One evening recently I received a DM on Twitter from a blogger friend: “Someone is using your photo and they’re not crediting you. They’ve done it to me before as well”. I was like, “What?”. I had a look at their Twitter page and lo and behold, there it was. It pissed me off, I have to be honest. It’s not like it’s that photo that is going to bring me fame and riches, but obviously, it was good enough for this brand to share it and use it as a marketing tool on their social media.
I tweeted at them and obtained no response. The next day I tweeted again and after a few other people saw and retweeted my complaint, the brand in question ended up apologising. Still, the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt cheated.
As bloggers, we know (or should know ) that using someone else’s photos on our blogs is wrong, (especially if you don’t even give credit ). In some cases such theft can even lead to being taken to court and fined for intellectual property appropriation (it’s all related to that little and sometimes complicated thing called copyright).
