Stolen Picture

May 28, 2009 By 717 Comments

So, this is the price we pay for indulging in social media, I guess.

I am thrilled to have reconnected with so many friends on Facebook.  One of them sent me this message yesterday:

Alright, so how’s this for random: I’m in the car, taking my wife for a check up, pass by a new grocery store and notice that they have a picture of you, your husband and two kids on the store front window. Life size. I kid you not. Will take a photo of it later today and send….

What you don’t know from this message: this college friend lives in the CZECH REPUBLIC.

Clearly, my family did NOT take a picture for any advertisements – either here or abroad. And, clearly, whoever hijacked the picture assumed no one would recognize us so far away. Hmmmm…wrong. :)

I’ll admit, there is an element of flattery (I think) to the whole thing.  But still, there is something creepy about knowing our family picture was stolen from one of my sites. This picture has been on my blog, used as a Christmas card and put on a few Ning Networking sites. It is also on my Facebook page (which is one of the reasons Justin recognized us) but my FB page is open only to friends.

Perplexing.

Here is the real picture:

img_1053

And here is our modeling debut in Prague.

czech1jpeg1

czech3jpeg

According to my friend, Justin, the translation reads:  “We will prepare and deliver your requests in two business days.”

Thanks, Justin for letting me know!

Interesting.  Bizarre. Flattering, I suppose.  But quite creepy.

This picture was taken by a friend of mine, Gina Kelly.  She does give me the rights to the pictures she has taken – and has authorized me to use them on my site, etc.

Your thoughts?

Updated, Saturday, June 6th.  Based on the comments I’m seeing, I feel compelled to clarify a few things. 1) I am the author of this site – Danielle.  Not my husband.  Quite a few comments have been directed to him. 2) I take FULL responsibillity for posting this picture with the incorrect resolution (read: too high).  Clearly, I am not a professional photographer and should have made the resolution smaller and/or watermarked the picture. 3) I used the incorrect term in one of my comments – the photographer did sign a release for me to use the pictures, and certainly, this does not mean I ‘own’ them. 4) While the photographer certainly may sell some of her pictures as stock, she ALWAYS has the subjects sign a model release.  I didn’t sign one for this picture, but would have if she had asked. 5) I posted this story because I think it is INTERESTING – what are the chances a friend who see this ad thousands of miles away? AND because I was SURPRISED it happend. Like many of you commenting, I wasn’t aware pictures could be taken.  If this makes me naive, so be it.  Now I know. And, for the record, I will not stop using pictures of my family on my site – I will however, change the format. 6) I am grateful to the greatest percentage of people who have commented with very interesting thoughts.  However, if you are part of the smaller percentage who are commenting only to say that a member of my family (or all of us) are ugly, I won’t be approving the comment.  I won’t allow it on my site.  I imagine you understand.  Thanks for stopping by!

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  • Peter

    This is a fake. The picture on the store has to have 20 or 30 Mpixels in order to be printed out in such a large format. The size of the picture could be about 20MB or higher. Facebook doesn’t allow to upload 20MB picture, therefore, it couldn’t be stolen. I can’t imagine a web site where anybody has ordinary pictures in 20MB anyway.

  • Danielle

    Peter – I respect that you think this is fake, but it does make me giggle – this story was vetted by more than 300 news outlets last spring and summer – and the pictures are authentic. You are welcome to verify the story with either the store in Prague or google search my name and ‘stolen photo’ and Prague.

    Best,

    Danielle

  • http://breakfastlunchdinnerandpunch.blogspot.com/ wizzythestick

    I don’t find this in the least bit flattering. It’s makes me especially angry to think of a company profiteering from your work.

  • http://adventureswithmyfour.blogspot.com Leslie

    HILARIOUS!!!! And creepy too. but really funny.

  • Nikolas

    This too has happened to me,my friend went on a website for music playlists and an ad popes up showing my pic saying “bobby j. Would like to challenge u to an iq test” why?

