Should i be angry that someone has stolen my image? Other · Anderl · ... · 157 · 9032 · 42

profbriannz 17.56
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Zak Jones:
Brian Boyle:
Mine is the SHO Seagull nebula.  Already filed an IP theft report with Instagram, with a less than stellar repsonse.  See above.

Such a shame that amazing images like yours have been affected by this situation...

Hopefully there will be a good outcome.

Zak


Thank you for those kind words.  I think we can all understand what it is like to have things stolen.

Irrespective of any financial down side, it is simply the violation of having one’s creativity/experience stolen and passed of as someone else’s.
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profbriannz 17.56
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An update - Instagram have just got back to me to say they have removed the post.

I dont expect they can or will do anything more.

Ultimately, prevention is better than cure, and despite @3SistersAstronomy heroic efforts to police these activities, I suspect it falls to Astrobin and its users to find a solution that protects our IP without completely destroying what makes this site so great.

Now that we know this is going on (call me naive, but I had not expected to be so prevalent or flagrant) I don’t think the “do nothing its just the internet” approach is appropriate.  That response simply condones cheats and criminals and it would be a surprising position for any data repository to take.  I suspect Salvatore is already hard at work thinking of a creative solution.  And I am reassured by some of the posts here pointing to potential solutions. 

The theft of my IP has been an eye-opener for me, and if I were to express an emotion about this (as per the OP), it is one of violation and not anger.
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Zaks_Astrophotography 2.41
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Brian Boyle:
Zak Jones:
Brian Boyle:
Mine is the SHO Seagull nebula.  Already filed an IP theft report with Instagram, with a less than stellar repsonse.  See above.

Such a shame that amazing images like yours have been affected by this situation...

Hopefully there will be a good outcome.

Zak


Thank you for those kind words.  I think we can all understand what it is like to have things stolen.

Irrespective of any financial down side, it is simply the violation of having one’s creativity/experience stolen and passed of as someone else’s.

All good, I totally understand where you are coming from.

Yes I totally agree with you, it's just disappointing that this has happened to so many people's images... funny thing is at my education just the other week we were talking about ethics in photography and one of the points was it's totally frowned upon if people steal other people's images and that it's not acceptable at all to do such a thing.

Worse case scenario is someone can sue that person for copyright infringment but it usually shouldn't come to that as most people will just take down the image or give credit to the creator. Some Instagram accounts actually shout out people for their images and it's good to see that.

Zak
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Zaks_Astrophotography 2.41
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Brian Boyle:
An update - Instagram have just got back to me to say they have removed the post.

I dont expect they can or will do anything more.

Ultimately, prevention is better than cure, and despite @3SistersAstronomy heroic efforts to police these activities, I suspect it falls to Astrobin and its users to find a solution that protects our IP without completely destroying what makes this site so great.

Now that we know this is going on (call me naive, but I had not expected to be so prevalent or flagrant) I don’t think the “do nothing its just the internet” approach is appropriate.  That response simply condones cheats and criminals and it would be a surprising position for any data repository to take.  I suspect Salvatore is already hard at work thinking of a creative solution.  And I am reassured by some of the posts here pointing to potential solutions. 

The theft of my IP has been an eye-opener for me, and if I were to express an emotion about this (as per the OP), it is one of violation and not anger.

That's a huge change from what they said initially! Great to see that they actually did something about it.

Yes I agree, @3SistersAstronomy has been super helpful with this, and I would like to thank them (and everyone else) for bringing this to my attention as I didn't even know that my image of the Veil Nebula was on his account.

I will definitely lodge a copyright complaint to Instagram and hopefully it will be the same outcome that you received Brian.

If anyone has any suggestions to help prevent people's images being stolen on here, please pass them on to Salvatore as I'm sure (like you Brian) will definitely try and come up with a way that could perhaps imprint the copyright information and owner on the images that get uploaded on AstroBin, even if there is a feature before uploading images where you could enter the EXIF data, copyright owner etc and that gets imprinted on the image, even if someone tries to screenshot it and claim it as their own.

Zak
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Die_Launische_Diva 11.54
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I understand that having your work stolen hurts a lot.

But question yourself, in the grand landscape of visual arts, what is the importance of astrophotography (if it can be considered an art)?  Have you thought that astrophotography may have a lot in common with the trade of product photography? Or, to be more provocative, how much we differ from the shop owner in the corner of the street who is specialized in passport photos?

Decent astrophotos are cheap and easy to find. Browse Adobe Stock to get an idea. An astrophoto may cost the same or less than a plainly colorized version of a (public-domain) star chart from the uranographer Johann Bayer. I know that this fact may depress a lot of you, but that's the reality set by the market.

