Instagram photographer using stock photos as his own

Johnmcl7

Someone using stock photos and pretending it's their own isn't something new:

https://mothership.sg/2018/06/daryl-aiden-yow-instagram-photos-singapore/

What's a little different about this one is that he'd managed to get working with several companies including promoting Sony equipment with Sony sponsoring him yet clearly none of them bothered to check his actual photos.  I was initially surprised at that as it's very easy to do these days particularly for a large company who I would expect to have tools like this already but then I guess they don't really care, they can benefit from the brand promotion then just immediately distance themselves when it goes wrong.

I am surprised at just how dishonest this person was as well boasting about all these wonderful places he never went to and what a high standard he had to hold himself to even giving photography workshops while using stock photographs.  I was wondering if people who do this know it's a ticking time bomb as they're going to get caught at some point with the chances rapidly increasing the more well known they become but I guess like many others they just don't think they'll ever get caught.

Thumpermawer

I saw this on Petapixel the other day. They had some text of an apology from the instagrammer (is that a word yet?) which made it seem as though he was only apologising as the fall out had reached people he had collaborated with. That makes it seem pretty insincere to me - like he would have ignored it and carried on as long as he thought he was getting away with it.

Like you say, it's nothing new (or unique to photography), but i thought now that social media partnerships are commonplace that there would be some more robust due diligence done before making deals with self proclaimed "influencers".

Wonder how many instagram followers you would need to buy before Sony would send you a new a7III?!

snerkler

This really irks me for two reasons. One it's completely bang out of order. And secondly none of these thieves ever think my work is good enough to steal

Johnmcl7

It's the worst type of 'apology' which basically boils down to I'm sorry I got caught, I did chuckle at him apologising for 'misleading' people as if there was a few stock photos in there or his posts were ambiguous about the source whereas none of it was genuine.

That's what surprises me as well because I'd have thought if a manufacturer is going to put their name to 'photographers' like this that they wouldn't only be checking that the photographer is using stock photos (which I'd hope is uncommon) but also checking they're actually using the manufacturer's camera to take the photos.  There's plenty eagle eyed people out there and there's been a few embarrassing mistakes out there where a camera company has been promoting a video or image to show off their own camera and it's actually a rival camera that took it.

I did read an article today which gave some insight into this as it was regarding a company that was studying the trends to buy followers so they set up a fake account for a supposed travelling female built up entirely of stock photos.  The rapid jumps in follower counts gave away the fact they'd been buying followers and the account was publically outed.  The company left the account open doing nothing until now and they decide to see if they could get accomodation for free using it despite the fact that a google search on the account name immediately returned the articles about the account being false.

Perhaps unsurprisingly they had a number of responses offering them free or reduced accommodation in return for promoting the venue to their followers.  They clearly did no checking at all aside from a quick look at the account so clearly expecting a camera company to check for genuine photos is expecting a lot!

I also read another article on the BBC last week that some big companies are finding social media 'influencers' worthless and stopping to use them.  As much as I dislike the concept anyway because I'm getting old when reading the details of this topic I was left wondering what is the point in it?  These stock photos were meant to be promoting Sony cameras but of course weren't actually taken with them and obviously they're so generic no-one could tell they were or weren't taken with Sony cameras.

godsakes

The ones that are straight stolen reuploads are bang out of order full stop, the ones which have been heavily edited and sourced from royalty free sites I could respect had he'd been marketing himself more as a retoucher

12harry

With my limited experience of "Stock Photos" their owners usually only supply a degraded version, unless you pay the full-fee AND that would be for a specific use.  All other photos should have a watermark along with Meta-data attached to the file(s).

SO maybe this is regarded as "promotion at any cost" since the corporates might be able to "Dodge the bullet" expecting the perpetrator to carry the can. My suspicion is that they won't be worthy enough, so the copyright-holder will find some medium-size organisation to sue - hoping this will win and make Corporates pay-up.

Is it possible the perpetrators have no idea of intellectual property? . . . difficult to believe - but they could be delusional - believing that anything that's accepted must be OK.

If you look at all the photos taken by tourists... there may be some that are as good as the professional's version - and by the time it's downloaded maybe that's taken some of the edge off the "better photo" - but if he's not been there, this could be friends / relatives that have allowed him their use . . . .  so it concerns me that these pictures are branded "Rogue Copies" or similar....where is the evidence, other than it's the same viewpoint?

Cheers.