Delaware contractor using my pictures - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Mark Daniels · 03-24-2008, 04:58 PM

Got this from a woman in Delaware today. Yes he is using pictures of my bathrooms and kitchens. What you think?

Description of project I was looking at photos on websites to get ideas for my bathroom remodeling job in Delaware and I noticed a company in Newark, Delaware had the same pictures as you. http://www.prestigehomeimprovements....?album=1&pos=3

are you two affiliated?

please let know because I hired Prestige and I want to make sure they are being truthful.

rbsremodeling · 03-24-2008, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Daniels

Got this from a woman in Delaware today. Yes he is using pictures of my bathrooms and kitchens. What you think?

Description of project I was looking at photos on websites to get ideas for my bathroom remodeling job in Delaware and I noticed a company in Newark, Delaware had the same pictures as you. http://www.prestigehomeimprovements....?album=1&pos=3

are you two affiliated?

please let know because I hired Prestige and I want to make sure they are being truthful.

That is just down right Cruddy. I hope you told her no and they lost the job. Hope there is more you can do to take action against them

mickeyco · 03-24-2008, 05:01 PM

I'm so tired of these a-holes, make sure you can prove they are your pictures, then contact him through email ask him if it's his work, if he says yes, get an attorney and sue the pants off him. There needs to be a couple of big stories of these sh|theads losing some serious cash before it will stop.

.

**genecarp** · 03-24-2008, 05:11 PM

go getem

SelfContract · 03-24-2008, 05:15 PM

Even copyrighted pictures or pix shown with company logo/names on it (water-marks shown at bottom), someone skilled in Photoshop software can ALWAYS defeat/modify/change it easily!...

Jason W · 03-24-2008, 05:21 PM

Isn't there a way to post pic's that can't be copied. Seems to me that I've tried to copy pic's (unrelated to construction) and couldn't get them.

No it wasn't porn either

Honestly

Mark Daniels · 03-24-2008, 05:51 PM

I guess the bottom line is if you get busted by a customer like he did, you loose face and also business. It's stupid to use other people's work pictures and infer the work is yours.

**AtlanticWBConst** · 03-24-2008, 06:38 PM

WOW.....what a loser....

**Cole** · 03-24-2008, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason W

Isn't there a way to post pic's that can't be copied. Seems to me that I've tried to copy pic's (unrelated to construction) and couldn't get them.

No it wasn't porn either

Honestly

You can do a no right click script on your site, but someone who knows code can simply look at the source code. Its a vicious circle, I tell you!

It sucks that it happened to you and I hope the other guy makes it right.

Susan Betz · 03-25-2008, 05:12 AM

Mark -

You seem to consistently have this problem with people stealing your photos. The root is that you have really nice pictures and people think they can just swipe them. They are large, fairly high resolution, and once downloaded easy to manipulate. I'd be willing to bet your stuff shows up in Google Image when you search for bathroom remodeling pics.

I strongly suggest you get a watermark and paste it into every picture, right in the middle. Get one of those transparent watermarks. Hire a high school kid if you don't know how to do it. Clients who are looking at your pictures don't care, but people who want to steal your pictures won't bother.

Another alternative is to get a Flash program and put your pictures into a Flash show. (You'd have to be selective and choose just a few of your best so that you don't overwhelm your visitors with a load wait time). While it's possible to "rip" a flash show and get the component pictures, not many people know how to do this and the vast majority won't bother.

This may seem like a huge bother but you put a lock on your front door. We all know a lock won't stop a really good thief, but it will stop 99% of them. Same with a watermark or a Flash show. What's going to take less time, putting in the watermark or chasing demons all over the Net?

sprayer · 03-25-2008, 11:04 AM

Hi Mark I know exactly how must feel. I had a competitor using my pictures in his sales presentation brochure. He was telling people he did the work!!!

I had my attorney call him up and it turned out that he was sold the brochures by a local printer. The printer actually charged him $50 dollars for MY pictures. I later found out that when ever you do any kind of advertising with any company they actually keep a copy of your pictures {IF THERE NICE} for there stock photo. So do not be surprised if the that lady doesn't know those picture are stole from you. The person who did her website could be the culprit. Good Luck

Danno6102 · 03-25-2008, 11:52 AM

This happened to me a couple months back. I had my website done by Footbridge. I was lacking finished project pics, so Aaron used, what I thought were stock photos to dress up the site. Anyway, got a call from another deck builder & CT forum member that a couple of the photos were of his work. His site was also done by Footbridge & Aaron just used what he had in his files. I had Aaron remove them immediately & no harm was done.

Doesn't look like the same situation in this instance though. F'ing hack!

Mark Daniels · 03-25-2008, 03:39 PM

Thanks for your kind words, seems he pulled the pictures today as I had left him a phone message or he was contacted by his customer.

Tajmawall · 03-25-2008, 04:21 PM

I have a local company ( Americrete ) who are using pictures of my work in there brochures. When I called them on it the secretary said, we couldn't
sell any wall mix if they did not use your pictures.

Greg P · 03-25-2008, 04:42 PM

I was about to say you can use meta tags to block Google from searching the pages where your pictures are so they don't show up in the search results. But you probably don't want to do that since those pages may be helping people find you online.

So here's a page for blocking your images from showing up in Google images, which is where most people get the pictures they can steal.

It's easier than it sounds setting this up:

http://us.vclart.net/wiki/Block_Google_Images

Another option to protect your content (not images) is copyscape:

http://www.copyscape.com

Then I dug a little more and found this article:

http://www.wildlifephoto.net/article...rotection.html

Greg

Mono · 03-25-2008, 09:24 PM

Mark just went to your website and tried to right click the picture and then copy and paste. If you can prevent this then they will not be able to steel your photos, I suggest either lower the resolution or contact a webdesigner to help you prevent any modification/copy or your copyrighted material.
Good luck.

**AtlanticWBConst** · 03-26-2008, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sprayer

Hi Mark I know exactly how must feel. I had a competitor using my pictures in his sales presentation brochure. He was telling people he did the work!!!

I had my attorney call him up and it turned out that he was sold the brochures by a local printer. The printer actually charged him $50 dollars for MY pictures. I later found out that when ever you do any kind of advertising with any company they actually keep a copy of your pictures {IF THERE NICE} for there stock photo. So do not be surprised if the that lady doesn't know those picture are stole from you. The person who did her website could be the culprit. Good Luck

Interesting Observation. Never would have occured to me.