Reptile image theft and how to handle it

In my free time I enjoy reading the BOI posts, and every so often a situation comes up where a thief uploads stolen images of a business or individual's animals. Usually, a scam follows.

As a fellow herper and artist, I'd like to share information with any of you who may be interested in learning how to protect your intellectual property (photographs) in the event that someone would steal them from you and pass them off as their own.

You have the law on your side and can have those images removed.

Your Photographs are copyrighted to you.

When you take a photograph of your animal, the image immediately becomes copyrighted to you, and you have the sole right to distribute, display, create derivatives of it, etc.

This means that in the event that someone swipes your animals' images off your website or ads, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is the law that backs up your ownership of your photograph in the US and provides you with a method of requesting the takedown of infringing work.

The DMCA provides service providers with immunity from copyright infringement regarding content uploaded to their servers by users, provided that they respond promptly to takedown notices and follow the procedures of the DMCA.

A DMCA takedown notice will get your image removed

According to the provisions of the DMCA, if you wish to make a formal request to have content removed from a service provider (which can be anything - imageshack, tumblr, web site hosts etc. These are all service providers), you must do so through a DMCA takedown notice. An informal notice usually will not suffice.

The following are requirements of the DMCA takedown notice:

- Your electronic signature (typically your name in /slashes/)
- A link to the infringing material
- A link to your original material
- A statement that you have good faith belief that you, the copyright holder, did not authorize the use of the material.
- A statement that the information you have sent is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
- Your contact information.

Sample Letter

My name is (your name) and I am contacting you today regarding material on your service that infringes on my copyright. The photograph (name or description of your photograph) was uploaded to your server without my permission.

You may access the infringing work here: (URL)
You may access my original work here: (URL)

I have good faith belief that I, the copyright holder, have not authorized the use of this content. I claim that the information contained within this notice is accurate, and that under penalty of perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Signed,
/(your name)/
(Your Contact Information)

Where do I send the letter?

As you are visiting the website with the infringing material, locate a "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page, or a "Terms of Service" link. Many Terms of Service will contain a clause that addresses DMCA takedown notices and where specifically to send them. If there is no direction for your notice, you send it to the Contact Us e-mail address or form.

What if they use the photo on their own site? Or I can't find a Contact Us?

You will need to take another step and locate the web host of the website so you may contact that service provider with your notice.

Navigate to http://www.whois.com/ and perform a Whois Lookup (top right, the blue search bar) on the domain you are attempting to locate the host for. In the information provided, you can usually determine the web host by looking at the name servers.

Examples would be: HostGator, BlueHost, Arvixe, LiquidWeb, etc.

Once you have located the web host, navigate to their Contact Us/Terms of Service to locate their contact information and send the notice to them. Because they host the website with the alleged infringing material, they are considered the service provider.

What happens after the notice is sent?

In most cases, the service provider will remove the image and send a notice to the alleged infringing party of the removal. The alleged infringing party will be instructed to send a counter-notice if they wish to contest the takedown. Counter notices will usually not happen because in a counter-notice, the alleged infringer accepts legal proceedings from you regarding the infringement.



I hope this information is useful. It's terrible when situations arise where images are stolen and scams occur because of it.

Mandatory Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I cannot give you legal advice, and I accept no liability for your use or misuse of this information. It is provided for educational purposes only. You can read more about DMCA takedown procedures by googling "DMCA takedown notice."

Excellent information. Thank you very much for posting this!