Even if AstroBin implements a steganography-based IP protection scheme, nothing will prevent an individual from opening a premium account and exploit members' images for whatever purpose. A graphic designer can alter an image far beyond recognition (human or algorithmic) and produce an art piece which will sell for a much higher price. And I haven't said anything about AI-generated art.

There are some measures a photographer can take, for example have a read at this: Keep your photos from getting stolen on the internet. (Heh, a 3-year old article – too old to address AI-generated art). In my opinion, such countermeasures offer no more than a shield made of wood. And as I have mentioned earlier, if the misconduct does not involve a substantial monetary loss, large platforms like Instagram won't bother with it.
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Frank777 7.94
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Die Launische Diva:
I understand that having your work stolen hurts a lot.

But question yourself, in the grand landscape of visual arts, what is the importance of astrophotography (if it can be considered an art)?  Have you thought that astrophotography may have a lot in common with the trade of product photography? Or, to be more provocative, how much we differ from the shop owner in the corner of the street who is specialized in passport photos?

Decent astrophotos are cheap and easy to find. Browse Adobe Stock to get an idea. An astrophoto may cost the same or less than a plainly colorized version of a (public-domain) star chart from the uranographer Johann Bayer. I know that this fact may depress a lot of you, but that's the reality set by the market.

Even if AstroBin implements a steganography-based IP protection scheme, nothing will prevent an individual from opening a premium account and exploit members' images for whatever purpose. A graphic designer can alter an image far beyond recognition (human or algorithmic) and produce an art piece which will sell for a much higher price. And I haven't said anything about AI-generated art.

There are some measures a photographer can take, for example have a read at this: Keep your photos from getting stolen on the internet. (Heh, a 3-year old article – too old to address AI-generated art). In my opinion, such countermeasures offer no more than a shield made of wood. And as I have mentioned earlier, if the misconduct does not involve a substantial monetary loss, large platforms like Instagram won't bother with it.

 I don't really understand the meaning of this post. But even if my astro photos are crap, worthless and easily copied, they're *MY* crappy photos, made with investments of my time and my money, and NO ONE has the right to take them.
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Die_Launische_Diva 11.54
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Frank Alvaro:
Die Launische Diva:
I understand that having your work stolen hurts a lot.

But question yourself, in the grand landscape of visual arts, what is the importance of astrophotography (if it can be considered an art)?  Have you thought that astrophotography may have a lot in common with the trade of product photography? Or, to be more provocative, how much we differ from the shop owner in the corner of the street who is specialized in passport photos?

Decent astrophotos are cheap and easy to find. Browse Adobe Stock to get an idea. An astrophoto may cost the same or less than a plainly colorized version of a (public-domain) star chart from the uranographer Johann Bayer. I know that this fact may depress a lot of you, but that's the reality set by the market.

Even if AstroBin implements a steganography-based IP protection scheme, nothing will prevent an individual from opening a premium account and exploit members' images for whatever purpose. A graphic designer can alter an image far beyond recognition (human or algorithmic) and produce an art piece which will sell for a much higher price. And I haven't said anything about AI-generated art.

There are some measures a photographer can take, for example have a read at this: Keep your photos from getting stolen on the internet. (Heh, a 3-year old article – too old to address AI-generated art). In my opinion, such countermeasures offer no more than a shield made of wood. And as I have mentioned earlier, if the misconduct does not involve a substantial monetary loss, large platforms like Instagram won't bother with it.

 I don't really understand the meaning of this post. But even if my astro photos are crap, worthless and easily copied, they're *MY* crappy photos, made with investments of my time and my money, and NO ONE has the right to take them.

  • In the grand scheme of arts, even our best artifacts are probably worthless.
  • After having publishing our artifacts online, it is impossible to have control on their distribution.
  • Anything distributed online can be incorporated for producing an artifact of potentially greater value. All of us have done that, for example, when we follow processing instructions found online.
  • For cases like the one exposed in this post, which may belong in the realm of mental health and not in monetary fraud, we are only left with the IP infringement reporting tools provided by the said platform and hope for the best.
  • Even if AB provide us with strong IP protection tools, the other platform must somehow accept its legal power. Setting aside the effort on developing such tools, I can only imagine the amount of legal/patent work needed for proving that such tools can be accepted in court. (I am sorry if this is not clear enough, I am not a lawyer!)

Does this really worth it? Especially when we are talking about attention-seeking personalities and gaining some followers on Instagram?
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gorann 6.94
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I had a look at the images from Conor Woods Instagram that 3SistersAstronomy posted here and it stuck me that while some images are of top class, several of them are actually quite poor images. So not only is he a thief that has no idea about how to do astrophotography, but he is also unable to tell a good image from a rather mediocre one.
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DalePenkala 19.38
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Brian Boyle:
An update - Instagram have just got back to me to say they have removed the post.

