Tag Archives: United States

Brianna Cate Photography in Walla Walla, WA

Website: https://www.briannacatephotography.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Briannacatephotographyllc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briannacatephotographyllc

PS Facebook Page Discussion

I’ve had this person submitted to me many times over the years but it always seems to hit whenever I’m swamped with work or just don’t have the time to really dig into it.

via GIPHY

I have a boatload of submissions to work on and I guess we’re starting here.

Brianna sure likes her watermark. Shame it’s on photos she didn’t create but she sure acts like she did. They are mostly stock images but as you’ll see you’d never know it if reading her post about it. Most of these are also on her Instagram but I only showed the top one there.

You know how much I love fake stories and Brianna does too! Alexa + Eli huh?? The original photographer is Russian so I’m going to guess that they didn’t hail from Seattle…

Reminder if you’ve somehow missed it but I’ve now started a Substack and have been writing a bi-weekly newsletter about Photo Stealers, industry news and copyright stuff.

Continue reading Brianna Cate Photography in Walla Walla, WA

Heather Slattery Photography in Dayton, OH

Website: https://heatherslatteryphotography.mypixieset.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heatherslatteryphotography
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherslatteryphotography1
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heatherslatteryphotos

PS Facebook Page Discussion

Ugh.

This isn’t how I wanted to start off my Monday but here we are. Stolen images, stock images, plagiarism, “inspiration”… where my bingo card??

If you know of the source of any images I couldn’t find the original creator for let me know.

Also, in case you weren’t aware, I’ve started a substack! Each week I have one free post, one paid post talking about various things related to Photo Stealers, photography and beyond. Hit subscribe and share with anyone you’d think enjoy!


Continue reading Heather Slattery Photography in Dayton, OH

Micah Cook Photos / Micah Cook Photography in Falls Church, VA 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@micahcookphotos
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micahcookphotos/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MicahCookPhotos
Website: https://www.micahcookphotography.com/

PS Facebook Page Discussion

SIGH.

Apparently this has to be said.

YOU CANNOT SCRAPE PHOTOS FROM THE INTERNET AND PUT THEM ON YOUR TIKTOK AND USE IT TO PROMOTE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS!!!!!

Sometimes this “high end wedding photographer” says not my photos in the caption or video but not always and it’s usually below the “more'” link and buried with the hashtags. If you weren’t digging you’d likely assume that these images are his.

Very, very, very few of these TikToks have his photos BUT his Instagram POSTS do appear to be his own work (the reels are mostly reposted TikToks which have stolen images in them).

The vast majority of the images stolen he’s using to promote himself and say basically, “hey if this is your vision of a wedding hire me!” with various high end photos of weddings from around the world. According to this video, this method seems to have worked

I finally gave up because it was overwhelming how many stolen images he’s using on his TikTok to promote his business but below you’ll get a sample of how many images he’s used that aren’t his while saying “if any of these fit your preferences… I’m taking on 10 more weddings for the 2024 year”

Updated 7/27/2023:

  • Added links to more platforms he’s on, turns out I missed his reels on Instagram that had images from other vendors.
  • Updated his location to Falls Church, VA but he may also be in Raleigh? I’m not quite sure of his location.
  • Micah took down/TikTok removed some videos but there are still plenty with more photos so I dug in more.
  • He REALLY likes Jose Villa’s work apparently since he’s used his images a LOT (which, duh, he’s amazing but damn dude, really?)
Continue reading Micah Cook Photos / Micah Cook Photography in Falls Church, VA 

James Roney Photography in Falls Church, VA

Pixels: https://jamesroneyphotography.pixels.com/art
Fine Art America: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jamesroneyphotography
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesRoneyPrints/

PS Facebook Page Post

The hilarity of this man getting caught because he called out OTHER people for stealing images is *chef’s kiss*

Not only has he stolen images and uploaded them into his various fine art galleries but he’s sold some of these images.

You can even have them placed onto products! I love that most of the items below are shown with stolen images.

There’s so much I don’t have the time to source them all but here’s just a teaser before I head off to photograph a wedding. This is only after searching about 2 of 8 pages of his images on Pixels.

Update 6/25/2022: Apparently James wants to claim that all of these images are in the public domain so he’s free to do as he wishes with them. So I’ve added the usage rights to each photo that I can find releases for.

Here’s what he’s added to his Pixels page:

All Smith Mountain Lake Images on this site were taken by James Roney. All other photos not taken by James Roney were obtained through a ‘paid’ Copyright license; all other photos were obtained legally through commercial sites specialized in public domain photos. No photos were knowingly or intentionally stolen to sell here. Historic paintings found here are public domain. If you find a photo of yours that we ‘legally’ obtained, please let us know right away, and we will remove the image in question. If you have one, be sure to attach your Copyright License with your take down request please. There are workarounds if you don’t have one. We do not use Google images as picture source to sell. Anyone who tells you we knowingly steal photos to sell here are flat-out lying, and can be held liable.”

He has also added some credits on the images so those images are now being used legally but some of the credits are… kind of wild.

I removed the images he’s now credited properly under the creative commons terms and I also removed a few of the images from stock sources he claims to have procured the proper licensing for.

Continue reading James Roney Photography in Falls Church, VA

Katss Photos vs. CGT Photography

In all the years I’ve been covering photography based copyright infringement I’ve NEVER heard about someone going and actually fighting someone over it but here we are.

I was sent this story that was covered by TurtleBoy but I decided to make my own post about it since they admittedly know nothing about photography copyright so I felt I could expand upon that aspect of the story.

This all starts with CGT Photography getting hired to take photos of a woman’s children. At the time it is understood that this woman was not a photographer but recently the mother opened her own photography business named Katss Photos.

In early May, Katss Photos posts an ad for puddle jumping photos and uses the images taken of her children by CGT Photography but does not credit her for the original photos.

Original images: CGT Photography

A day or so later the owner of CGT, Caeli, finds out about the image theft and leaves a comment on the post. They go back and forth in the comment section a bit about crediting her for the work.

To be fair to Caeli, up until this point of the story I was with her. We’ve all confronted those who steal our images and use them for their own commercial use. What Katss Photos did is copyright infringement and is illegal despite her thinking that this isn’t commercial use of the images since they are of her own children. Personally, there is definitely a vast difference in the quality of work I see from CGT vs. Katss so it’s not a representation of her true quality of images.

Well… then it escalated.

Caeli messaged Kat’s fiance’ on Facebook after trying to call him twice on May 5th, saying she’s on her way to give his “dumb bitch wife a new face.” So you can say it escalated a bit.

She then messages and calls Kat and tells her she’s on her way to her house. She wasn’t kidding, she literally goes to Kat’s house.

After a screaming match between the two, it appears that Caeli slaps a man who appears to be Kat’s husband and then Kat starts punching Caeli. Kat eventually posts this to her TikTok but it appears to be down but can be found rehosted on TurtleBoy and on Facebook.

You would think after that Caeli would take her loss and leave and maybe just, I don’t know…. submit a DMCA takedown request for the photos used?

Nope.

She challenged her to another damn fight.

I’m not sure when the video was posted onto TikTok but then a few days ago Caeli left a “doesn’t recommend” for Katss Photos on Facebook.

This is what Kat has to say about it on one of the Facebook threads:

Cue Rocky theme song.