The minute you press the shutter, you own the copyright. The person who used your photo is not only unethical but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. The law is clear about this issue.

If you didn't file the image with the copyright office, that will change how you might go after this person, if you even want to pursue that avenue. But, you have every right to demand they cease use of your image.

Ted Ryan
Fredrickson, WA

On Aug 3, 2013, at 10:11 AM, "don at picturebookpublishing.com" <don at picturebookpublishing.com> wrote:

I have never heard of this before, a world of where it is alright to use a bird picture that does not belong to you, without the photographers permission. I had a picture of a bird that I asked for id help and one person took that picture and posted it on their blog, without out getting my permission or telling me they had used it. In a photographer's world that is not only illegal, but completely unethical.

Here is what he said to justify what he had done.

"I gave you full credit - thought that would be ok with you in the end, as it usually is in the co-world of birders to birders and birder's photos used by other birders"

The full credit only included my name, nothing more; no link back to me, and in fact, he changed the name of the picture so there was no metadata that would point back to me. I was a photographer long before I became a birder, shooting commercially for many years. But this puts the whole birder/photographer issue into a new light and a new low for birders.

Is that true of how birders think? Is there a "co-world" for birders that puts them above ethical guidelines?


Please, let me know.

Don Wallace
Sequim, WA_______________________________________________
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