Many event industry professionals I’ve spoken with have fallen victim to photography plagiarism. They work tirelessly to get the opportunity to work on an event, stretch their creative limits to define something worthy of being talked about, and, once the event is complete, proudly display the end result on their website…only to find out that another company has taken the image and passed it off as their own. The sad fact is that those are the lucky ones. Most companies never find out that their images have been plagiarized.
The issue of photography plagiarism is growing. Intentional plagiarism has gotten easier for the violator. Companies readily share images not only on their websites, but on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and a plethora of other sites. Additionally, Google, and other search engines, often reference these photographs in their image search, making it very easy for people to stumble upon your images. This is where unintentional plagiarism comes to life. Sites like Pinterist, Storify, Tumblr and a whole host of others allow people to share images they love with others. Although each of these sites have legalese that speaks to image rights, it doesn’t always mean that people follow the rules (or know that the rules exist). One person’s negligence can result in your image being shared between thousands of people…without attribution or your consent.
Google recently made a change to their image search function and it makes finding cases of photography plagiarism easier. Visit Google’s image search page, click on the camera icon in the search box and upload the image you’d like to track on the web. Google will show you the specific websites that have used that image. Although it doesn’t solve the plagiarism problem, it’s certainly made it a little simpler to track.
Home page image via Paula Bielnicka Photography