Posted by Gary McGhee on February 21, 2014 at 9:46 PM
Hi all,
I came across one of my photo's being used in an phone app. The app is called Color Sign and is available for Windows Phone and is a free download on what I think is a Microsoft website. Here's a link.
I wouldn't know who to contact and how to contact them. Any guidance or advice is very welcome.
Cheers, Gary.
*I think I posted this in the wrong forum, sorry.*
Posted by Eva McDermott on February 21, 2014 at 10:36 PM
Hi Gary - I would also post this in the Digital Imaging forum so more people see it. Do you use Tin Eye? It might help locate where your image (as well as other images) may have been lifted from (Flickr, Deviantart, Redbubble, 500PX). You would be surprised how prevalent this kinda thing is. Difficult to prevent but if you find away to contact MS (I'll look to) they may not realize it is copyright infringement since it may have come from another source.
Posted by Lon Overacker on February 22, 2014 at 12:00 AM
Gary,
Click on the "Publisher Best Games" link at the bottom left. That takes you here. there you can go to their site and click on the contacts link and start a dialogue requesting they remove your image, OR you would be happy to invoice them for use. ;-)
Lon
Posted by Mia McPherson on February 22, 2014 at 7:00 PM
Gary,
I found one of my American Badger images in three Badger "wallpaper" apps that were available for download from Google Play. I downloaded the free app to my phone to make sure there were not any more of my images being used in it. That was a mistake because something in that app hijacked my browser and put a browser up that has sleazy stuff in it like ads for porn. I had to delete everything in my browser, clear data and my cache which meant I had to add my bookmarks and passwords all over again.
At any rate I went to the Google DMCA infringement page and filled a take down on each of the three apps which by the way were identical and most likely by the same person using three different names.
What ticks me off the most about this is that unless one of our images are used in the demo images for these apps we will never know if our images are contained in the app unless we download them or purchase them. It makes me ill because with that apps that you have to pay for someone is making a profit and it isn't us. My American Badger image had my copyright watermark cropped off in the app so how would anyone know it was mine?
I found my American Badger image using this wonderful little bookmarklet: http://jarred.github.io/src-img/ by going to that page and dragging the bookmarklet to your favorites bar. I don't know if this works with all browsers but I know it works with IE and Safari.
You can then go to a page where your image is located on a blog or photo gallery, click the bookmarklet and a square with question marks appears in the center of the images, click that and it opens a new browser window with Google image search results. Saves a lot of time.
Since Google updated their image search in January of 2013 I have had a marked increase of copyright infringements occur. It ticks me off to no end.
Posted by Gary McGhee on February 22, 2014 at 10:40 PM
Thanks for the help Eva, Lon and Mia,
I do have Tin Eye and I do have the src-img link Mia has put up and it was that what found the stolen photo. I think the photo was lifted from 1X.com because within a couple of weeks of it being published on there I found it on all kinds of blogs and websites but most credited me and were not for profit. I had a really hard time trying to get 1X.com to delete the photo but they did eventually. I no longer have an account with them.
Mia, it sounds like you had a bit of a nightmare with what happened, getting your photo's stolen and then your browser being hijacked.
Thanks for posting the link to the Microsoft copyright infringement, I will use that tomorrow when I have a bit of time to myself.
I knew there would be members from this site that could help and you have and I appreciate that.
Just to keep you up to date, not a lot I can tell you at the moment except that I have an solicitor on the case. Microsoft are very slow to act upon this.
The app still shows up on their site but they have removed the "Download" button.
Cheers, Gary.
Posted by Gary McGhee on January 18, 2015 at 9:58 AM
Hi everyone,
An update,
Microsoft have finally removed all evidence of this from their App pages. It has took a long time for such a big company to act on this and many letters from my solicitor and at my expense.
I am in the middle of getting made redundant at the moment so I am not pursuing this anymore. It has been very difficult trying to deal with Microsoft and I will avoid buying any of their products in the future.
Thanks again to those who replied to my original post.
Discussion
6 repliesI came across one of my photo's being used in an phone app. The app is called Color Sign and is available for Windows Phone and is a free download on what I think is a Microsoft website. Here's a link.
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/color-sign/7553542d-8d55-4f75-90a8-64d70e633c47
I wouldn't know who to contact and how to contact them. Any guidance or advice is very welcome.
Cheers, Gary.
*I think I posted this in the wrong forum, sorry.*
Click on the "Publisher Best Games" link at the bottom left. That takes you here. there you can go to their site and click on the contacts link and start a dialogue requesting they remove your image, OR you would be happy to invoice them for use. ;-)
Lon
I found one of my American Badger images in three Badger "wallpaper" apps that were available for download from Google Play. I downloaded the free app to my phone to make sure there were not any more of my images being used in it. That was a mistake because something in that app hijacked my browser and put a browser up that has sleazy stuff in it like ads for porn. I had to delete everything in my browser, clear data and my cache which meant I had to add my bookmarks and passwords all over again.
At any rate I went to the Google DMCA infringement page and filled a take down on each of the three apps which by the way were identical and most likely by the same person using three different names.
What ticks me off the most about this is that unless one of our images are used in the demo images for these apps we will never know if our images are contained in the app unless we download them or purchase them. It makes me ill because with that apps that you have to pay for someone is making a profit and it isn't us. My American Badger image had my copyright watermark cropped off in the app so how would anyone know it was mine?
I found my American Badger image using this wonderful little bookmarklet: http://jarred.github.io/src-img/ by going to that page and dragging the bookmarklet to your favorites bar. I don't know if this works with all browsers but I know it works with IE and Safari.
You can then go to a page where your image is located on a blog or photo gallery, click the bookmarklet and a square with question marks appears in the center of the images, click that and it opens a new browser window with Google image search results. Saves a lot of time.
You can report your image being infringed by going to this location at Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyrtInfrg.aspx
Since Google updated their image search in January of 2013 I have had a marked increase of copyright infringements occur. It ticks me off to no end.
I do have Tin Eye and I do have the src-img link Mia has put up and it was that what found the stolen photo. I think the photo was lifted from 1X.com because within a couple of weeks of it being published on there I found it on all kinds of blogs and websites but most credited me and were not for profit. I had a really hard time trying to get 1X.com to delete the photo but they did eventually. I no longer have an account with them.
Mia, it sounds like you had a bit of a nightmare with what happened, getting your photo's stolen and then your browser being hijacked.
Thanks for posting the link to the Microsoft copyright infringement, I will use that tomorrow when I have a bit of time to myself.
I knew there would be members from this site that could help and you have and I appreciate that.
I will let you know what happens.
Regards, Gary.
Just to keep you up to date, not a lot I can tell you at the moment except that I have an solicitor on the case. Microsoft are very slow to act upon this.
The app still shows up on their site but they have removed the "Download" button.
Cheers, Gary.
An update,
Microsoft have finally removed all evidence of this from their App pages. It has took a long time for such a big company to act on this and many letters from my solicitor and at my expense.
I am in the middle of getting made redundant at the moment so I am not pursuing this anymore. It has been very difficult trying to deal with Microsoft and I will avoid buying any of their products in the future.
Thanks again to those who replied to my original post.
Cheers, Gary.