Friday 27 August 2010

Blog picture copying....

I am not sure if I am over reacting or not.

There is a Turkish blog which has been appearing on my feed list a lot lately with my blog post titles on it and I decided to click on it, as you do. You can imagine my surprise to see several of my own photos of various tutorials. I tried to translate some of it and seeing as I could not actually leave a comment I managed to work out an email address. I wrote a polite request for them not to use any of my photos without asking. I also wanted to know the aim of the blog as it does have a lot of adverts on it. I did get an email back explaining that they were Turkey's number one blog and any ideas, projects and tutorials are featured there. That is fine as we all do that but I only ever put a link in the text and maybe a picture of MY version of the tutorial not pictures from someone else's blog. This happened a few days ago, since then three more of my blog posts have been ransacked which I think now makes a total of 6 tutotials! They appear to be working their way through my tutorial list in the side bar!! Know if they then went to my Etsy shop and bought one of my lovely items then I could maybe go ok, not very blog friendly but..............
They do put a link to my blog but it is the taking of the pictures that is starting to niggle and the fact that I seem to be supplying material for another blog as well as this one. They have taken as many as four pictures from one of my posts!
If you are a visitor of this Turkish blog then please become a follower of mine and visit me directly, cut out the middle man so to speak, rather than via the other blog that does not seem to be able to come up with anything of their own.
In some ways I suppose I should be flattered but for some niggling reason I feel used. A bit of a shame really. I think that the three tutorials that I have planned may stay on hold for a bit until they lose interest and go somewhere else. Check your live feeds if you have any and see if you can see a pattern or are having a surprising number of hits for certain tutorials or if visitors are coming from other blogs with your post titles on them.
More cheerful stuff later today.
xx

13 comments:

maria said...

Sorry to hear about this. I don't know if anything like this has happened to me but it's the possibility of this kind of behaviour which has been putting me off posting recently.
Do you get comments in a language which looks like Chinese? I have and it looks suspicious to me. Do you know what these comments are all about?
I hope your Turkish thief stops soon. x

Kandi said...

That is kind of like stealing, I wouldn't dream of it without asking permission. Something similar was happening to another blogger and she went back and added her name to all of her photos (like a watermark type og thing), it took ages, but at least if someone else steals them anyone else looking can see that they were originally yours.
Kandi x

Indigo Blue said...

Hi Ladies,
Many thanks for your support. putting a watermark or my name on the pictures is a good idea. Does anyone know how to do this?
xx

Bagladee said...

OOoooh you must share this link with us all, they may be doing this to a few fellow bloggers. Do you want to share it? I wouldn't mind checking just in case? Emma x

Twiggy said...

How rude, if they asked permission it would be a different story. We know your stuff is fab, the idea of popping a watermark on your pics is a good one.
Thanks for your get well wishes
Twiggy x

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Enough already, this is the 5th blog in 5 days i've seen images, products or ideas outright stolen. I feel for all of you, it sucks & copying isn't flattering, it's just plain unoriginal!! Good luck, just use it to push you to better things. 'tis annoying. Love Posie

wonderwoman said...

that's awful - i didn't know this sort of thing happened so often.
x

Indigo Blue said...

Hi,
Emma I shall email that link to you as I do not want to get into an arguement with them.

I did get a nice email from a lady who is NOT the one posting the pictures and she explained what they were about. I did not ask to have the posts deleted, damage already done, and I did not want to seem grumpy or stir up a hornets nest. Asked for permission to be asked in future and then two days later more tutorials pictures used without any warning. So my concerns had not been passed on!
No new posts but it is the weekend, have to see what happens Monday. This person has not used the recycled hairband one yet lets wait and see shall we?

inkberryblue said...

I wouldn't be at all happy about this either. I've had my pictures taken without my permission on several occasions. I watermark all my photos now, using Photoshop Elements. I learnt how to from the blog Green Kitchen. I haven't had any photos taken since (that I'm aware of...but I'm not holding my breath.)
Hope they stop soon.

Fenland Textile Studio said...

Hi
How awful for this to happen, I have fingers crossed they don;t use the recycled hairband. I think you are right to try and watermark your photos. I had a lady do a workshop this year with me and asked to take photos as we went along for her personal use (stupidly I said yes)). I later found them on her blog together with full instructions for the project. When I contacted her she thought I wouldn't mind sharing!

JuliaB said...

Hi A

If I was you I would ask them to remove the posts right away! It is stealing and they have no right .. if they want to show your tutorials then maybe one pic and a link to your site .... but not an all out copy... VERY BAD this is! Which blog is it? I shall write to them myself to complain!

x

JuliaB said...

ps: i would also have no qualms publishing the address on this post .. I guess you would have told any of your readers if you saw us on there .. but really .. it's not on Andrea. They may be Turkey's top blog, but at whose expense?! They should get their own ideas!

x

Kitty said...

Andrea, this is really shocking. I think you should print a notice of copyright here, on your blog, stating publicly that the pictures and words you post here are YOUR copyright, and are not to be copied without first asking your permission. I have a copyright notice at my blog and at Flickr to try to prevent exactly this sort of thing.

I agree with Julia that you might think about publishing the URL of the blog in question, as well as pointedly asking them to stop what they're doing. It's not fair and it's not right.

x

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