Copyrighted Pictures w/ Watermarks

[lynnieda]

I took a digital picture of a famous celebrity, watermarked it with my website name, and then posted it on my site. Someone went onto my website, downloaded the picture and then posted on their website (which is a huge fan website of that famous person) w/o my consent or even properly crediting me.

I've tried reaching the webmaster various times but he will not reply. I know he checks his emails because he posts other people's emails on his site all the time.

Just today, I went onto his site and discovered that he had Photoshopped my watermark out of the picture and used it in a Flash movie banner to advertise a special feature of his website.

This website claims to be non-profit, so the picture isn't being commercially used. People said that because of this, he isn't doing anything wrong... but I think it is! So my question is, Is this guy violating my copyright?

 

[VisionTilt]

(my experience, not legal advice)

Yes, he is.

You need to report it to his webhost, not him. Once they are notified that they are allowing him to broadcast copyrighted information over their servers, they are equally responsible.

Usually the web host will shut down their site no questions asked, they would rather do that than have to deal with it.

Ebay does this all the time and has a system put in place just for this.

I sell stuff online so I've had to go through this quite a bit.

Hope that helps.