The Energon Pub

Hey guys,

Hoping that a couple of you might be able to give me some advice. There's a Chinese Transformers website that has stolen hundreds, if not thousands, of photos from the galleries on this site. I'm not quite sure about how to go about getting my photos removed from their site. Any suggestions? Do I need to contact a lawyer? Is this even worth my time? Just not sure what to do here and it's frustrating that someone would do this ... especially by removing my watermarks and replacing it with their own.

http://78dm.net/indextf.htm

Contacting a lawyer would be the best move, he or she can advise you.
I am not sure what the legalities would be surrounding your photography (which you own) that features molds(owned by Hasbro and Takara)

Do these photos belong exclusively to you? If a lawyer can prove that they do, then this other site would have to remove them.

An official letter from a lawyer goes a long way in making someone re-evaluate their actions.

I'd try sending them an email asking them to remove to pics first or at least state that those are yours (http://www.seibertron.com) pics. Who knows they might be decent people and just admit they made a mistake (yeah right ... but who knows) step 2 yeah I'd ask for legal coucil. Doubt it'll do any good though. Step 3 if all fails ask all seibertron.com members + visitors to spam the dudes mail telling him to remove the pics muahaha

wow what a real crappy (sorry for the language seibertron your highness ) way of displaying figures, by using some one elses material.

Sue the buggers!

Make the gallery a feature of being a member here and IP ban China.

GetterDragun wrote:Make the gallery a feature of being a member here and IP ban China.

their IP you mean?, and what makes it different if they get someone off another IP to send them the pics the old method of copy and pasting. strange enough these are on photobucket.

either way sue the hell out of em, theres no link on that site linked to you or seibertron. the water mark is a shameful thing to do even being blind like toph outta avatar could see their the same!

think ryan, aswell as sponsors you could earn some extra cash, and refund everyone for that camera you got muwhaha. (ignore last paragraph the megatron side of me is showing!)

It sucks, it really does, but I doubt you have any real recourse for it.

Banning China IP addresses is a bad move as well, because good people will get burned by that and it's not fair.

I realize it was a lot of work, but in the end, anyone you contact about this will say "it's just a bunch of pictures".

The idea of making them membership only isn't bad though, then you could narrow down who's been swiping them. That would help you find a way to get these pricks.

mattyc1007 wrote:

GetterDragun wrote:Make the gallery a feature of being a member here and IP ban China.

their IP you mean?, and what makes it different if they get someone off another IP to send them the pics the old method of copy and pasting. strange enough these are on photobucket.

either way sue the hell out of em, theres no link on that site linked to you or seibertron. the water mark is a shameful thing to do even being blind like toph outta avatar could see their the same!

think ryan, aswell as sponsors you could earn some extra cash, and refund everyone for that camera you got muwhaha. (ignore last paragraph the megatron side of me is showing!)

They're in China, how will our legal system help?

GetterDragun wrote:
They're in China, how will our legal system help?

Yeah I don't think you can sue China...Not to mention I'm pretty sure they have different copyright laws over there...In all honesty, there probably isn't much you can do...

Did someone imply that they have the pics on photobucket or they are linking directly from Seibertron? If they are copying the pics to photobucket I'm sure you can report it and Photobucket will remove them...

If I misunderstood, just ignore that

Autobot032 wrote:It sucks, it really does, but I doubt you have any real recourse for it.

I realize it was a lot of work, but in the end, anyone you contact about this will say "it's just a bunch of pictures".

The idea is to find out what kind of trouble it is worth to this site to continue using these pics, they could just as easily use hasbro or takara site samples.

Like I said, a cease and desist email with the letterhead of a lawyer on it might discourage the behavior, do they really want to get into a legal battle over Ryan's pics? Probably not, so a little nudge might do the trick.

Looks like they're also ripping off TFW2005 and TFormers.com...

http://78dm.net/012008/w-OptimusPrime.htm

Kique wrote: Step 3 if all fails ask all seibertron.com members + visitors to spam the dudes mail telling him to remove the pics muahaha

I agree....
Seibertronians transform & spam-out!!!

Sid Burn wrote:Contacting a lawyer would be the best move, he or she can advise you.
I am not sure what the legalities would be surrounding your photography (which you own) that features molds(owned by Hasbro and Takara)

Do these photos belong exclusively to you? If a lawyer can prove that they do, then this other site would have to remove them.

An official letter from a lawyer goes a long way in making someone re-evaluate their actions.

I do own the copyrights to the photos that I have spent thousands of hours working on over the past 5 years. The photos belong exclusively to me, I'm not quite sure I understand what you are insinuating.

I have already tried contacting the people at that website over the past few months, as well as their host to no avail. Not sure if they're just ignoring me or if the language barrier is the primary issue.

You guys have provided me with another idea that I'm pursuing to resolve this situation to my favor. I'll let you guys know how things turn out.

