Art Thieves
· May 14, 07:30 PM
stealing IS a crime, right?, originally uploaded by _rebekka. I am so mad right now. I decided to post this at the end of the day, thinking that if I waited, I could post this with a cool head. However, the fact that I'm still heated up over this shows how unjust it really is. A popular photographer on Flickr was ripped off by a bunch of Art Thieves (Only-Dreemin) in Britain. Here's her entry:
I have a LOT on my mind right now.. to be honest, i've rarely been so royally pissed off as i am today. The photos shown above all have one thing in common (besides being rather lovely landscape photos): They were all taken , without my permission, by the London based print-selling company Only-Dreemin. This company prides itself on offering its customers only the best quality canvas prints of the finest photos, by top artists. What they fail to mention is that some of the photos they're selling prints of have been illegally obtained, and are being sold without the artists consent or knowledge. In my case, a friend of mine came across their store on ebay and recognized one of my prints. (this was way back in january i think) I looked into the matter and discovered 7 more of my photos being sold there. In the case of pictures 1, 2, 6 and 7, the image had been divided up into 3 vertical panels. ( Something i would never DREAM of doing myself. ) Furthermore, the images had been given new and exciting titles, like "Seraque II" and "Attica", "Dawn expander II" and " Joga" (barf) I spent a good many days researching, going back thru their customer feedback, and was able to track back the sales of at LEAST 60 prints made from my images. These prints sold for a total sum of 2450 british pounds (around 4840 US$ ) I gathered all the evidence , saved each webpage displaying my work , saved the list of customer feedback, printed all this stuff out and took it to a lawyer here in iceland. She was confident that by sending them some well-phrased letters i'd be sure to get some damages out of them. After all, i had tons of incriminating evidence. The letters did nothing other than make them take the images down from their site. Further letters got no response from them. My icelandic lawyer could do nothing else, so i was stuck with a bill and the infuriating fact that I, being only a non-wealthy art stutdent/ single mom in iceland, will have to accept that these people stole my work and made lots of money off it, and apparently are going to get away with it. This is NOT OK BY ME. I could think of little else to do than to at least tell people about this. I have reason to believe that they've stolen images from other people, maybe other flickr users. The reason i suspect this is quite simple. My photos were being sold under the bogus name of "Rebekka Sigrún" (the nerve of keeping the first name the same is somewhat amazing). I saw a number of other photos being sold under that same artist name, and they werent mine. And obviously this Rebekka Sigrún doesnt exist. Looking over the pictures i remember being sold under that name, it appears they've changed the artist name to "marco van eych". If anyone knows a landscape photographer by that name, let me know. i very much doubt he exists. So i encourage everyone that has been displaying similar landscape photos on flickr to look at their site and see if they see something suspicious. It would also be pretty cool if as many people as possible would send them angry letters, (address them to info@only-dreemin.com) but that's just if you feel like it;) ok. i've said my piece. Quite a load off my back.Here's the gist of the e-mail I sent:
I hope you're getting a lot of hate mail, criminals. Pay Rebbekka what she deserves! Your company is no better than a mugger in the streets. SeanCredit goes to Thomas Hawk's Blog for making me aware of this issue. Blogger's Unite: Google-bomb Only-Dreemin with the keywords Art Thieves
Labels: flickr, only-dreemin, rebekka, theft, unjust