Update: Jayson has removed the post with the images. I appreciate his coming forward and admitting the mistake was truly a mistake and removing the blog post. I’m leaving this post up for posterity but removing his last name and company name.
============
It’s nice when people use my photos. Sometimes they ask permission and sometimes they just link to my blog or Flickr page. Sadly, this isn’t always the case and while I reach out to everyone that uses my photos without permission asking kindly that they simply put photo-credit, this doesn’t always get done and I’m left with someone hosting my image without proper attribution. I used to have my photos as Creative Commons licenses where anyone could use them for non-commercial purposes as long as they credit me and don’t alter the image but now, they’re “all rights reserved”.
Jayson has a blog and used my property without permission and the property of a few people I know. I asked him to offer credit and he hasn’t complied in 48 hours. He’s pretty active on Twitter so unless he’s really bad at email, he’s seen my message.
- Blog Post: http://jaysonelliot.com/blog/2013/09/19/the-top-twenty-beers-in-the-world
- Jayson’s Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/JaysonElliot
The photos of mine he’s using is that of Cantillon Fou Foune, an apricot Lambic. You can see it on his blog and here’s a link to the original image I took. He’s also using my photo of Lawson’s Double Sunshine IPA.
I did some digging and that every photo on the blog post I linked above is not owned by Jayson, nor is it attributing the author. Here’s a list of blogs where the original photos were uploaded that are being hot linked on Jayson’s blog:
- Dark Horse Plead the 5th – DontDrinkBeer
- Cigar City Brewing Hunahpu’s – BrewDrinkRun
- Rochefort 10 is actually licensed under creative commons to “Wikimedia” in which anyone can use it but must attribute – source
- Bell’s Hopslam Ale – PerfectlyHappyMan
- Kern River Citra – InsuranceBeerGuyBlog
- Hill Farmstead Abner – BearFlavored
- The Abyss – PortlandBeer.org
- BCS – Craft Beer Corner
- Russian River Supplication – Food GPS
Is it surprising that all of the photos in use are owned by someone else? No and I fully embrace the ‘remix’ culture of the web but if you’re going to use photos in a blog. You have to ask permission. I’ve been through this from both sides and that’s why I took up photography. If you don’t want to shoot your own photos, everyone has a Twitter handle. Ping them with the URL and image link and ask if you can hot-link it. If that’s too much work, go back to sharing stories in 140 character blips.
Jayson, sorry man. I’ll update the blog post once you either attribute the images or remove them. Thanks.
Hi Adam – I see you linked to my blog (Insurance Guy Beer Blog) as someone using your photo and I can say with 100% confidence that all 3 photos that are on that page I took. If you take a moment to look at the background and other photos on my blog you will see the same trees, same deck, etc on almost all of the photos. I have the same problem with others using my photos without asking and it is frustrating but I assure you I took those photos. If you could kindly remove that link I would appreciate it.
James
James hi. I’m sorry if my text wasn’t clear. I’m linking to your blog because Jayson is using one of your photos. Not you using one of mine. I’ll re-write my blog to make that clearer. Sorry.
He’s using a photo you took on his blog.
Ahh OK that makes more sense. I take a lot of time to get decent photos of the beer I review and it is definitely frustrating when others use them without asking. Thanks for the heads up.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. Updated the text. Most people don’t care. Most of us (myself included) aren’t making money from photography, it’s just a hobby but to have someone snazzing up their blog using a photo I took without a link-back is morally wrong but also illegal.
Have a great day and see you around.
My fault, I was reading this while doing 5 other things at work and missed the sentence before the list of sites.
Sorry, Adam. Post has been taken down.
That was meant to be a draft, it got set to “publish” in the WP admin panel by mistake. You may have noticed that it was an unfinished blog post :)
I’ll attribute you if I ever decide to use one of your Creative Commons-licensed photos in the future.
Hi Jayson. I’ll update my post also to be less brash. Thanks for the comment.
You and I both work in tech and a lot of talented guys like Thomas Hawk and Scott Beale spend time rallying against stolen images. While I haven’t made a dime from photography, attribution is always appreciated.
I do appreciate your being so forthcoming and taking down the images. Have a good day.
DDB, I’m terribly sorry that your comment was not approved on my site automatically. I have whitelisted your profile to correct this.
Nitpicking here but:
“I’m leaving this post up for posterity but removing his last name and company name.”
You do realise that leaving his twitter & blog URLs does actually give you what both his last name are and company name are?