DarrenBarefoot.com

Avoiding more pressing matters since 2020

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Hey MisterShop.com, Stop Using My Photo

Dear Sir/Ms:
On your website, you’re using one of my photos without my permission. The photo you’re hosting is a cropped version of this photo, which features my lovely wife and I at a wedding. It was originally referenced on this page on my site back in August, 2004. Please remove this photo from your site immediately.

I note with some irony that you’re selling ‘white linen suits’ on that page, while my suit is clearly, well, linen-coloured. Cheers. DB.

UPDATE: MisterShop.com removed my photo.

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Darren Barefoot is an author, speaker and digital strategist. He’s the co-founder of Capulet Communications, and co-author of “Friends With Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”.

14 comments

  1. I hate people who do that. Someone stole one of my blog posts and put it on their site: BestPrintingOnline.com. They even have my name and URL, but no link. I wrote to them, but they never answered. I wrote to their ISP’s legal department, but nothing happened. I would welcome any advice for getting them to take it down.

  2. Man, how did you even find this out? I could understand finding text from your blog somewhere else (it’s happened to me too), but how would you find a photo?

    I remember years back a former coworker who had once been a model found an ad with her face on it. Except that it was for a company she’d never worked for, offering her for modelling services. And not that it matters, but the photo was old at the time and she didn’t look that way anymore.

  4. Hey Darren, the real irony here is that they picked you as the model and not Julie. Shows they have bad taste and therefore you should never buy clothes from them 😉

  5. gillian,

    if you do a search for ‘linen suit’ on Google you’ll know why.

    I’m surprised Darren doesn’t have a linen suit category on the blog. 😛

  6. Yeah, some kindly, copyright-sensitive linen suit shopper emailed me to let me know. Otherwise I’d be totally ignorant.

  7. I’ve seen this type of incident mentioned on a couple of other blogs. One of them suggested (working from memory, not from the posting 😦 ) that you immediately PrtScrn the page and note the date and time. Then you send them an email advising them that you own copyright to the photo, that you are invoicing them for $X and that they have 30 days to pay the invoice. Prompt payment, before 30 days, will result in your reducing the amount by two-thirds.

    I suppose that if it’s a US site then it might help if you can make use of a US postal address.)

    My usual advice fee in such matters is 10% of the amount recovered [grin].

  9. Darren, when I looked into this for myself, it was recommended that I contact the ISP and pursue a DCMA takedown. I sent off final demand letters this morning.

  10. I’m trying to figure out how did you found the picture on that website.

    I hate people who stole digital art, pictures and other stuff and use them without permission.

    I hope they remove the picture or at least ask you for a quote.

  12. Is the pic on their site now a crop of the old one or did they upload a new one? They’ve changed the image.

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