I dont expect they can or will do anything more.

Ultimately, prevention is better than cure, and despite @3SistersAstronomy heroic efforts to police these activities, I suspect it falls to Astrobin and its users to find a solution that protects our IP without completely destroying what makes this site so great.

Now that we know this is going on (call me naive, but I had not expected to be so prevalent or flagrant) I don’t think the “do nothing its just the internet” approach is appropriate.  That response simply condones cheats and criminals and it would be a surprising position for any data repository to take.  I suspect Salvatore is already hard at work thinking of a creative solution.  And I am reassured by some of the posts here pointing to potential solutions. 

The theft of my IP has been an eye-opener for me, and if I were to express an emotion about this (as per the OP), it is one of violation and not anger.

I couldn’t agree with you more! @Salvatore Iovene will be doing something for sure! This is his baby and he has worked hard to make it what it is and I’m positive like any business owner he will protect it “and his clients” from this type of mental/criminal activity!

Dale
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3SistersAstronomy 3.10
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Thank you to everyone for the kind words. Our family does astrophotography together and if we are being honest, maybe a small amount of ego has a little to do with us getting upset with theft. When I think of the amount of work and countless nights under the stars and then more hours in processing it seems unfair for someone to steal an image my daughter processed. We’ve worked for two years now to build our little bubble of community and friends in this amazing hobby. To see someone who bought a blue checkmark steal images and hit over 10K followers is a little upsetting. Not to mention to monetization for any account over 10K. At the end of the day our family will still continue to do astrophotography, provide resources and tutorials for those interested, and will always pay it forward and promote other people through our Instagram and website. It’s more about the community as a military family that moves around then about someone stealing other peoples hard work. However, we will continue to have accounts taken down. Even one victory out of five is well worth it to us.
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siovene
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I'm intrigued about the added value that strong theft protection measures could bring to the AstroBin community, so I definitely want to look into this as soon as possible, perhaps already in around 4 to 6 weeks when I hope to be done with something new I have in the oven!

I will probably beach the subject for discussion in the near future in the AstroBin Beta Testers group, and everybody who wishes to be part of brainstorming and testing new features is welcome to join!

https://www.astrobin.com/groups/4729/astrobin-beta-testers/

Personally, I agree with something that was already mention in this thread: there are two things to consider:
  1. It's technically impossible to prevent people from downloading your image: if the browser can display it, it's literally already on your computer.
  2. Even if AstroBin hid bits of information in the image, so that at least you could prove that your image was stolen, that achieves nothing if the bad actor does not care. So it still comes down to the legal way, and the only advantage is that you have a bit of a better case.


With the disclaimer that as I'm writing this I haven't done a single bit of research yet, I can think of a couple of options:
  1. Use AI to hide a fake star in plain sight. It would be a small star among many, and only you and AstroBin would know which one it is. This disrupts your image but negligibly in my opinion. The same could be done with a fake lunar crater.
  2. Slightly alter certain group of pixels in a way that is virtually invisible (or anyway, non distinguishable from noise). This alteration would make it so certain mathematical properties would be in place, and the chances that another image of the same subject would match the same properties would be miniscule. I think this can be done so that it can resist some image modifications:
    1. In case of cropping, these pixels will be spread all over the image for redundancy.
    2. In case of image editing such as changing curves, the mathematical properties could work by relative terms between pairs of these special pixels, so perhaps only adding a gradient would break them, which is an unlikely thing to do, for a thief.
    3. In case of flipping, rotating, etc, these pixels could still be found thanks to plate-solving.


The final thing to consider is whether this is worth doing. I can definitely imagine how this would take me months to achieve, or, if I were to commission it, cost 10 to 20 thousand dollars. Hopefully thru research we will find that there are easier/cheaper options.

I for one would rather bring positive features to AstroBin: I hate when I need to implement features to fight spam, for instance, when I could use my time to build something more awesome!

Time will tell, thanks for reading.
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nikl.astro 1.91
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I received a message from instagram that my post has been removed from @conor_woods page.
Since I can no longer see @conor_woods even with a clean browser where I am not logged in, he either got deleted or has temporarily disabled his account again to avoid further reports. Either way, thanks to everyone spreading the work, because it is working smile
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3SistersAstronomy 3.10
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Niklas:
I received a message from instagram that my post has been removed from @conor_woods page.
Since I can no longer see @conor_woods even with a clean browser where I am not logged in, he either got deleted or has temporarily disabled his account again to avoid further reports. Either way, thanks to everyone spreading the work, because it is working

