Is ‘AutomotiveGraphics.TicTail.Com’ Profiting Off Of Copyrighted Photos?

Dude, is that my photo?

You’ve taken a great set of photos from an event and posted them online for everyone to enjoy. All of a sudden, you see one of your photos downloaded and turned into vinyl decals for sale with the “business owner” turning a tidy profit without any credit or compensation given to you. That’s what happened to one local California photographer when he found his photos turned into repurposed decals and put up for sale without any ‘heads up’ from the decal maker.

AutomotiveGraphics.TicTail.Com is a fairly new site with 13 other decals in the same exact style as the photo stolen in question (See above.) In addition, there are more than eight other decals with older Nissan logos which to common knowledge have not entered the public domain and must have proper licensing permission in order to use. If you recognize any of the possible photos were these decals came from, please inform the owner of the photo.

What AutomotiveGraphics.Ticail.Com is doing isn’t new. Dodging licensing fees and blatantly stealing from photographers online is unfortunately all too common of a practice. With legal fees to gain compensation far outweighing the trouble to seek legal counsel, many photographers push these photo thieves aside as a nuisance and ignore them altogether.

So what can photographers do? First, they should confirm that it is indeed their photo stolen. Next, they should contact the offending party in question to ask that they “Cease and desist.” If the site is hosted by Blogger, WordPress or Wikipedia it’s now just a simple act of filling out a DMCA form and the content should be removed. If you’ve registered your photos with they copyright office (online procedure found here) suing for damages is much easier when seeking legal counsel. If you haven’t there are still legal proceedings to aid you in gaining some compensation back.

As consumers, you’re free not to buy these pieces of copyright infringement and it is up to you to tell your friends and community not to do so only if you’re certain that the offender is using copyrighted material.