Companies That Steal My Photos

The notification led him to Novato Patch which provides news for Novato, CA. Patch also provides news sites for many other parts of the USA.

The news site had used Brian's photo of Novato homebrewer, Alan Atha which had been posted on Brian's Flickr account. The photo did contain an attribution but the photo on Flickr clearly is copyrighted so cannot be used without prior permission.

Brian next contacted Novato Patch:-

"In less then an hour the photo was removed and I received a response from Patch support that this had been done. Of course, their was no mention of my financial demand.

I responded telling them I would follow through on my threat in 72 hours if I did not get a response.

He's also mentioned them on Twitter at both of their accounts, @PatchTweet and @NovatoPatch, but neither have responded."

$50 is a reasonable request for use of the photo without permission even though the photo was only visible on the website for a short period of time.

Updates

October 24th: Brian has contacted me to say that he has received a genuine apology from the author of the article that used his photo but Patch.com are not budging regarding payment so unfortunately this case will remain unresolved.

Unresolved