DISQUS

Great Video Jonathan!!! Thank you for helping us with this problem, and for educating all of us concerning copyright issues!!

Thank you Jonathan!!!

Most visual Artists that I know are deeply concerned about this bill resurfacing. Thanks for keeping us up to date. Great article!!

It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to create an 'orphaned works registry' than try to register or reregister everything that is copyrighted....

Hi Jonathan, So if I understand this correctly, they called you and gave the impression that they were willing to discuss the situation and then instead of doing so turned this over to their PR people who made the above statement? Do you think this may be mistake somewhere in the chain of command - or is this the official blow off?

If this is the statement that they are standing by, then it tells us a lot about PB and just how much they care about obeying the law, and working with the Artist community.

The petition mainly consists of Artists, many of which found their works being illegally displayed and sold on PB. Maybe it is time that the members of PB get to find out that their photos can be viewed by anyone and can quite easily be sold without their knowledge or compensation. Most everyone I have talked to that has a PB account just did not realize what rights they had signed away..that their photos were made public..and even for sale to anyone with PB and Qoop making the profits. I think they should know.

Great article on the Blog Herald btw!!

Jonathan - Thank you! I think that you are a real hero, and I want to express my appreciation for all that you have done here to help all of us. Please let us know what we can do to help you in return.

And to the members of DeviantArt - You guys are showing the art world how to stand up for your rights! Thank you all for joining in the fight - you are all just amazing!

Hi JB - Fantastic site! I hope this is the place for this..I wanted to share my experience with Photobucket. I’ll start by explaining what happened to me. First off - I’m not a member of Photobucket, and I have never uploaded anything to photobucket. During an image search online I discovered one of my artworks (I'm a visual Artist) being displayed on Photobucket...no big deal (I know that it is technically infringement) although I gave no one permission to do so. It was one of my pieces that was posted on Epilogue that someone decided to put in their photobucket fantasy art gallery. Then I noticed above the artwork a link to ‘BUY PRINTS’. So I clicked on it and found anyone can buy my artwork printed on everything from coffee cups to posters! I went through the process and discovered that you can buy any work displayed in any public photobucket album printed on many products. I gave no one permission to upload my artwork or sell it - but here it is being sold! Here is but one example of my work being displayed, renamed, and sold without my knowledge or consent...

http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa226/nanci_...

They changed my artwork’s name from ‘Painted Pony’ to ‘’Painted Woman as you can see in the link above (note the BUY PRINTS) tab.

Then I discovered that a lot of my artwork is all over Photobucket under different names and in different galleries and all for sale!! This is blatant copyright infringement. I filed a DMCA with Photobucket and they removed one of the images but as fast as they remove them more are being uploaded. Photobucket claims no responsibility in what their users upload...but they sure don’t mind making a profit through Qoop their affiliate printing service. So basically they have a loop hole to print and sell counterfeit merchandise, make the money from said sales and the Artist never even knows. They don’t ban these repeat infringers either...just remove one item at a time. I can't fill out DMCA's fast enough to keep up. Photobucket is full of artwork being used and sold without the Artist's knowledge or permission.

If you are an Artist people can steal your work, upload it to photobucket and Qoop will print it on anything and charge accordingly without you ever even knowing it. Or pictures of your dog...or children for that matter..Resolution is of no concern - they will print it anyway.

These ‘photosharing’ companies are creating situations where Artists have to compete with themselves. They are creating counterfeit merchandise and profiting from the unknowing public. This is illegal and just wrong!

I believe that Photobucket could stop this by making the accounts ''private' by default. Accounts not set to 'private' offer the media in each account up for sale. Perhaps even a simply worded disclaimer to educate those uploading content...lets face it, most normal folks know nothing of IP rights, and are just 'collecting' work that they like. They have no idea that what they are doing is wrong, and in most cases that it is even for sale.

Any Advise?

Thanks, Sandi