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.

Davide Francese in Italy

Website: https://www.davidefrancese.it/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidefrancese.it/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francese_davide/

PS Facebook Page Discussion

Davide Francese entered a bunch of images into the WPE Awards and apparently they are not all of his original works. Sound familiar? Although it appears with Davide no monetary awards were received.

I started working on this last night but real life happened and I didn’t get to finishing it. The story has been picked up by PetaPixel and there David claims he didn’t know you couldn’t use the images from the classes he purchased in this way… and yes, there is a rule about submitting images that are your own.

As far as I have been able to research, his wedding work does appear to be his own.

He is a MQIP (Master Qualified Italian Photographer) currently and party of Team Italy for World Photographic Cup.

(Please note the difference in coloring on the screen captures is due to the images I was sent, not due to editing by Davide)

Continue reading Davide Francese in Italy

Shoot for the Stars Photography in Cookstown, Ontario

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shoot4thestarsphotography
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shootforthestars_photography

There’s so many Pinterest photos for when she “doesn’t have time” to use her own images for advertisements. I gave up around summer 2022 but there’s a LOT here.

Reminder that I now have a Substack!

PS Facebook Page Discussion

Continue reading Shoot for the Stars Photography in Cookstown, Ontario