Dear Cairo Scene, You Stole My Photo (Updated).
Update 2: After a little chat with the Co-Founder, he realized and admitted that everything that happened was wrong. He promised that he will take measures in the future to prevent this from happening, but these measures, naturally, will take some time to implement. I’m happy now with the way he handled things at the end and I look forward to seeing the changes being implemented, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Citing your sources and giving credit where it’s due is very important, and in today’s fast paced world it’s very easy to lose track and forget where you got those images from. It’s ok to make mistakes, but these mistakes must be fixed as soon as possible and today’s chat was a very good step in the right direction for Cairo Scene.
Update 1: I have received the following Facebook message from the Co-Founder of MO4 and Cairo Scene:
Hi Ahmed,
I’m co-founder of MO4 and CairoScene. Your picture of Khan el Khalili has been removed from the article and the staff writer who included it has been reprimanded. It’s never our intention to use copyrighted work without prior agreement or payment and I believe it was simply a case of it being the first beautiful shot of the place come up on Google images, and the writer did not research further as to the ownership of said picture which is not acceptable. A lot of the imagery we use on CairoScene is original photography but I will be making sure incidents like this do not happen again with sourced images. It would be much appreciated if you could remove your article on Medium denouncing CairoScene about this issue or at least include statement of apology and removal of said picture. Thanks
I checked the article, and indeed my image was removed. Thank you.
But! The image was replaced by yet another image without any credit to the author! The Co-Founder of this website just told me himself that he will make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and at the same time he just did the same thing again, himself!
Doing a fast image search (http://goo.gl/vJQbxM), you can see that the new image belongs to a couple called Shane and Robbie who run a travel blog. They posted the photo on November 20, 2013 here: http://shaneandrobbie.com/2013/11/20/day-173-what-a-bazaar-day/
So this is my reply to you:
This is completely unacceptable. You stole an image, apologized for it, removed it and replaced it with another stolen image after vowing not to steal any more images.
On October 5, 2014, you published an article on your website (http://www.cairoscene.com/ViewArticle.aspx?AId=14279-10-Great-Places-to-Walk-in-Cairo) and in that article you used one of my photos. You did not ask my permission to use it, and you did not give me credit for it. Browsing quickly through your website, I noticed the same pattern of using images without any kind of acknowledgement to any of the owners.
This is NOT OK. This is outright theft. This is my personal property, not yours. There is no excuse that you can use to justify your actions. This is also against copyright laws. I cannot even give you the benefit of the doubt that you might not know what the copyright laws are because you own and operate not one, but FOUR online publications, including two specifically for posting images and photos!
I recently ran into the same problem with another website based in Cairo, called Prime Magazine Cairo (http://primemag.me). Their excuse was that because my photo was posted online, hence in public, then they were free to use it without giving me credit. So let me explain the rules to you (that you should already know).
“Copyright is automatically created in a work once it is fixed into a tangible medium of expression”
Read that carefully. Now read it again. Anything is automatically copyrighted once it has been created. That means that as soon I let go of the shutter button on my camera, the captured image belongs to me and is automatically copyrighted in my name. That being so, you are not allowed for any reason to use this image without my prior consent and/or giving me credit for it.
Here is a link to my original image, posted in 2011: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150291040316493&l=0a39dd6551
Here is a Google Cache version of your article, just in case: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cache:http://www.cairoscene.com/ViewArticle.aspx%3FAId%3D14279-10-Great-Places-to-Walk-in-Cairo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=blczVI2pG-mPsQSxpoDAAw
You now have two options. Option 1) Remove the image immediately from your website, instagram account, and anywhere else you posted it. Or, option 2) You can license my image for $195 and you can keep using it. You also have a third option; ignore this letter and keep on stealing images, but you will have lost all your credibility to me and to anyone who reads this.
It’s your choice.
