I have never caught someone stealing one of my photos in person. Whenever it has happened, it has been some Web site taking sports photos (usually NIU football) from this blog. Sports blog sites normally don’t have any art budget and don’t subscribe to the AP, so they take what they want. High schoola also have been caught taking our newspaper’s images.
But last week I found a much funnier version of copyright infringement that I think I’ll let pass.
Canon 1D Mark 3 with 300mm f2.8
I was shooting the playoff basketball game between local rivals, DeKalb and Sycamore high schools. A kid in the DeKalb cheering section had printed out one of my photos of a Sycamore player crying and turned it into a poster.
The original image is of Sycamore’s Harlan johnson crying after his football team lost to Montini, ending their playoff run in the Fall. The image can also be found on my newspaper’s Web site in this slideshow.
Canon 1D Mark 3 with 300mm f2.8
Johnson was now on the Sycamore basketball team, playing against DeKalb. The DeKalb fan was using the image as a sort of redicule.
And I’m honored. Maybe I should be mad that my image was stolen, but it’s not like anyone is making any money off this, nor am I (or my paper) being prohibited from making any money. I highly doubt the kid would have paid the $25 to properly purchase the image on our site in a similar size.
It’s very different when a school steals images from the newspaper’s Web site to promote their school on their own site (happens regularly). They have a budget.
I’m honored in this case because a kid took notice. I rarely get feedback from readers, especially teenagers. So to see someone take notice and feel motivated to use this image as a cheering device is actually kind of cool.
The next week another DeKalb fan wasn’t please with our sports editor Jon Styf’s prediction that DeKalb would lose in the sectional final game.
Canon 1D Mark 3 with 300mm f2.8
But Styf was right. DeKalb lost to Oswego, which ended their season.
Comments 1
Ohhh OK. I got it wrong in what I said to you on Twitter. I saw the orange the kid was wearing and immediately thought “Oswego,” because our colors were orange and blue. Makes more sense that it was a DeKalb student. I forget that they’re orange and black. Thanks, Beck!
Also, at first glance, I thought the ref in the first photo was Dr. Evil.
Posted 17 Mar 2010 at 6:51 am ¶Post a Comment