Reply To: Plagarism!!

[cameraclicker]

Has anyone had trouble with fauxtog’s copying their work? How do you deal with these issues?

I am currently attempting to deal with a guy that has blatantly coppied two shoots from I project I do, but he refuses to acknowledge that he has coppied them, however badly, and wont take them down.
We have threatened him with legal action but he doesn’t seem to care.

 

He doesn’t seem to care because case law is on his side.  If you proceed, you may find you are paying his legal bills.

I didn’t find similar photos to your second link, the girl with over-done blue eye make up.  I see similarities between your first link of the girl with the glasses and his version.  Similar make up, similar glasses, his girl looks like a real red head, yours has the wrong colour eyes and her hair appears to be lightened a lot.  He has more photos up from his shoot than you do of yours.  So you are claiming you have total rights to shoot some girl in extra large lens glasses, who has reddish hair, green lip gloss, purple eye shadow and possibly no cloths.  Since I took a photo of my wife sitting in a lounge chair, reading a book, does that mean that no one else can ever take a similar photo?  I don’t think that will fly very well.  Is there any proof that your photos were posted, and seen by Stolk Photography before their shoot?  Are you sure their photos weren’t taken first?  They don’t have to have published them first, just to have shot them, and immediately the question becomes did you take their idea.

I can’t find a link, I think I may have seen it in PhotoPro magazine.  A photographer sued another over a photo of a woman’s legs, high heel shoes, and panties around her ankles, she was sitting in a toilet cubicle.  Much like you are claiming, the claim was that the idea was being stolen.  I forget the details but the end result was that the judge decided there was nothing particularly unique about a woman’s panties around her ankles while wearing high heels and sitting on a toilet, regardless of the various colours involved.

In another case, it went the other way.  The case had to do with a tin of biscuits in England.  The tin had a red double-decker bus, Big Ben, and the House of Parliament on it.  Someone else created a very similar picture and the second person was sued by the first.  The judge in that case found in favour of the first person because of the way the elements were arranged in both photos.  I believe the reasoning was that the photo was a composite and you could not simply place your tripod in the same place and release the shutter when the bus drove past.  The second aspect was that the second person admitted to seeing the tin’s picture before creating the picture that resulted in the law suit.

Looking at the gallery you pointed us to, I definitely do not see the work of a fauxtographer.