Congrats To Allure Makeup Of Australia!

Detroit Michigan Beauty Photography by Mary DuPrie

Congratulations to Me.  Based on this website I photographed most of the images that won her the honors of being voted #1 Australian Makeup Artist.  Hummm… only problem is it isn’t  true.

This makeup artist went to my Pbase.com/maryduprie website and stole the images off of it.  I was browsing my old computer and ran into these screen shots.  This happened a couple of years ago and I totally forgot about it.  I contacted everyone she had on her website, ABIA, the agency who gave her the award and all her vendors.    Not one single person acknowledged my emails.  I’m not surprised.  I sent another note to ABIA tonight, lets see if they respond this time.  I took screen shots of the images (wish I would of picked up the URL line).  Her main page was mine and 50% of her website was mine.

She is still proudly showing her award on her main page… it’s even morphed into a collage.

People talk about watermarks and such, but she just cropped them off.  If you don’t put a huge watermark right in the middle then it’s no use.  This is not the first time I’ve run into this.  I don’t know much about the orphan works law that is being proposed and I don’t really want to hear this-n-that.  People who want to steal…  will… That’s all there is to it.

Everyone justs blames their web guy!

I wish I would of had my blog back then, at least I could of publicly shamed her a bit.  Afterall www does stand for World Wide Web!  I did have one person who did call me back and i sincerely believe they didn’t know about it, but that’s rare. (Maria never contacted me… crickets)

On a very large comp card printing site every web page had my images and they gave the models snazzy new names.  A photographer on model mayhem  had 14 images in his portfolio, 11 of them were mine.  I spent hours on that one… what a waste of time.  Apparently he scammed a well known photographer into assisting with the images.  What a mess that turned into.

So what’s a girl to do!  At least I was voted #1… whoot whoot

Six of the twelve thumbnails are mine… you have good taste Maria.  Too bad your makeup doesn’t look as good as my makeup artists.  Oh, and that’s right, my photography’s better too… ok, now I feel better

16 comments category: Beauty

1 Detroit Photographer Blake Discher October 11, 2010 at 5:31 am

Also head over to http://photographingmodels.com/2010/10/11/so-im-in-trouble/ for the latest this topic.

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2 Eduardo Frances October 7, 2010 at 12:59 am

Not only is infuriating that this “make up artist” stole your images but it is outrageous that the organization that done the contest didn´t wanted to do anything at all!!

Lots of great advice here specially the DMCA! Usually when you contact an ISP with a DMCA they enforce it in a really fast way!!!

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3 ABIA October 10, 2010 at 9:55 pm

Dear Mary
It has come to my notice that you have accused the Australian Bridal Industry Academy of wrong doing. This accusation has been made due to one of ABIA’s Award winner’s placing your photographs on their website. Over 31,600 wedding suppliers across 40 different wedding categories have been nominated for the ABIA’s over the years. It is not ABIA’s responsibility to “police” the commercial modus operandi of each of these suppliers.
I wish to bring to your attention that your statement “At least I was voted #1 … whoot whoot” is incorrect, misleading and deceptive. Had you been more diligent in your research you would have discovered that Allure Make Up was NOT awarded the ABIA based on photographs. Each ABIA award is determined by past brides who have used a wedding supplier to provide products and services for their wedding.
Each supplier is rated (out of 100 points) by their past brides for quality of product, quality of service, value for money and attitude of staff.

I draw your attention to the statement on the ABIA website in relation to how the ABIA’s are determined.
This service is achieved via information collected from over 50,000 newlyweds. Participating brides supply invaluable information relating to the ‘Quality of Product’, ‘Quality of Service’, ‘Value for Money’ and ‘Attitude of Staff’ of each nominated wedding supplier. The bridal ratings are collated and used to determine who were, in the opinion of the voting brides, the best suppliers of their wedding products and services. These suppliers are then publicly acclaimed at the Annual Bridal Industry Awards, held each year in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland

I request that you immediately withdrawn you’re Statement “At least I was voted #1 … whoot whoot” and that you immediately delete any reference to the ABIA brand from your website or blog and further, cease any assertions and allegations which may tarnish or corrupt the ABIA brand.

John O’ Meara
Chairman
ABIA

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4 Mary DuPrie October 10, 2010 at 10:30 pm

Yes I see. She was hired by brides “based” on her images on “her” website that were MY images. She lied to get clients and was rewarded. So basically under false pretenses. I emailed you two years ago with NO response. Now that I have written about it in my blog you contact me. All the info is correct and I will not be taking it down. Her dirty little secret was invisible back then There were NO consequences to her at all and there should of been.

People can’t steal images, get clients then be rewarded for it.
The post stays as is

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5 Mary DuPrie October 10, 2010 at 11:02 pm

Congratulations to Me. Based on this website I photographed most of the images that won her the honors of being voted #1 Australian Makeup Artist. Hummm… only problem is it isn’t true.

Yes, I see why you’re misunderstanding my post. OF COURSE we all knew she wasn’t voted based on my photography. We as photographers know how the industry works and what happened is that…
1. She stole my images and passed the work off as hers
2. Got clients from my photography and my MAKEUP ARTISTS
3. Had clients vote for her (clients she got through her web site)
4. Then won your award
5. Has a huge banner on her front page stating she was Australia’s #1 makeup artist

So? How can (we) put this to bed? I’m asking for only one simple thing and that is for her to stop using your banners… pretty simple request, don’t you think?

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6 Stephanie October 4, 2010 at 9:58 am

Mary, sorry you had your images stolen, good info re dmca, would be nice to see her site vanish.

