What most of you don't know about me is that I am a photographer. I've done commissioned work as well as non-commissioned work. I have also had my photographs stolen and had the person that stole them claim the photos as their own.
Being a photographer one of the things you learn about is copyright laws. There are people here on fubar that are stealing people's photos and claiming its them in the photograph. What you don't think about is that its ILLEGAL. Should the owner of the copyright discover that you've stolen the photos you COULD be sued for copyright infringement.
This is from copyright.gov
"Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights."
In order to steal a photo to use it on a different site you DOWNLOAD the photo then UPLOAD the photo. On top of that a good deal of you crop out copyrights that are placed on photographs without permission. This can also be held against you. Claiming that you are the person in the photo could get you in trouble for defamation of character AND by advertising these photos to the masses on fubar and claiming them as your own for goods of value (bling, blasts, hh, tickers, vips) it could be considered using the image for commercial benefit. This is also illegal.
For the most part models do not own the copyright of the photos they are in. Most models are required to sign a model release form. This form gives the photographer ownership of the photos to use the them as they see fit. Sometimes the copyright is transferred over to the model or the company the photo is taken for.
Before you go blaming fubar, I highly suggest you read the terms of service you agreed to when you joined fubar. They are not held responsible. Most networking websites do not take responsibility for this. However If someone comes to them with a salute proving that you are who you say you are they will delete the other profile.
Example (and true story):
At one point there were a bunch of fake profiles of Cristina Scabbia (One of the vocalists of Lacuna Coil). These profiles used photos of her and claimed it was her running the profile. At the time Cristina wasn't even a member on myspace. I contacted her and filled her in on the fake profiles. She then contacted myspace and was told she needed to take a photo of herself with her name, the date, her email, and her myspace user number in order to have the profiles deleted. So she joined myspace and sent them the photo they required. Within a day all the fake profiles were deleted.
Before you ask...NO i will not send or tell Cristina anything for you. You can contact her yourself on facebook or myspace. She does respond to messages when she can.
