Browncoat
Senior Member
Yup, I'm taking on The Man. I just filed a DMCA complaint with Facebook.
As mentioned in this thread, I did a recent photo shoot for the MMA promoter who employs my services. In case you're not familiar with how all of this works, the promoter is just an organization who puts on the shows. They have pools of fighters from gyms, make fights (they call it matchmaking of all things), rent the venue, all that stuff. I do all kinds of work for this promoter, including web and graphic design in addition to photography. Anyway...
One of the gyms took the photos I posted on Facebook. I posted them in my own album (with copyright watermark), and in the fight promoter's album (with their logo). This gym created an album on their Facebook fan page called "2011 Promo" and put my photos in there. After some browsing around, they have several other photos of mine in other albums on their page.
Not wanting to create a bad vibe, I contacted the promoter first and they back me 100%. They paid for the photo shoot, and have licensed the photos via our contract. For this gym to call it their own "promo" was a bad move. I didn't want to cause undue friction between the gym and the promoter, not at least without letting them know where I stood. They're stand-up guys, and I'm glad they've got my back on this.
I used the "report" feature found on Facebook fan pages and filed a DMCA complaint. We'll see how far this goes. If the images aren't removed, I'm sending the gym a bill for about $5,000 for image licensing.
As mentioned in this thread, I did a recent photo shoot for the MMA promoter who employs my services. In case you're not familiar with how all of this works, the promoter is just an organization who puts on the shows. They have pools of fighters from gyms, make fights (they call it matchmaking of all things), rent the venue, all that stuff. I do all kinds of work for this promoter, including web and graphic design in addition to photography. Anyway...
One of the gyms took the photos I posted on Facebook. I posted them in my own album (with copyright watermark), and in the fight promoter's album (with their logo). This gym created an album on their Facebook fan page called "2011 Promo" and put my photos in there. After some browsing around, they have several other photos of mine in other albums on their page.
Not wanting to create a bad vibe, I contacted the promoter first and they back me 100%. They paid for the photo shoot, and have licensed the photos via our contract. For this gym to call it their own "promo" was a bad move. I didn't want to cause undue friction between the gym and the promoter, not at least without letting them know where I stood. They're stand-up guys, and I'm glad they've got my back on this.
I used the "report" feature found on Facebook fan pages and filed a DMCA complaint. We'll see how far this goes. If the images aren't removed, I'm sending the gym a bill for about $5,000 for image licensing.