CalevPhoto

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My first stolen photos

Well, it was bound to happen at some point or another.  Someone has stolen several of my photos.  In this case they were real estate photos and ironically are not some of my better photos.

Some time ago my wife, who is a real estate agent, had a listing that I took photos of.  The shoot was quite difficult and I wound up having to reshoot the property.  In retrospect, it was an important property for me because it was what eventually prompted me to move from pure HDR to exposure blending.

The shot above was one of the photos stolen and certainly has its flaws – the worst of which are probably the incorrect verticals.

Unfortunately, after quite a bit of work by both myself and my wife, my wife realized that this wasn’t going to work out so she cancelled the listing.  The seller then relisted the property several months later with a different agent.

Of course, the new agent helped herself to my photos, and I have of course insisted that these photos be removed.  If they are not removed soon, I intend to send her the bill for my services and pursue this in court if they are not removed.

What bothers me even more though was the response from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS).  When I contacted them asking what I needed to do to get the photos removed, a rude woman responded that they will not take any requests from photographers.  The listing agent must submit a complaint.  Luckily the previous listing agent in this case was my wife so she filed the formal complaint using the form she mentioned.

So far NWMLS has not bothered to reply to the complaint, which has me even more angered.  I am half tempted to file a lawsuit against them for copyright infringement.  This is simply not correct.  If a photographer sends them a certified letter demanding his images be removed from their site, they must do this.  NWMLS must understand that real estate agents do not own the copyright for these photographs – the photographers do.

Related posts:

1. Continuing the HDR process As many of you know, I have switched my real estate photography to HDR.  It has taken me a bit of time getting used to it but I do like it much better.  In particular, I am able to shoot houses quicker - which makes a difference now that Nelya...
2. How not to photograph a million dollar house On Thursday I receive a call from Nelya at work.  She had finally received permission from the bank to list the house!  “Great”, I replied.  “We can photograph it this weekend”. Of course, we didn’t have until the weekend.  The property had to be listed that day.  The real estate...
3. A success in real estate photography Recently I had the chance to take some shots of one of my wife’s properties.  I am still working on my real estate photography, and I am not yet at the stage where I really want to be.  I currently take all of the shots with my 16-35 2.8 II...
4. Playing with some new toys Although we do not celebrate Christmas, that doesn’t mean I did not get any toys… With my birthday earlier in the month and with some spare photography money I received a few things this season and yesterday I finally had the chance to get out and play with them –...
5. Switching to HDR in real estate After a number of disagreements with my wife on how to light real estate photos, naturally my wife won.  Therefore, we came to an agreement that she gets me a copy of Photomatix and I start taking pictures in HDR. Being not familiar very much with HDR, I used one...

Tags: copyright, multiple listing service, NWMLS, photography, real estate, stealing, theft