Stealing Is Not OK

Stealing is not OK.

In fact, it is immoral. It is unethical. It also is illegal.

Stealing is wrong and illegal whether the stolen item is tangible -- a steak from the supermarket or a shirt from the department store -- or whether it is intellectual property such as someone's writings or video or photograph.

I recently was the victim of the theft of my intellectual property -- a digital image I had shared on a Facebook page of people with shared interests. I had noticed that one person in the group never posted anything, but she shared every.single.image I (and presumably, others) posted. So I checked out her FB page, and found that -- wait for it! -- her profile picture was a photo I had recently shared of a cute leopard cub. She had stolen my image and was passing it off, at least implicitly, as her own. This person isn't even a photographer. No photographer I know, whether professional or hobbyist, would ever steal another photographer's work.

I checked with a friend who belongs to the same group to find out whether she had had photos stolen by the same person. She had not, but she reported that the thief had shared every photo posted -- definitely not a normal thing. I do share things from time to time, but never every post on the page, and always with attribution. So my friend messaged the person and called her out for stealing my image. Amazingly, the thief quickly changed her profile picture. I had already blocked her so she can't steal any more of my images, and my friend did the same. Then I reported the thief to the page administrator, who didn’t seem concerned.

I add a watermark to every image I post if it is one of which I am particularly proud, but not to every photo because it takes time. I had an image stolen by a so-called friend several years ago. My daughter and I both called her out, but she did not remove the stolen image. It wasn't one of which I was particularly proud, so I simply unfriended the person.

Even hobbyist photographers like me have invested thousands of dollars in our cameras, lenses, tripods, spare batteries and memory cards, and other gear. We spend a lot of money to travel to Africa and other far-flung places in order to get access to the magnificent wildlife and scenes we photograph. We get up long before dawn to be in position for the best light and when animals become active. We spend hours reviewing, sorting and editing our images. And then some self-entitled lurker feels it's OK to steal our work?  

This experience makes me seriously consider not sharing my photos, but then I would deprive all those who truly enjoy and appreciate my images without needing to steal them.

Please remember that intellectual property, just like tangible property, belongs to someone. Please respect that fact. Enjoy, but please don't be a thief.