My photos have been stolen
Posted Friday, August 04, 2006 @ 11:13 PM

Another flickr user brought it to my attention that my photos have been stolen and posted in Corazza's portfolio as his own work.

This is the first time I've ever dealt with a situation like this—anyone have any advice? I'm furious, but I have no idea what to do. I've got a friend making some phone calls, who knows his stuff and can be pretty intimidating, but if that doesn't accomplish anything I'm not sure what I should do.

The story is up on digg, and you can read more about the incident here.

His flickr account has been suspended, but my photos are still up on his site.

You can see THE ORIGINALS here.

Please help!

UPDATE: More here.

UPDATE: His site is now down. I don't know if that's because dozens of photographers threatened legal action, or if it's due to all the digg traffic his site is getting. We shall see.

UPDATE: The guys over at Magic City are talking about it, too.

UPDATE: Now I kind of feel sorry for him. From one of the other photographers:

I just had a long conversation with Kevin Corraza.

I don't know how Mr. Corraza is going to apologize (if at all) and/or try to explain his actions to the rest of you, but I encourage everyone who feels victimized by his actions to use a little restraint if his apology to you is as truly sincere and thorough as it was delivered to me.

Thanks to the publicity of this issue on Flickr, Digg.com, and the larger blogosphere, it seems as though Mr. Corraza's life has been turned upside down in the past 24 to 48 hours. He mentioned that most of his friends have abandoned him and he has real concerns about how the archive of these events will impact his life in the months and years ahead. Does the punishment fit the crime? Perhaps, but at some point I feel someone needs to take the high road, and I'm prepared to be the first to do it IF Mr. Corraza comes clean to the rest of you like he did me.

Mr. Corraza swore to me that he did not profit in any way from the use of our photographs. If that is truly the case, I don’t think there are a lot of damages that can be proven in a court of law. If anything, my photographs became more popular as a result of his foolish mistakes.

As I mentioned before, I am just an amateur photographer. If I did this for a living it is entirely likely I might feel differently about the matter. Yes, he is young and stupid and he did something terribly wrong. But if he comes clean I think we will all feel better about ourselves in the long run if we let the kid (anyone more than 15 years younger than me is a kid) off the hook. If, however, you disagree with my suggestion, I will understand and respect that too.

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