Protecting images of your work

[Cghwindowcleaning]

So today some one has notified me of another company using photos of my work on there website and social media.
They’re not based near me but it’s a bit of a liberty.
I alway try and put the van in as it’s sign written or someone in uniform when posting on social media but this company have photo shopped their logo all over mine.
My work is all commercial so the buildings can be unique or different to your run of the mill domestic work.

How do any of you go about protecting images of your work and business in situations like this?

Would this bother you?

 

[ched999uk]

You can add a watermark to your images but they can look a bit weird when you are trying for a good image.
I would send a polite email to the company who copied your image asking for them to remove your images. It's possible that the company don't know they have stolen your images and their web developer just supplied the images to them after photoshopping them.

There might also be a method of reporting it to google but I can't remember. If it's on social media then you might also be able to report them. Be careful as if they did steel the images intentionally then they could try and impact your business on Social Media!

Failing them taking any action report it to their local trading standards team. They should take action as the other company are promoting themselves as doing that job when the didn't so are misleading in their advertising which is illegal!

 

[Pjj]

I had this situation with a firm 350 miles away from me , the person who built this other guy’s website found my website and copied a number of my pictures, I phoned up this other window cleaner and explained the situation to him he got on to his website guy and removed them all it was the web designer who was in the wrong the window cleaner he built the site for was totally unaware of what was going on .

 

[Cghwindowcleaning]

I’ve asked for it to be removed so see what happens.Could be down to the web designer who knows.

 

[Part Timer]

I’ve asked for it to be removed so see what happens.Could be down to the web designer who knows.

Have you not got a copyright warning on your website. If you have then get your Solicitor to send them a letter

 

[Pjj]

Have you not got a copyright warning on your website. If you have then get your Solicitor to send them a letter

I think this might be worth looking at and also having the company name on each picture.

 

[Crystalalan]

I`d give him or her a ring like Paul did. See what he or she has to say.

 

[Yogi1872]

I probably wouldn't bother tbh, it's only a picture. I can see why some wouldn't like it though. If it's not against copy right rules etc and the only reason he has to take them off is by goodwill then if you phone him speak to him like you would like to be spoken too. I don't advertise online at all. If this scenario happened and someone called me and explained what's happened I'd take it down. If however someone phoned me demanding it took off talking in a bad manner then they would get told where to go and it's staying on.

 

[ched999uk]

Have you not got a copyright warning on your website. If you have then get your Solicitor to send them a letter

Legally you don't need a copyright notice on a website for the images to be protected. When you take a photo the image is automatically protected.

Copyright notice: digital images, photographs and the internet

www.gov.uk

 

[Iron Giant]

I don't see how the owner of this other website can't have a clue that he has photoshopped images on his site he will have checked the site as it was been built and agreed he was happy with it all before paying up to the website design guy so he will be fully aware.

 

[Pjj]

I probably wouldn't bother tbh, it's only a picture. I can see why some wouldn't like it though. If it's not against copy right rules etc and the only reason he has to take them off is by goodwill then if you phone him speak to him like you would like to be spoken too. I don't advertise online at all. If this scenario happened and someone called me and explained what's happened I'd take it down. If however someone phoned me demanding it took off talking in a bad manner then they would get told where to go and it's staying on.

Problem is all the pictures on my website I have permission from the owners of the propertise to have them on there but if my customers found out they were on someone else’s website they wouldn’t be to impressed, also the person is claiming that theses pic are of there work and what they can do so it’s false advertising

 

[Pjj]

I don't see how the owner of this other website can't have a clue that he has photoshopped images on his site he will have checked the site as it was been built and agreed he was happy with it all before paying up to the website design guy so he will be fully aware.

In my case the website builder told him they were generic pictures off the internet , to be honest I felt sorry for the window cleaner as he had paid in good faith to have a website built and this guy had ripped him off ,

 

[Yogi1872]

Problem is all the pictures on my website I have permission from the owners of the propertise to have them on there but if my customers found out they were on someone else’s website they wouldn’t be to impressed, also the person is claiming that theses pic are of there work and what they can do so it’s false advertising

I did think the customer might not be happy. If using an image of something like that then unless you copy right it or something is there anything you could legally do ?. If using property that isn't yours then I'd probably get it protected for there benifit. It shouldn't be something you'd have to do though if people had basic manners.

 

[ched999uk]

I did think the customer might not be happy. If using an image of something like that then unless you copy right it or something is there anything you could legally do ?. If using property that isn't yours then I'd probably get it protected for there benifit. It shouldn't be something you'd have to do though if people had basic manners.

The creator of the image automatically has copyright - no need to register or anything like that.
The OP can easily prove that the images are theirs. Just have a look at Internet Archive: Wayback Machine and enter the domain. It then lists previous versions of the site with date stamps.

 

[Part Timer]

Legally you don't need a copyright notice on a website for the images to be protected. When you take a photo the image is automatically protected.

Copyright notice: digital images, photographs and the internet

www.gov.uk

Agreed but without it you'd then have to prove it was your picture. Without the original time stamped photo that wouldn't be possible, far easier to copyright your website.

 

[ched999uk]

Agreed but without it you'd then have to prove it was your picture. Without the original time stamped photo that wouldn't be possible, far easier to copyright your website.

If you have the original image it should have meta data attached to it within the file that can be viewed and it even says what camera/phone it was taken on.
You are right that by adding copyright notice to your web site it makes a public statement that you are protecting your content and images etc.

There is also https://archive.org/web/ which is a site that takes copies of your website every now and again that are viewable over the last decade or 2.

After thinking about it all my websites are copyright but the copyright symbols etc are in the meta data in the code. I might add a copyright statement to the footer of all my sites when I get some time, cheers.

 

[Iron Giant]

In my case the website builder told him they were generic pictures off the internet , to be honest I felt sorry for the window cleaner as he had paid in good faith to have a website built and this guy had ripped him off ,

I think in this case though where the line has been really crossed more so is the photoshopping of the image and the cleaner has agreed to the finished product, it's clearly not him or his van in the photo but he has signed off on what has been done.

It doesn't take much to get someone to tag along for an hour or so to take photos I'm sure years ago Nat told you the same thing as he did me get your own photos as it looks so much better as people want to see that it's you who they will be dealing with, this guy is going to potentially get jobs off the back of his website but turn up in a different van and look different what's his answer going to be if someone asks, Oh I just took the image of the internet and had it altered

 

[Cleanco]

Problem is all the pictures on my website I have permission from the owners of the propertise to have them on there but if my customers found out they were on someone else’s website they wouldn’t be to impressed, also the person is claiming that theses pic are of there work and what they can do so it’s false advertising

You don’t need permission and it is not against the law if the pictures are taken off public land

 

[Pjj]

You don’t need permission and it is not against the law if the pictures are taken off public land

It is when they use my picture from my website and palm them off as there pictures and work , also you have to have the property owner’s permission to use the images

 

[Truckcab79]

Regardless of the legalities this is almost certainly solved by a polite call to the owner of the other company and let him know they are of you and your business. Website guy will have just lazily (and for free) robbed them off the net and the owner won’t be aware. He’ll just swap them for someone else on probably the same basis and they’ll never be any wiser.

 

[Pjj]

Regardless of the legalities this is almost certainly solved by a polite call to the owner of the other company and let him know they are of you and your business. Website guy will have just lazily (and for free) robbed them off the net and the owner won’t be aware. He’ll just swap them for someone else on probably the same basis and they’ll never be any wiser.

I feel it’s better to use and supply your own pictures when having a website or advertising stuff printed we have a large portfolio of many various jobs we do to show customers what they can expect .