Should I be mad?

I just got notice someone took one of my photos and made it their profile photo on facebook. Well, I'm not mad. But I can tell you this, what does make me mad is the fact that I didnt put a copyright symbol on it with my name so I atleast get the credit and people know who took the photo. Lesson learned "again"

Drop them a message explaining why they shouldn't have done it and ask them to remove it.

If they don't, file the electronic form via FB and FB will remove it.

If you don't want to make contact with the individual, proceed directly to step #2.

I'd send them a message and ask them to either remove it or give you credit for your work. Or, you could send them a picture with your copyright on it and ask them to simply replace their profile picture

^ this is probably the best way - but profile pics are so damn small anyway - could we make out the copyright and credits unless it's written in another part of the person's profile?

I've seen hundreds of my photos stolen on facebook, I just honestly can't garner the energy to care. Most of the time they are taking watermarked images, sometimes scanning images they paid for, even some taking a pic of my pic. Just not that much of a big deal when it's someones personal page, now if it was a business page different story. Watermark your stuff!

pongky wrote in post #11574758
profile pics are so damn small anyway - could we make out the copyright and credits unless it's written in another part of the person's profile?

Unless your sig or watermarks takes the full length or width of the image you wouldn't make it out in a profile image. In many cases the theif takes the time to crop or clone out the signature lines anyway. Watermarking is always a good idea but a determined thief will attempt to remove them. I think life is too short to get mad about this. As mentioned above I would simply send them a note and hopefully they will heed your requests.

I found out that kids were stealing shots off my site and using them on FB. Most of their parents were customers so I offered the kids a FB sized file without my © acroos the middle. Not one kid took me up on the offer. The comments I got from some of them was that "It's OK that your names across it" I guess the theft is part of the excitement.

Bob Hasty wrote in post #11574089
I just got notice someone took one of my photos and made it their profile photo on facebook. Well, I'm not mad. But I can tell you this, what does make me mad is the fact that I didnt put a copyright symbol on it with my name so I atleast get the credit and people know who took the photo. Lesson learned "again"

I presume, this forum being "The Business of Photography" that they got the image as a result of a job you did for them.

At this point, providing a few images for Facebook is just a regular freebie of doing business with me. I crop it to the proper Facebook proportions and put my logo in a banner on the bottom--people don't crop it out. No, I don't put a copyright symbol on it--I'm giving it to them for that use.

I took a sexy shot of my husband shirtless in a looong Christmas hat a few years ago.
I just did it on a spur of the moment - no studio, no photography lighting... just him laying on the floor with furniture in the background even and just our regular house lights.
He ended up putting it as one of his profile pics after it was taken and still uses it from time to time.
And we just learned (through a friend of his) that someone on a singles site (Plenty of Fish) is using that image as his own. >

I didn't watermark it as it wasn't something that I'd put in my portfolio to start with... not with that background & lighting.

I signed up to POF to see if I can find this imposter and send him a cease & desist letter - but I had no luck finding it.

The PITA things attractive men must go through!! Luckily I'm a trusting wife!

This has happened to me a couple dozen times...I'd just get over it.

Bob Hasty wrote in post #11574089
I just got notice someone took one of my photos and made it their profile photo on facebook. Well, I'm not mad. But I can tell you this, what does make me mad is the fact that I didnt put a copyright symbol on it with my name so I atleast get the credit and people know who took the photo. Lesson learned "again"

don't know how it works where you are at but we had a case like this come up in S.C. and they ruled that once the image is online for public viewing it is fair game unless someone is making money from it ie. advertising a site etc... using it on a social network site (myspace in this case) is not against the law here... some photograher was stiffed it seems from what I could tell and they copied some pics from a client only board and chose not to buy them... they photoshopped the watermark out also or had someone do it for them... just thought I'd share...

Has happened to me repeatedly, not much you can do about it - other than not put your photos online. I now provide a properly sharpened web size version with my business at the bottom with all prints sold - on the basis that they are going to use it anyway, I might as well get the credit for it.

Despite copyright laws, if its on the net, people see it as fair game.

Can you place a Tag on it? Try it.

Be mad? No. Take is as a compliment. At this point I can easily think of over a 100 different folks using something I shot as their FB profile. I am with RJ here. If it is that big a deal watermark it. I have got enough referal gigs as a result, even for non watermarked stuff.

For an average event I may capture dozens of people and I do not have the time to police it if someone downloads one from my site for their profile pictures. It is one thing if they use it on their business site, but for a personal page, I have a million things to worry about before this.

does it really matter?

it's facebook...