belongs to you? There are many ways to assign authorship to unique text material. I usually use:

• "Original texts" from the Yandex webmaster. Many webmasters claim that this is useless and the service does not work. I think more is better than less. And before publishing an article on the site, I always post the text in this service. He fixes the release date and the material itself, thereby confirming that the article belongs to the resource.
• Fixation of authorship from text.ru. The anti-plagiarism provided by the TEXT.RU content exchange has a "Fix uniqueness" function. If the text is 100% unique, then this function becomes available - use it for health. If you wrote the article yourself or ordered it from a professional copywriter, then there should be no problems with uniqueness.

As far as I know, some authors send to themselves by mail before sending to the customer or publishing source text, thereby fixing the date and authorship. There are also special services, for example COPYTRUST and analogues, which are ready to act as a guarantor of your rights to any materials. Nobody canceled attribution of authorship to the site content through the Google + service. Plus, when placing content in the page code, there is the publication date, which can always act as an argument in your favor.

Use all methods or choose the most convenient. In this case, there should not be any difficulties in dealing with a content thief. You have an ironclad argument: the texts are mine, here is the proof. Do not be afraid to defend your rights and Yandex will be with you!

Leonid Melikhov, a professional copywriter lawyer, will help us to understand the legal background of the actions described above.

Legal commentary on copyright protection

To defend your rights, you need to know them. Therefore, we will figure out what's what with legal point vision. So, we are interested in part 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. It sets out everything we need.

What is a copywriter's article from a legal point of view?

This is the result of intellectual activity (part 1 of article 1225 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The copywriter owns the intellectual property rights to his articles. These intellectual rights are called copyrights when we are talking about works of science, literature or art, that is, just our case (part 1 of article 1255 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Copyright is the main term we will be using.

Copyright consists of two fundamental rights:

1. Exclusive rights.
2. Personal non-property rights (among them - the right of authorship).

And they, in turn, are subdivided into other rights, some of which are listed in Article 1255 of the Civil Code, some are “scattered” throughout Chapter 70 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Among these rights is the right to publish a work (Article 1268 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). We are interested in these three rights - the exclusive, the right of authorship, the right to publish.

The exclusive right is also called property. It allows its owner to use the object of law in any way that does not contradict the law (part 1 of article 1229 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, article 1270 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

It is important to know: copyright arises due to the creation of a work (part 1 of article 1228 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). That is, a copywriter wrote an article - and he is its author. No additional proof of authorship or anything similar is required.

Move on. By writing an article, the copywriter has both the exclusive right and the right of authorship (and other copyrights that we do not consider). When a copywriter sells an article to a client, he or she alienates the exclusive right. Now the owner of the article becomes the customer, to whom the exclusive right is transferred. At the same time, personal non-property rights remain with the copywriter, because they are legally impossible to transfer to another person.

It's okay for now. The customer paid and received the article with exclusive rights, published the material on his website. And then someone stole the text, that is, without the permission of the customer and the author, he posted it on another web resource.

Why can't this be done by law?

By virtue of part 1 of Article 1229 of the Civil Code, which says that the copyright holder (in our case, the customer) may prohibit or permit other persons to use the article, but the absence of a prohibition is not considered permission. Other people cannot use the article without the consent of the copyright holder.

Placing an article on a site is exactly a use. This is the violation. In our case, exclusive rights are violated. Move on.

On what grounds can the copyright holder demand the removal of an article?

Articles 1252 and 1301 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation speak of the protection of exclusive rights. Both the author and the owner of the exclusive right (in our example, this is the customer) can demand that the stolen article be removed from the site. This expresses one of the ways to protect civil rights "restoration of the situation that existed before the violation of the right, and the suppression of actions that violate the right" (Article 12 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Such a requirement must be presented to the hosting provider that serves the site where the stolen article is posted.

Why are we making a claim to the provider?

Of course, you can contact the site administrator, but for obvious reasons, the chances of meeting the request are small. The hosting provider is the keeper of the site's database. That is, there is a physical medium where the corresponding files are stored and, thus, the hosting provider is the custodian.

And part 4 of Article 1252 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation says that if a material carrier of information leads to violations of exclusive rights, then such a carrier is considered counterfeit and is destroyed by a court decision. So the legal prospect of the case is unambiguous - the removal of the stolen article files from the hosting provider's server. But it will hardly come to court. Most likely, having received a claim, the provider will delete the stolen article.

That's all for me. I wish all those who have read this far generous and understanding customers and no legal squabbles!