I used to wonder just how photographers could recognise their own images amongst the many millions that are published on the internet on a daily basis.
I wonder no more as after many years of taking photographs I seem to have developed a style that I, at least, recognise almost instantly.
Disturbing to me is that large media houses have increasingly been using my images without even bothering to ask or accredit MyPE or myself as the originator.
In the recent past The Daily Despatch and The New Age newspapers have seen fit to use my images and infer that they are their own. The Daily Despatch at least fixed their error, whereas The New Age thinks that by ignoring my polite request I will eventually go away – fair warning New Age; “An elephant never forgets!”
And the latest transgressor – the FARGING Weekend Post. In a 16 July 2011 article titled; “Car guards taking us for a ride” by Tanya Jonker-Bryce – writing for the ‘Border Beat’ on page 8 – an image of a car guard appears which was lifted from this page on MyPE: Car Guard at Mount Rd Police Station (See image below – taken in the early formative years of MyPE) and captioned as such; “To ensure the continued safety of all vehicles parking in their parking lot, the Mount Rd Police Station has decided to turn to effective policing methods …”
A little bit more research before you ‘borrowed’ the image from www.MyPE.co.za, Tanya Jonker-Bryce, would have revealed an even more entertaining post for you to write as the car guard depicted stands outside the Mount Road Police Station in Port Elizabeth ‘protecting’ cars. Not only that but this particular car guard was, at the time the image was taken, unregistered as a security guard as well as not registered to act as such within the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan area – two violations of the rule of the law and the sheer cheek of standing ‘guard’ outside a police station make for a good story.
I can understand why MyPE is singled out as a prime hunting ground for images as a search in Google Images for the term; ‘car guard‘ (amongst thousands of other image searches) pops up images from MyPE as the most relevant. But, it is considered good form to provide a link back to the page or web site that you ‘borrow’ images from and, in the case of print media a simple ‘Credit: MyPE.co.za‘ would have sufficed.
What irks me no end is that I had to BUY the Weekend Post to see their latest transgression. In addition MyPE directs a considerable amount of traffic to people searching for Weekend Post contact details and then landing on MyPE to get them – in the last two months alone, 1529 related page views and searches for ‘Weekend Post’ have occurred on MyPE – this is NOT counting the many many mentions of Weekend Post in articles such as this one you are reading. And what does MyPE get for this great free support of the Weekend Post? Farg all except more fodder for a rant and rave against the giant media houses trying to suck the lifeblood and creativity out of little old MyPE!
We let you get away with calling yourself My Weekend, ‘stealing’ our images is going a little too far, though.
Update: If the Weekend post had read this – MyPE Text and Images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License – they would have saved themselves a heap of trouble.
Update: If the Weekend post had read this – MyPE Text and Images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License – they would have saved themselves a heap of trouble.
Alan Straton
Latest posts by Alan Straton (see all)
- Cockroach Problems in Flats Can Need a Building-Wide Response - 18 October 2026
- Urine Odours Feature in Gqeberha Carpet/Rug Cleaning Work Throughout the Year - 18 October 2026
- A Chimney Clean Can Reveal a Repair Job in Coastal Homes - 18 October 2026
- Top Click Explains Who Its SEO and Google Ads Service Is For - 17 October 2026
- Sky Dental Helps Sandton Plan Cosmetic Care Before December - 17 October 2026
I am sure you contacted them regarding the issue. What did she say? When you see a photo used you should just send them an invoice. Normal amount with a credit and normal plus extra for those not credited.
I’m pretty sure that was it you that “borrowed” one if their images without credit they would be all over you like a bad itch, so I agree with what @FireflyAfrica:disqus said, send them an invoice 🙂
Isn’t that illegal?
In this instance I don’t like to use the word ‘illegal’ and prefer the words ‘morally corrupt’.
I have requested an order number for the image and wait for that to come through.
Any reply on the purchase order yet?
I was offered R150.00 and I turned them down requesting that they rather post a comment / groveling apology here.
So far – no reply……
I have kept all the correspondence – it may make for an interesting post later.
Isn’t that illegal?
As a freelance photographer myself, I share your sentiments Alan. I was shocked the other day when I used the new Google facility to see if any of my photos are being used illegally and I was shocked to find out how many sites are using my work with no link back to or mention of me. Needless to say, I have sent over 60 copyright infringement emails out already and requested them to remove my photo off their sites as what they were doing is a copyright violation. I have to say, most of them came back to me with an apology and actually removed the photo off their websites.
You will find that many web site owners started out not knowing how to do the right thing.
But now we are all a little older and wiser.
Although you wouldn’t wear your neighbours clothes without permission would you?
The ‘trick’ is to know that some people will use your images (you wouldn’t believe how many images I see in Powerpoint presentations with Stock Photo Watermarks on them!) and just make sure that they are low res, low size, meta tagged and watermarked.
Just done a Google Search using the term ‘weekend post images’ and the first FIVE results all point to this post. I used ‘Pages from South Africa’.
So sad when a simple; “Gee whizz Alan we didn’t realise and are sorry!” would have stopped all this.
Totally out of order – agree wholeheartedly! As editor of SportElizabeth I can also personally testify to MYPE’s ready co=operation when they ARE asked if their images can be used. We’ve asked on 2 or 3 occasions and have received immediate permission provided we agreed to credit them
AND no exchange of filthy lucre either.