There have been a few incidents that were brought to our attentions where someone “took” someone else’s image and used it on their business page and tried to pass it off as their own. There are actually copyright laws against doing this and we covered this topic in our other blog : Images that don’t belong to you… Is it okay to use them or not?
What we want to talk about today is what do you do once you find out someone has been using your picture. What are the next steps to take.
1- You can contact the person directly and you could send a message that says something like :
Hi (insert name),
I am the owner of (insert company name). I am writing to you because it has come to my attention that you are using one of my business photographs as marketing purposes for your business. This isn’t an acceptable practice without my permission and I would like for you to remove the image from your page please.
Thank you,
(name here)
2- If you know the images you posted were taken from a group you shared them in you can bring it to the attention of the administrator or of the group admin. We do not suggest posting the name of the person in the group as this would start unnecessary arguments and comments to be directed at that person.
3- legal actions can be taken in these cases as per the copyright laws (find this information in our other blog –name) We would suggest this as a last resort as legal fees are very expensive.
If you want to talk to us more about this topic send us a PM on our Facebook Page
