On 26th June 2012

Out of interest or probably boredom, I googled my name and was rather surprised to see quite a few images of mine that have clearly been "lifted" from their original places.  I have taken a philosophical view on this, realising that that us how things are. However, lifting an image and placing it as taken by someone else is a whole new ball game. I would hate that. At least my images still were credited to me. 

POE is getting quite lively and it has to be good for the future.  

I probably will not be posting any images of roses in the near future!  

I thought (maybe incorrectly) that the T&Cs of PoE allowed anyone to download or link to a limited number of the images for personal or non-profit use, provided acknowledgement is given to the photographer and to PoE as the host site. 

I have allowed a few of my photos to be used in this way, for example in brochures for non-profit courses and for use by artists. I know I will never get rich by selling photos, so this sort of use is perfectly acceptable to me, provided of course, acknowledgement is given.

The present example, however, seems to be a blatant case of copyright theft.

BTW, there  is a free application called 'Tin Eye' which is a reverse image search engine and can sniff out copies of an image on the web. It can be useful for searching for stolen images.

PS. I see the free download clause for limited non-profit use has been removed on PoE's current T&Cs. 

I responded again and then:

I will and I certainty will remove the picture. and I might not be able to make them a nice donation right now but I certainly will send them an apology. sorry for ruining your evening and for the upset.

And then an apology to POE, which I have accepted, with the promise of a donation for the mistake, making the point that I am not asking her to break the bank:

I mistakenly posted a picture today on the website that was taken by someone else. It is a picture that I love and had mistakenly saved into the drive that  had my England trip pictures. I have deleted the picture and apologized to the original photographer. I will try too take better care in the future.

Sincerely,

Sheri Mahan

So providing the donation reaches POE HQ I will consider it the end of the matter. Thank you to all who have commented and thus helped to keep POE, its members and their work safe.

That said, I expect similar occurrences, but as Edward states it will act as a warning to those who might seek to steal Copyright or as in this case make a genuine mistake, but they must know there will be consequences for such acts.

A typo corrected

I'm convinced it was no accident either John, and nothing will change my mind, I've heard the "I'm sorry I didn't realise, it was a genuine mistake" line too many times in my life to believe it.

That said Ron seems to have the matter sorted, he has been very fair, so I think that's the end of the matter for now. 

Sheri has written to me saying she has made a donation to POE for the mistake and if she has then I accept it's over.

She has also said she will delete all her images and leave POE as a result of the tears shed over this matter. I have encouraged her to stay, because she has apologised, made a donation for her mistake and has some good images.

I hope she takes notice but either way it's a lesson learned. We shall see what happens.