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  • Gretchen

    I’m so sorry to hear that you are a product of people sitting in front of their computers nitpicking everything that you post. I was on a tv show and was brutely picked apart with everything from weight to eye color…it’s a total shame!!

    I saw your story and I to do not change my pixels which I will start doing, I like to have them larger so family can keep them in their computer if they wish…someone always has to take it too far. I hope everything works out for you in the end and btw…you DO have a beautiful family including you!

  • Danielle

    Gretchen – thank you so much for your kind message – I really appreciate it! Danielle

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  • http://alemonsqueezyhome.blogspot.com Christie

    Oh my goodness! That is the craziest thing I have ever heard! I’m sorry you’ve had people comment rudely about it. Mind your own business if you can’t say anything nice! But wow. What are the chances??? Crazy. Thanks for sharing and helping us all know that we can be more careful!

  • http://www.freshinsite.com/ webdesignanddevelopmentcompany

    Nice shot! Everybody seems to be happy.

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  • James Hunter

    Firstly, great photo of a family who look terrific together, and great photo fullstop. Secondly, I run a website for young people on behalf of a County Council here in the UK, and people are often asking me about the issues surrounding social networks and posting info on the Internet. I often show them your website to illustrate a few points (hope you don’t mind). It’s easy for many people to criticise, but it’s probably easier for any or all of us to fall into making the same mistake, especially with T & C’s of websites seemingly easy to change (prime example: Facebook).

  • Danielle

    James – I don’t mind at all – I think it is important for people to know the risks when they put pictures – any pictures online. There are some ways to take precautions, but….. nothing that I have found is full-proof. Thank you so much for your kinds words!

  • Alia

    Can’t you sue them for that?
    I’d prefer my picture wasn’t used for commercial purposes without my consent…

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  • http://www.biaggicucina.com/ italian kitchen cabinets

    Upon the popularity of the internet, and social media, identity theft has increased. I also knew a few people who’s pictures were stolen and posted as new accounts.

  • http://www.floristinboston.com/ boston flowers

    Its difficult to control the things once it spreads all over the internet, the only thing good about it is you’ll get an instant fame good or bad.

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  • http://www.kgstyleblogs.com KG @ KG Style

    OMG! This is very creepy and wow – the picture is super enlarged!
    @Linda Bell – I can imagine what your husband was thinking though – cause if the shoe was on the other foot – you would have found that to be very weird and might have questioned him a little more!

  • http://facebook Marcelle Duffel

    Couple of yrs ago my grandbaby was born still born. Today Aug 8 2010 an individual has stolen pics of my deceased grandchild and posting as her own. We have been begging and pleading with facebook but only to be ignored. We dont know what to do about his girl Kelly Findlay and her theft of my childs pictures.
    Anyone have an idea?

  • http://www.adrienneinohio.blogspot.com Adrienne

    So if you reduce pixel size, doesn’t that affect image quality?

  • Danielle

    Adrienne – it will if you try to make that image large AFTER you have reduced the size, but otherwise, no :)

  • Lisa

    WOW WOW WOW!! Scary. Creepy. Yet, flattering. I’ve learned a lesson here. Thank you.

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  • Kelly

    Strangely enough in 1993 I was walking down the road in Sweden and passed a picture of my sister in a Salon window. It was an ad for makeup. Crazy!

  • Anon

    Well, the picture does look kinda like a stock photo of a happy family

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  • Will

    It’s a really weird story Danielle. I’ve never read you before, and came to your blog making a search for a facebook plugin on google and found this astonishing story. Take care and blessings for you and your family.

    Just an answer to peter:

    The large format printing don’t recquire high resolutions for looking good. Those are printed usually at 72 dpi, that means that even a 1024×768 can look good from far away at a 14″x10.5″ (that’s about 35x25cms (it won’t be photo quality but still look good). Sometimes I make banners at work with 3mpx pictures (2048×1536) and I made ‘em up to 200x200cms. So don’t be fooled by megapixel bloater cameramakers. Do you think that 15 years ago the advertising on the road were scanned to 4800dpi?? Impossible for almost every small publisher. Very few computers then were able to manage pictures on that size.