At least you won the award, had to smile at your first sentence 🙂

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7 Steve S October 3, 2010 at 12:20 pm

I guess we should expect more of this in years to come. I’m a public high school teacher, and when we are not allowed to (openly) teach that stealing is wrong, lying is wrong, cheating is wrong, and slandering is wrong (the establishment clause), then how can we expect the younger generation to be respectful of our intellectual property? I personally teach the proper way to use media under the copyright guidelines. The students think, because they have access to it, it’s okay to use. If it’s for educational purposes, I’d be more than happy to allow it. However, 99% of cases are for personal gain purposes. I’ve had this happen to me. A year after rectifying the issue, I drove by the business that stole my images, and one was still on the wall in their studio… People think, “nothing will happen to me”, so they go ahead and steal it (yes, it is stealing). If you’re really honest with yourself, you can’t use the excuse “they didn’t know”. Everyone already knows that stealing is wrong, it’s just no one is allowed to tell people anymore because you might offend them. Please…. You can watermark, invisibly mark, or whatever the newest technology out there allows, but people will still be stealing our work because the consequences are not enforced. If someone removes your logo, it’s a sure sign that they know exactly what they’re doing is wrong. Just ranting a little, and saying what needed to be said….

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8 Aurora Vanderbosch October 3, 2010 at 10:18 am

I agree with you, that if you post photos on the internet, sooner or later, they’re going to be stolen–either with intent to defraud, or just through ignorance (ie, I’ve had people take my images without asking, and post them on another site–leaving my name on them–on a list called “Images that Inspire Me”–or something like that–they’re not claiming my work as their own–but the site they posted on had a Terms of Service that said they could use anything posted on their site however they liked)…but one thing you can always do, is contact the host, for the website in question…because they will usually just shut the person’s website down, with no questions asked.

To find out the website host, just Google: whois DOMAINNAME . This will bring up the host record(s), including the registered owner of the site, the host provider, and usually, a technical contact, who is not always the site owner. For less sophisticated folks (or people who have nothing to hide), this will also usually show their complete contact information–that is, their full name, address, phone number, and personal email address.

(Go ahead–check out your domain. Check out mine. You can see we both use 1and1 for our host…and that we both have the same technical contact–an email at 1and1. And a phone number at 1and1. ;))

Most hosts take allegations like that pretty seriously, and will assume you’re guilty, until proven innocent–so they’ll shut down the person’s site, right away–and probably won’t even bother to tell them why. So…it’s not perfect–but it IS one more thing you can usually do, if you’re willing to dig a bit! 🙂

(NB: This isn’t a failproof method…people can put bogus info in their domain records–and any professional thief would–big time spammers, for instance, are fascinating to try and track down…but the average person wouldn’t realize how much of their info was readily available.)

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9 Mary DuPrie October 3, 2010 at 10:41 am

i like this… i’m going to do this next time!
having your site disappear without knowing why would be great

i’m going to remember this and follow through

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10 Paris Carter October 3, 2010 at 10:15 am

Wow, that’s pretty pathetic on their part, but apparently that’s typical of this world.
How people sleep at night, I have yet to understand.

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11 Mary DuPrie October 3, 2010 at 10:42 am

they sleep, we don’t

(because we’re pissed)

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12 Tim Henrion October 3, 2010 at 9:33 am

Do you think the Digimarc watermarking and search service would have helped here?

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13 Mary DuPrie October 3, 2010 at 10:40 am

digimarc just helps you find them…doesn’t prevent them

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14 Michigan People Photographer Blake Discher October 3, 2010 at 7:13 am

You’re much too patient Mary. You’ve asked nicely, tried to embarrass her and no success. Time to get serious…

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act) provides rights holders with a powerful set of tools to pursue copyright infringers. You essentially serve notice to the site’s internet service provider (ISP) that one of their customers is unlawfully infringing on your copyright. The ISP then takes down the infringers site. The ISPs take this action very seriously and act quickly to remove the questionable content. Your images need NOT be registered with the US Copyright Office and the provisions of the Act are respected by most nations.

ASMP has a great info page, “What To Do If Your Work is Infringed?” (http://asmp.org/tutorials/enforcing-your-rights.html) that provides extensive information on what remedies any photographer can avail themselves of when this sort of thing happens. An excerpt from that page:

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you can force the Internet Service Provider (ISP) hosting that site to remove or disable the site, so that it cannot be viewed. To do this, you need to send notice to the ISP, and in this notice you need to give the provider your name, address and electronic signature, the infringing materials and their Internet location or the link to the infringing materials.

The actual filing of a DMCA is quite easy. You can do it yourself, instructions are here: http://brainz.org/dmca-takedown-101/

Or, for $99 this company will do it for you: http://www.dmca.com/ (Talk about a great SEO-savvy domain name for a company that deals with the DMCA!)

I think, like anyone else in your shoes, you’d be quite pleased to have her site taken down. Even better would be to be a fly on the wall while she’s having her morning coffee and checks on her site. She’d probably choke and spit it out when she sees her site has vanished!

One of the most popular posts on my web marketing and negotiating blog is one discussing the theft of an image from a photographer’s Flickr page by a Mexican newspaper: http://groozi.com/2010/05/23/flickr-image-stolen-in-less-than-24-hours/. Check it out when you have a minute.

Good luck!

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15 Mary DuPrie October 3, 2010 at 10:42 am

ahhh, you always have such good info..

you should do a guest blog post… how about tonight?!

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