He is currently deactivated but will be private when he reappears. He’s had a few images removed by Instagram over the past few days.
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gorann 6.94
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It strikes me that this thread (unless I missed something) is about a single person saying some of our images are his. Obviously he is never going to make a career out of this and is apparently a mental case. I just hope we do not overreact and make our lives as an image sharing community more difficult. I like to be able to also in the future download full resolution images to compare to my own efforts and to check if a particular scope/lens performs well when I may consider buying one. At least, we should not go down the path of just posting low resolution images
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HegAstro 14.24
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I guess it just goes to show what a destructive influence social media is. This guy Connor stole a bunch of images and passed them off as his so a random group of strangers could click "Like" under the images in this account. In the US, we had a guy leak highly classified war information to make himself feel important in an online forum. So I suppose we should view all this in that general context.
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carastro 8.21
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Why can’t Instagram not simply delete his account on the grounds of malpractice?

Surely they put themselves in the firing line legally too by knowingly allowing his behaviour to perpetuate. 

carole
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nikl.astro 1.91
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In an ideal world, they would. The reality is that even with all the reports, this is just one case of copyright infringement among thousands Instagram and Meta has to deal with a day. They have quite literally billions of users and whatever systems are in place are just not enough to take a closer look at each situation. Most of it is likely automated, and even if you get a human to look over a report, a decision is probably made within a minute.
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Gamaholjad 5.01
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Niklas:
In an ideal world, they would. The reality is that even with all the reports, this is just one case of copyright infringement among thousands Instagram and Meta has to deal with a day. They have quite literally billions of users and whatever systems are in place are just not enough to take a closer look at each situation. Most of it is likely automated, and even if you get a human to look over a report, a decision is probably made within a minute.

There lies the problem, multi billion companies that make alot of money. However they really don't invest enough in the fraud/legal side of things. It's needs a community like AB to at least try and help. It's whether the big companies wanna help they little folks combat the issues.
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andreatax 9.89
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Isn't it interesting that while our own images are costing us money (in a form or another) they are essentially worthless once they are published on the Web? I mean intrinsically worth nil?
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siovene
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andrea tasselli:
Isn't it interesting that while our own images are costing us money (in a form or another) they are essentially worthless once they are published on the Web? I mean intrinsically worth nil?

The way I interpret this and other hobbies, is that we're not exchanging money for images: we're exchanging it for enjoyment. If you enjoy the time spent imaging and processing, that's where the money you spent in equipment is going to.
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DarkStar 18.93
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Salvatore Iovene:
andrea tasselli:
Isn't it interesting that while our own images are costing us money (in a form or another) they are essentially worthless once they are published on the Web? I mean intrinsically worth nil?

The way I interpret this and other hobbies, is that we're not exchanging money for images: we're exchanging it for enjoyment. If you enjoy the time spent imaging and processing, that's where the money you spent in equipment is going to.

That makes me really wondering, how this definition matches for all the remote service provider and images, where the data is actually bought from?
BTW: and if such an image is stolen, there is a definite damage, since you paid for.
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siovene
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Ruediger:
That makes me really wondering, how this definition matches for all the remote service provider and images, where the data is actually bought from?

In my personal opinion, post-processing the data is a big part of the enjoyment of the process, so my definition holds.
Ruediger:
BTW: and if such an image is stolen, there is a definite damage, since you paid for.

Yes, no doubt about this!
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DarkStar 18.93
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Salvatore Iovene:
Ruediger:
That makes me really wondering, how this definition matches for all the remote service provider and images, where the data is actually bought from?


In my personal opinion, post-processing the data is a big part of the enjoyment of the process, so my definition holds.


Ok, we can agree that we disagree.
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siovene
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Ruediger:
Salvatore Iovene:
Ruediger:
That makes me really wondering, how this definition matches for all the remote service provider and images, where the data is actually bought from?


In my personal opinion, post-processing the data is a big part of the enjoyment of the process, so my definition holds.


Ok, we can agree that we disagree.

Of course! And I don't find it surprising that different people enjoy different parts of a process in different ways or varying degrees. This applies not only to astrophotography, but I suppose in most hobbies!
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andreatax 9.89
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Salvatore Iovene:
The way I interpret this and other hobbies, is that we're not exchanging money for images: we're exchanging it for enjoyment. If you enjoy the time spent imaging and processing, that's where the money you spent in equipment is going to.


Yet, undoubtedly, once the image has been published for all to see there is no monetary gain to be made from it since it is, by definition, free for all to see. And, just as undoubtedly, you must have paid money (or equivalent worth) to make it. Given that there are no restrictions in anyone's ability to see and enjoy them and in fact download them for their own private use (or screen-grab them) my consideration is that the cat is out of the bag and it ain't gonna get back anytime soon.
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