If there’s one thing I hate its false representation, an example of which is people passing off pictures others have taken as their own. I do post others pictures on my blog to illustrate the occasional point but never would post someone else picture on Flickr or any other photo sharing webpage and try and say I took it. The reason I’m ranting about this is because about a month ago I came across a picture of a leopard in Sri Lanka. I immediately recognized the picture from a Pbase gallery by David Behrens, specifically this picture posted back in 2002 and which I had come across while still in college years ago.
In fact looking at most of the pictures hosted on that Flickr account it looks like they have been culled from a wide range of sources. But here’s the crux of the matter, someone commented on the picture and the poster’s reply indicated ownership of the picture. Now that really bloody annoyed me, the decent thing to do in response to the person’s comment would be to admit the poster him/herself did not take the picture but culled it off a website. I in response posted a comment mentioning the original photographer should be credited but it was pretty quickly taken down. That in my opinion was stupid and shows a complete lack of respect for the effort that some of us put into our photography. I know the Flickr poster is not making any money off the picture but trying to take credit for taking the picture is pretty low.
P.S. I’m not entirely sure what that picture has to do with my post, but just thought it looked funny, I did not however draw it.

I don’t think he took any of them - he HAS that said the one of Mayumi was taken by Dimuthu Premaratne though.
It seems as though his Flickr page is a collection of pictures depicting SL which is fine, but surely a blog would be much better suited? My impression was that Flickr was a site for one to display photographic skill (not websearching skill).
Either way, I saw the comment on the Leopard pic - that’s definite misrepresentation!
Comment by PseudoRandom — October 30, 2006 @ 9:07 am
That’s a weird one, I looked at some of the other pics and they are quite clearly credited to the people who ttok them. There is even a beach one that someone has commented on and the flickr guy has actually said that the image rights are someone else’s. From the leopard one alone I would agree with you.
Comment by R — October 30, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
It appears all the pictures were mined from other sites, the one where the image rights were acknowledged by the poster was unavoidable because there is a watermark on that particular picture.
I was just miffed that he’s claiming that picture, which has been one of my long-standing favourite pictures ever of a leopard as his own.
Comment by N — October 30, 2006 @ 10:04 pm
Oi N ur getting really good at this cyber policing business eh? i’m not talking abt the Flickr photo thief.. u know wat i mean
Comment by savi3 — October 30, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
Gah plagarising bastards!
At any rate you know you’ve made it when you have someone else pretending your work is theirs!
Comment by Darwin — October 30, 2006 @ 11:55 pm
no one tries to steal my pics..shocking considering thier superior quality
Comment by venus — October 31, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
You can report the theft to flicker, at the bottom, of that person’s page there is a link to a NOI report (Notice of Infringement) that you can fill out saying “I know this photo belongs to X”
Comment by trinlayk — September 7, 2007 @ 5:59 pm