Someone just emailed me to let me know that they saw this on someone's profile page for some social networking site called Orkut (which I had never heard of before) and whoever this person is, they created this collage, using photos of Annie.

And perhaps I'm just naive or ill-informed or maybe even hyper-sensitive, but I can't for the life of me understand why someone would do that and right now, I'm just sitting her feeling kind of sick at my stomach and kind of pissed off all at the same time.

I've had people take my images without my permission before but honestly, this has nothing to do with illegal use of my images.  I could care less about my images.  What I care about is my four year old daughter.

And maybe the answer is one that I don't want to hear...

If I make my life public than I'm just opening the door to this kind of stuff.

And I'm sure that I'm over-reacting and probably shouldn't hit the 'post' button on this one...

ETA:  Josh filed an abuse claim with Orkut and we both emailed the user, asking that the images be removed.  She shot off a few nasty emails to Josh in Portuguese and then a nicer one in English, stating that she was going to contact me, but I haven't heard from her and she has since, removed the images.

I've definitely thought of watermarking my images but I feel silly doing that since I'm not technically a professional photographer and even if I did add a watermark, people can still take them and crop out the watermark.  And I've thought about disabling the ability to right click/left click/save an image from my blog but haven't because I want my students to be able to view my shooting information (which they can do by double-clicking on any image on my blog and pasting the URL into Jeffrey's EXIF viewer) but even if I did disable it, all a person has to do is take a screen shot of any image for their use. That said, I'm not all that computer savvy so if there's something I'm missing here, please let me know.

Again though, my primary concern is not about my images being used without my permission (although I wish people wouldn't do that either.)  My primary concern is my kids.

So my hope is that this is just an innocent situation and that I have gotten myself all worked up about nothing.

Comments

[Lucy]

Hi, dear Karen. I understand your feelings. But, look at
everything will improve. Talk to that person, find their origin and try to understand it. I'm with you on this journey. {Hugs}

:)

[Ashleigh]

I am so glad that it was taken off and I do hope that you don't stop sharing your photos and I hope it doesn't happen again.

[Shauna M]

what the heck was her excuse for using Annie's pictures? I would be horrified.

[Jo E]

Why on earth would someone do that? So sad. You are not being hyper sensitive, I would feel the same if it was my daughter.

[Liz]

Can we shoot her? Sorry, that's over the top. People have some kind of nerve.

[Debbie Sutton]

Wow! I would be horrified if someone did this w/ one of my children! Your have every right to feel the way you do! Your children are beautiful and it is wonderful to look at your blog and enjoy your talent in photography. It's so sad that there are people that would abuse this honor and twist it into something for themselves. I hope you do everything possible legally to this person to show it is NOT okay! Thank you for your blog. It had been a joy to see your posts.

[Janna Jennings]

This is terrible! I am stunned and saddened that this has happened to you and your family. As a mom, I wouldn't blame you for making your blog private and limiting access to only people you know. As one of your many students, I would really miss seeing your wonderful photos. I have followed your blog long enough to almost feel like I know you and your family, though you don't know me or mine (maybe you will by the time the current class is over). I love watching your kids grow and change and reading about how your family experiences life. I have come to care about each member of your family and get tears sometimes when I read your posts. I love that you understand what a wonderful family you have and don't seem to take any of it for granted. I am so sorry that someone did this to Annie. I have a blog, but mine is private access because of a different situation that made me nervous to have my kids' pictures out there in public. I don't have any of their pics on my facebook page either.

[Sharli]

Karen,

I know you're upset - I would be too, truthfully. But perhaps the other person just thought Annie was the most adorable little girl in the whole world, and didn't think of her as someone's sweet daughter. It really truly could be innocent.

Hugs!

[Ceci]

Oh that is horrible! I just discovered your blog and have been admiring your beautiful photos. It is a shame that the weirdos out there have to make us worried about sharing photos of our kids. ((hugs))

[Jennifer]

It is beyond my comprehension why someone would post photos of someone's child anywhere. I am so sorry this happened. It's just so bizarre....

