website steals photos, claims they mowed yards in ads

[mowproforever]

Customer sent craigslist ad after noticing one of our photos on this ad and asked if we worked for them. craigslist ad: http://houston.craigslist.org/fgs/3649512985.html image if ad disappears if the image doesn't appear, it's a ad from orderlawncareonline.com, with the words "actual photos submitted by our mowers" followed by several photos with the words orderlawncareonline.com imprinted across the photos Problem is the photos are NOT submitted by their mowers, or at least the photos I found weren't. first photo was taken from http://keepingit-green.com they service st petersberg, florida, not even a area available on that orderlawncareonline.com see photo below of their website with the photo shown from the ad fourth photo was taken from http://ronslawncare.com here's the photo of website with pic from the craigslist ad they service cities in Indiana. orderlawncareonline does not offer services in indiana, so it's not possible for them to have mowed and given the photos to that web site. third photo was stolen from flicker where the photographer says he took the photo in 2003 http://www.flickr.com/photos/38952658@N00/3661381149/ I don't know the source of the other three photos, if i find them i'll post them, and I'm not saying which photo is ours because I don't want that website coming after us on yelp or something. I know websites use example photos all the time, but this ad actually says they mowed these lawns and take all the credit. That's not an example, that's flat out stealing. Is there anything that can be done? Guess my biggest fear is more people will notice our photo on their ad and think we work for them when we don't.

Attached Images

	lawnad-1.jpg (93.0 KB, 1 views)
	lawnad-2.jpg (86.2 KB, 0 views)
	lawnad-3.jpg (39.5 KB, 0 views)
	lawnad-4.jpg (27.4 KB, 1 views)

__________________
Jennifer

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

Lawn care business tips

not sure what you can do. I would look into watermarking your photos for the future.

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Case 1816 Skid

[Mayor of Mow Town]

I'm confused.

You posted the same thing on another forum site a few days ago and you got a number of suggestions.

Did you act on any of those suggestions?

[mowproforever]

Originally Posted by Mayor of Mow Town

I'm confused.

You posted the same thing on another forum site a few days ago and you got a number of suggestions.

Did you act on any of those suggestions?

i can't find that thread anymore, i think it was removed. What were the suggestions?

[Mayor of Mow Town]

Originally Posted by mowproforever

What were the suggestions?

Now I'm even more confused...

The thread was up for a couple of days, and you responded and commented on it numerous times (I was subscribed to the thread, so I received the notifications).

In any case, from memory (I didn't see it all before the moderators removed it):
- one guy was saying he had a similar situation and was happy to talk to you privately about what he did
- another guy talked about sending a cease and desist letter


My view is to keep it simple. You want them to stop, right? So why not just contact them and politely ask them to remove the image (and then follow up to make sure they do)?

Remember that their business model is for the contractors/LCOs to send them photos of the completed work. It could be the contractors sending in dodgy photos and the main business just has some problematic gaps in their process for verifying that the photos match the address of the job.

If you want to take it further, I'm sure the U.S. has some kind of fair trading or competition and consumer protection body that deals with misleading and deceptive conduct.

[dpld]

unless you have the images copyrighted there is nothing you can do.

if those images were posted online and were not copyrighted then they belong to all.
and if you ever had a printer incorporate those images on a flyer or anything else mass produced and they were not copyrighted he can also use them for future clients.

unfortunately in this day and age everything is fair game and anyone can pretty much drive around and take pictures or steal pictures online and do as they wish.

years ago i had a nephew who was in art school make me a nice logo and when i had vinyl decal lettering made at fast signs for one of my new trucks i was unaware that unless the artwork is copyrighted that i submitted to fast signs it becomes their property as well.
they just threw the artwork in with their samples and templates and next thing i know a few months later there were several other companies with the same exact logo.
i called them all up and asked them where they got the logo made and they all said Fast Signs in east hanover.
i called them up and explained to them that when i hired them to print my decals that i did so under the assumption that they would not be duplicated unless of course i was having more made.

they were nice enough to stop producing that logo but it did nothing for the fact that there were several companies already out there using it.

i then called all the companies back and explained to them that fast signs stole my logo and they had no business or right to produce it for them.
a couple guys were upset that fast signs gave them a generic logo and were under the impression that the logo was unique to them and they had new ones made and a couple told me to eat crap and die.
i talked to my lawyer and he said there was not much we could do and even if we try and succeed it will cost a good penny and is not worth it.

so i removed the logo and now only use my name wrapped in a american flag.

[Steve]

Customer sent craigslist ad after noticing one of our photos on this ad and asked if we worked for them.

What's amazing to me is, think about how difficult it is to get anyone to respond to your ads. Then, in this case, a customer goes out of their way to look at ads of other lawn care companies and then contacts their lawn care company to point out an ad and ask if they work for them! WOW!

[Von Bobbeh]

Originally Posted by dpld

unless you have the images copyrighted there is nothing you can do.

All media created originally by a person is actually inherently copyrighted to that person unless it is disclosed otherwise. Always ask for permission to use material even if there isn't a little © on it.

Now can you sue? Probably not. so in all practicality dpld is right, like always, nuttin' you can really do.

[mowproforever]

Originally Posted by Mayor of Mow Town

Now I'm even more confused...

The thread was up for a couple of days, and you responded and commented on it numerous times (I was subscribed to the thread, so I received the notifications).

In any case, from memory (I didn't see it all before the moderators removed it):
- one guy was saying he had a similar situation and was happy to talk to you privately about what he did
- another guy talked about sending a cease and desist letter


My view is to keep it simple. You want them to stop, right? So why not just contact them and politely ask them to remove the image (and then follow up to make sure they do)?

Remember that their business model is for the contractors/LCOs to send them photos of the completed work. It could be the contractors sending in dodgy photos and the main business just has some problematic gaps in their process for verifying that the photos match the address of the job.

If you want to take it further, I'm sure the U.S. has some kind of fair trading or competition and consumer protection body that deals with misleading and deceptive conduct.

so you think the contractors they're using are submitting all these fake photos, and the website doesn't know? Hmmm.... that could be, never thought of that....

i was looking at their other ads and found this ad that looks just like orderlawncareonline

http://houston.craigslist.org/fgs/3579330225.html


looking at that ad and orderlawncareonline ad it does look like something was cut off of orderlawncareonline ad, like someone covered up the top of it with pictures of clouds, you can see a little bit of that hand sticking out the bottom of the top.

i think orderlawncareonline stole that ad, or whoever does their advertising stole that ad.

[Steve]

I bet they are the same company with different domain names. Did you contact them?