If any of you have other suggestions, I'm all ears. Thanks!

If the site is in China, there's probably not much you can do. Good luck, though.

Maybe you should put an obnoxious "watermark" right across the middle of all your pictures? j/k. Please don't do that.

I can talk to a friend of mine who is a lawyer and see if there might be anything you can do. I will keep you posted.

Seibertron wrote:I do own the copyrights to the photos that I have spent thousands of hours working on over the past 5 years. The photos belong exclusively to me, I'm not quite sure I understand what you are insinuating.

I am not insinuating anything, I am talking about your legal rights given that your photography (which you own) is of molds owned by hasbro and takara. That may contain a grey area legally that could be argued against you, I am not sure.

looking to help, not somehow undermine the work you put into the galleries, I am not sure how you inferred that from what I posted.

Whatever, seeing as the site is in china, I doubt there will be any recourse as other posters have pointed out.

Best thing to do as far a i can remeber is to contact that sites adiminstrator informing them they didnt ask for you permission to display your pctures and ask them to remove them, next if that doesnt work get you soliciter to write to the site administrator saying the same thing but including copyright and permission laws how you could sue like mad then if that dosent fail sue like mad

Did someone imply that they have the pics on photobucket or they are linking directly from Seibertron? If they are copying the pics to photobucket I'm sure you can report it and Photobucket will remove them

yeah i did, if your right click on the images and click on prperties it say the Url to Photobucket, dont know if its a link or its where the hosted (for that matter i dont know what happens when right click seibs, although thats because i dont intend on copying ryan pics).

They're in China, how will our legal system help?

I dont know, first im not from america so i dont know youre legal system, secondly i dont know the british legal system

I am talking about your legal rights given that your photography

read that wrong first time round, (trying to keep the mood up, at this irratating and depressing times).

I agree with the spamming, ive never done it before and id like to start it off on helping a bro

If a lawyer can advise you without charging you then talk to one! You could try the citizen's advise bureau.

I don't think it's worth spending money on, but i'd say put some time in to it as a matter of principle. They're affecting your finances by this theft but they've still stolen.

If you get anywhere with this, let us know - sorry I can't be of any help.

As already mentioned make viewing all the galley photos by signing in but I reccommend that a few photos be allowed to be seen without logging in as a preview.

Seibertron wrote:

Sid Burn wrote:Contacting a lawyer would be the best move, he or she can advise you.
I am not sure what the legalities would be surrounding your photography (which you own) that features molds(owned by Hasbro and Takara)

Do these photos belong exclusively to you? If a lawyer can prove that they do, then this other site would have to remove them.

An official letter from a lawyer goes a long way in making someone re-evaluate their actions.

I do own the copyrights to the photos that I have spent thousands of hours working on over the past 5 years. The photos belong exclusively to me, I'm not quite sure I understand what you are insinuating.

I have already tried contacting the people at that website over the past few months, as well as their host to no avail. Not sure if they're just ignoring me or if the language barrier is the primary issue.

You guys have provided me with another idea that I'm pursuing to resolve this situation to my favor. I'll let you guys know how things turn out.

If any of you have other suggestions, I'm all ears. Thanks!

I'm not sure what recourse you have-you can contact a copyright lawyer and see what you can do. It's probably going to be a challenge.

I'm sure you've considered this before but you probably need a watermark on your images to try to minimize the risk of this type of image theft.

Is it sad that I de-lurked over an image theft topic?

I work in market research and lately image security has become a bigger issue given the number of sensitive concepts we deal with. I'm not an expert in the field of IP law and don't know what legal stand you can take against other websites using your photographs, but there are some methods you can take to make capturing your images difficult enough that the average internet citizen will lose interest in trying to download your images. You're probably aware of most of these, but in case you aren't, this photography website has the most comprehensive list of tactics all in the same place that I've run across.

http://www.wildlifephoto.net/articles/webdesign/imageprotection.html

I can sympathize with your concerns. The internet is a great forum for sharing information, but a difficult place to keep much of it secure.

I talked to a friend of mine who is a lawyer. He pretty much said the same thing everyone here already stated. Find a lawyer that specializes in that field and talk to them first.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

That really sucks Ryan :\ I honestly wish I had a suggestion other than whats already been mentioned about seeking legal advice..

I do hope something comes from this, I speak from experience when I say I know how it feels to have something you have worked so hard on taken by someone else and claimed as their own.

Just a thought.. but would it be an idea to see if that website is hosted by a specific provider or company and contacting them?

A) Do we have any memberes that are Lawyers that may concider doing some probono work?
B) Do we have any members who with Chinese language skills who might be able to assist Ryan as a translator just to ensure that the problems aren't just due to language barriers? Somehow seeing if they have changed the watermarks I would doubt it is.

c) all the members of sites they ripped off go after them like anon did to eBaum. (yes that would be fun, but i don't condone it as 2 wrongs don't make a right)