[Ceci]

Oh that is horrible. I have only just discovered your blog and have been admiring your beautiful photos. It's weirdos like that out there who make us reluctant to share photos on the net! ((hugs))

[Ceci]

Sorry I seem to have posted twice by mistake.

[Ada]

utterly horrible. I am so sorry!!!!
I am naive too.....I can't believe things like this exist.
It is so sad & would leave me feeling like a pit in the stomach.

[sev]

it's shocking !!
I'm with you Karen & Josh.

[Wendy Goodman]

Oh my gosh, I am officially creeped out. So sorry you were violated like this. The internet can be a scary place, but just remember, there are plenty of us who come to your site who enjoy your photos of your adorable kids! Hope you continue to share your amazing photography with us.

[Pam S.]

You know it's the people who do things like that and ruin it for everyone else that disgust me! I, like the majority of readers of your blog, enjoy your photos and appreciate them. Also, as a mom of two young children, it makes you wonder why? Why would someone not ask permission? Maybe it was all innocent enough, but at the very least very disrespectful.

[Sandy Brown]

Wow -- I would be at least this worked up as well. We live in a frightening world. . . . . keep following up to keep your babies safe!

[AVinNYC]

That is awful- I'm so sorry!!

[Lorena Mora]

Wow this stuff is scary. I haven't started a blog because I keep reading about this. I have wanted to start a blog for so long to document stuff on my kids but I always hold off because of the thought of someone posting my kids pictures on their blogs. I hope that girl takes Annie's pictures of her blog and put a complaint so they can shut her blog off.

[Waterenehole]

It frightens me when the internet etiquette is abandoned, I am so sorry to hear of your plight and am missing your almost daily postings since the incident.

[Jamie V]

(hugs) karen... I'm really sad this has happened to you and your family.

[kim]

i'm so sorry this happened! however - please don't disable right-clicking on your blog! you are right - it takes me two seconds to do a screenshot and bring it into photoshop, and while it might stop people that don't know what they're doing, if these people are creating collages, they obviously do. i personally cannot stand when websites disable it, because i'm constantly right-clicking when i'm NOT copying pictures... for instance if you were to post a link to someone else's blog, i'd want to keep yours open, so i'd right-click on the link and then open it in a new tab to look at when i'm done reading your entire post. does that make sense? but i'm unable to do that when you disable that feature... anyway, i just like to let people know about that because it's not a very good solution. i would go with a watermark if anything! good luck, i'm glad to hear she removed the images.

[Rae]

This is just wrong. Your not being hyper-sensitive. The fact that she was mad at you is unbelievable!

[Penny]

(I'm not the creepy "Penny" who stole your stuff! :) Orkut has been reported many times on Flickr for stealing other peoples' images. Unbelievable. I would also be completely annoyed yet frustrated because I enjoy sharing my photos. It makes my eyes go red when I see these creeps using photos of other's children. I don't understand why someone would steal others' photos when there are so many avenues for them to snap THEIR OWN photos and use them. #@!$% Nuts. Sorry this had to happen to you, Karen.

[jakki]

I've got two older boys of my own and I can feel the mama bear come out of me just reading this...I so hope this gets resolved, I really do. I use tineye to randomly run photo's through to see if they are being used anywhere else. Nothing's every pulled up so I dont know what happens if one is actually being used somewhere else...

[anna bowkis]

OMG Karen, you are so not over reacting, i too would be really angry if anyone used phtoos of my girls for their own personal use. Goo on Josh for filing a complaint!
hugs xx

[dolores]

karen, i'm sorry that this happened to you. you must feel terrified about being violated like this. just wanted to comment and let you know that i love your blog (it's first on my favorites list) and enjoy reading about your family. i hope you don't ever set it to private, but i would completely understand if you needed to keep your precious punks safe.

thank you sharing bits of your life with us.

[MEG DUERKSEN]

this would have made me NUTS karen.
my husband would flip.
i have had several weirdos in blogland....it's not cool.
they ruin everything good about blogging.

[R. Chaney]

I'm sorry, Karen. This probably feels like finding your house ransacked. It's not the stuff. It's the feeling of violation.