So sad to see such behavior happening again and again all over!
This happened to me several times too.
I bookmarked this and will read it carefully in the next days, as it has interesting info and I should check some of my works too, especially those on the NFT market.
I am sure that if you find your works stolen by businesses based in EU you could get a proper payment by chasing them legally.
I had a few cases where the license claim was successful. Surprisingly even a substantial one from India. I did not expect any of that to go through at all. For the Law firms its always a matter of cost versus effort.
I guess you're absolutely right about this cost vs. effort. Though I know about a case where a photographer I know sued a newspaper for EUR 1 (of course they had to pay all the court & attorney fees as well).
I had a case with an Indian customer who bought an editorial license for one of my photos but later used it commercially, I didn't follow through it as I didn't think I could do anything.
Yep ... Soooo many cases. Its nothing kids learn in school. You dont steal things. Images on the internet seem free to use. One guy used an image for an event and i literally answered that he dound the image on the interent. That was his excuse. He was raised that way. Education on the topic will take forever if no serious consequences are the result of theft.
Unfortunately true!
But then if anyone else copies his event announcement or the event idea he will most probably cry to the heavens, lol :)
In the last few decades several countries has changed their political and social systems/orders and I see that some had lived for years with the belief that "what is mine is mine, what is not mine belongs to everyone."
For example, I was consulting a small company, IT stuff, probably ten years ago and I noticed an intern who was removing Shutterstock logos from an image they downloaded. As I was selling licenses at that time I went and talked to the management just to find out, to my biggest possible surprise, that they needed Photoshop only for this. So imagine - a person, manhours + software. Instead of buying that image for few dollars and doing something meaningful!!!
OM fing good - that is so crazy. What's wrong with the people? If all would pay a small amount to the artist one may be able to live off the work. 😤
I ask myself that too, almost everyday.
I guess it's the mindset some folks have - whatever could easily be taken, have to be exploited.
Perhaps it is a decease, an illness that could hardly be cured.