Image thief steals photos from Flickr to sell on iStockphoto
According to a news report posted by Stephen Shankland on Webware.com (a CNET web-site,) Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, a professional photographer from Iceland and a user of the Flickr photo-sharing site, has discovered several of her images were posted on iStockphoto by a third party using the screen name “vulcanacar.” iStock has shut down vulcanacar’s portfolio and removed his or her account from the site.
As a warning to other users about the risk of posting images on Flickr, Ms. Guðleifsdóttir posted on the Flickr blog a screen shot of one of her images as it appeared on iStock under the imposter’s name. She points out that of the thirty-one images in vulcanacar’s portfolio on iStock, twenty-five were hers and three of those are self-portraits. iStock EVP Kelly Thompson says that the company investigates such cases immediately upon learning of them.
In this case, Thompson says, it will be difficult to pursue damages from the user in question because he “is in a country where it would be very difficult to do too much to him.”
One telling comment made on the Flickr blog where Ms. Guðleifsdóttir posted the screen shot: a fellow Flickr user tracked down the following excerpt from the iStockphoto interview with vulcanacar:
iStockphoto: Tell us about a guilty pleasure you have.
vulcanacar: sometimes white lies makes me happy.
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