Stolen images and scams

**techdragon** · 18th April 12, 05:48 AM

I wasn't sure if this was the best place to put this but I wanted to get the word out. I had this flier delivered to my email this morning and it has at least one stolen image (the picture of my son wear an Alt.Kilt kids' kilt). I have not given my permission to use the image nor does this company sell my kilts.

(I put this here instead of just the Alt.Kilt forum because I don't want anyone to get scammed by these people. There are other stolen images and I have no idea what you would get if you ordered from them).

**Riverkilt** · 18th April 12, 06:00 AM

Icky....hope you confront them. Have to be some scam since they're using a very wrinkled kilt (bottom right) for advertising. Now that's either stupid or desperate....

**Pleater** · 18th April 12, 06:12 AM

Would PayPal be interested?

They try to ensure they are not used by fraudulent sellers.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

**M. A. C. Newsome** · 18th April 12, 06:13 AM

Sadly, this is a very common practice these days. The Pakistani kilt vendors are notoriously bad about this. I know that Rocky at USA Kilts has had him images stolen and used to advertise cheap acrylic kilts on Ebay and (I believe) elsewhere. Josh Brown at Skye Highland Outfitters has also had some of his images stolen and used on web sites selling kilts out of Pakistan. More on the contemporary kilt side, I believe Utilikilts have had their images used to sell Asian knock offs of their products, as well.

However, it's not a phenomenon limited to the Asian import market by any means. I had a bad experience with one Highland dress retailer here in the states who had stolen images of House of Edgar's Irish tartan neck ties and scarves off of the Scottish Tartans Museum web site to use on his own site. I had taken the photographs and did not appreciate them being used without my permission, by a competitor. When I called to (politely) confront the store owner about it, he actually became quite rude with me on the phone and denied that they were my photos! He said they were "stock images" that were provided to him by House of Edgar. When I emailed him copies of my original, unedited photos, he took them down off of his site within 24 hours.

What is especially bothersome about your issue here is that they are using an image of your son! I would not stand for that! Although I am not sure what, if any, recourse you may have. As this company is out of Pakistan, I doubt there is a convenient legal solution at hand.

**auld argonian** · 18th April 12, 06:23 AM

As a guy who worked as a catalog photographer for several years, I laugh....back "in the day" this type of work was difficult, time consuming and expensive....with digital photography now, it's a frickin' snap and costs you the price of a camera and a card. Lots of technical parameters that had to be considered for film don't apply to digital so your costs are negligible....thus, I'm amazed that people don't just do their own work.

I suppose that the offending merchant is trying to say, "You want THIS? I can give you THIS only cheaper...same thing as what's in the picture." Doesn't excuse them, though. I suppose that they think that this is a legitimate business practice and maybe it is in their part of the world but it sure don't go over hereabouts.

Best

AA

**sydnie7** · 18th April 12, 07:53 AM

There's a separate, recent thread (HERE asking about this vendor. I'll take the liberty of cross-linking your post into that thread to help the OP understand the type of company he's inquiring about. . .

**RockyR** · 18th April 12, 11:07 AM

Hence the reason all of the images on our site are watermarked... So scumbags can't steal them. I had an issue or two 7 years ago or so which prompted me to watermark everything. When there are several pictures of a particular type of product (i.e. a particular sporran design or a kilt or something) and 1 of them is watermarked, most people don't take the time to try to 'un-watermark it' and just use one of the others available.

My theory is, if you're really that proud of your product, why WOULDN'T you take your own pictures of it? The only reason to use someone else's pictures is if your product doesn't measure up and you're trying to pass it off as higher quality than it is (or you're just too lazy to take your own picture, which doesn't say much either).

Jeannie... very sorry to see that. Maybe if you email them directly and ask for the picture of your son to be deleted, they may oblige you. Not putting much faith in that, but they may.

FYI... he's also in their "Wallpaper" section (half way down on the right):

http://bagpipers.eu/fimgs.php?gcid=13