  • Danielle

    Will – thank you very much for your kind comment… I really appreciate it. Danielle

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  • http://www.tomaytotomaaahto.com Ruby

    Hi and thanks for the reminder about the risks of content piracy. This has been made much easier by the digital age, but it existed long before. When I was little (in the 70s) we lived in the Middle East and routinely sent rolls of film back to the US for processing. My folks had taken photos of my brother and I walking naked in the garden, holding hands (viewed from behind). My grandparents, who live in the US, later found a greeting card with OUR picture on it, saying “Let’s be friends…”. My dad has the original and the card framed in his house. Mildly amusing, somewhat flattering, but definitely troubling. I am currently trying to put together a website for my photos and am struggling with how to protect against this, while still showing my imagers off to their best advantage (in other words without ruining them with watermarks). It’s a tough problem that I’m far from solving to my satisfaction!

  • http://www.gabbingwithgrace.com/ grace

    sorry that happened to you! (v. nice family pic btw)! You probably all ready know this, but I thought I’d throw my .2cents in here anyway… I’ve been using Picnik to watermark my pics —so easy! It’s only $25 & such a lovely program for non-photogs & non-photoshop using folks like myself.

    I’m 1/2 tempted to go back & watermark all over the other pics of my kids in the last two years of my blogging life but that would take hours & hours & weeks & months. :(

    -grace

    (p.s. I found your blog tonight through the Mom Bloggers Magazine b/c of your recent great news of heading off to Hawaii. Congrats!) =)

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  • http://www.wix.com/veronicakhill/designs Veronica

    1) You’re all beautiful, if you were not–they would not have chosen to plaster your family on their store.
    2) WOW! This is so crazy. A story you can tell for ages…and that I will tell as well!
    3) Thank you for sharing.

  • http://Facebook.com Angie

    Well, unfortunately I googled “facebook photo stealing” after a scary 24 hours of some unknown person emailing/texting me graphic porn pictures of myself and even my friends…they are obviously not authentic, but startling and embarrassing nonetheless. He has photoshopped me into disgusting photos and basically posted them with my first name only on fantasy sites and now presumably wants money to remove them I don’t know what the recourse is here. The number he texted me from is a prepaid cell phone in Montana so it’s untraceable. His email address doesn’t procure any results. I think I will at least run it passed the local authorities tomorrow…ugh. This creep has asked me if I like the pictures, like people fantasizing about me, and what I’m prepared to do about it. Nice. I haven’t responded.

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  • vp

    fluttering.lol
    it could have been worse.
    hey now get commission.
    its called modelling.
    lol

  • DEMOWORK11

    Edit Pictures

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  • Kiisingangel

    I just read your what happened to you that is really crazy…what did you do?? did you sue them?? what can you do? I just googled my name and one of my pirctures is being used as the owner of a local business. what should i do??

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  • Sammy

    This is insane,,, thanks for bringing this issue to the public

  • Sammy

    Found a link to this blog post on mothering.com it is a hot topic there

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    I think I will at least run it passed the local authorities
    tomorrow…ugh. This creep has asked me if I like the pictures, like
    people fantasizing about me, and what I’m prepared to do about it. Nice.
    I haven’t responded.

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  • Cind

    Well I think it is amazing that ur friend spotted the photo so far from home. An I think it is a lovely picture of ur beautiful family. And although I didn’t think people were allowed to take ur photos and make life-size adverts half way across the world out of if photos I’m not overly surprised. My sister had someone whom she was friends with on fb actually steel one of her pictures and enter it into a photo comp… Thing is the woman didn’t realize my sister was entering In the same comp, whilst she was checking out the competition she noticed her photo entered under someone else’s name… People never cease to amaze me. Lol hope ur special memories and photos don’t end up on any more window ads. :)

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