Back on August 12, 2018, I photographed many monuments in Waring Cemetery in Lewis County, Kentucky, to submit to post to this website and to contribute to FindAGrave. Having had several images stolen before and altered or uploaded to other services without my consent I decided to begin watermarking my images. I really hated doing that but many people seem to understand that copyright infringement is theft.
I uploaded my images to Facebook before traveling and a Facebook member noted (on an unrelated thread) that she had used a “few” of the images. Using other people’s intellectual property without consent is really no different than me using their bank account or car without consent. But they seem to think that because it’s on the internet that it’s free.
Upon inspection of the images that had been uploaded to FindAGrave by this user, I found ever image that I had uploaded to Facebook had been lifted and reposted. After looking at the users account this did not appear to be the first time that they had done this sort of thing, and their account was reported to FindAGrave and Ancestry.com for copyright infringement.
Waring Cemetery Memorial with Stolen Images
Here’s just a few of the memorials that Ms. Farst posted stolen images to.
177406977
177686076
177850552
112816998
99917906
179215444
182666118
177785710
177480822
177480318
177486424
28065269
177486560
177521417
177559410
177742753
182355376
8752884
177849339
177849346
177849367
177849383
177857426
177786505
178026566
177406819
177406989
After requesting the user remove the infringing material and notifying FindAGrave and Ancestry of the theft the user began to pull down much of the material. Several days later I received this response from FindAGrave,
Find A Grave’s First Response
Continuing Infringement
Just the other day I stopped by Waring Cemetery to fulfill some research requests and took some more pictures. When I went to upload them I thought I should check in on other memorials that I had photographed to ensure that all of the infringing material had been removed. Unfortunately, it had not been.
You may ask how I know the images are mine. Aside from the styling of the images (composition, coloring, and effect), there is additional metadata that is embedded into each images. This metadata is not visible, however, the watermark in the bottom left hand corner is.
A few copyright FAQs from FindAGrave
What kind of photos may be added to a memorial page? … General Guidelines
ONLY post photos for which YOU hold the copyright (meaning photos you took)!!!
The copyright of all photos posted to Find A Grave remains with the original submitter. No use of photos for any other website or personal use is given without prior consent of the original submitter.
Can I add a photo that I found on Find a Grave or on a different website?
No. Please do not add photos to Find A Grave that you have acquired from another memorial or from another source. Photos fall under copyright protection laws, even photographs used in obituaries. In general, if you did not take the photo yourself, you should not post it. The only exceptions to this are photos that are old enough to have fallen into the public domain and photos for which you have received written consent from the copyright holder
Continuing to enforce my copyright
After seeing that despite FindAGrave’s assistance and notification of their parent company, Ancestry.com, my images continue to be used without consent. And who knows where else they have been used since once they have been uploaded to FindAGrave they feed into a network of other genealogical websites. Many have Terms of Service that state when an image is uploaded that the User Content is theirs and that they are granting the website a license or other rights. Much like someone stealing your car and letting someone else drive it as though it were theirs. The process for tracking down these infringements is tedious and time consuming, often taking away from other business.
As you can see my request for take down is straight forward and stern, as it should be. The user has one image (mine) that is associated to this memorial yet plays “dumb” as to what image it is despite having being told to remove it previously. My request for take down was perceived as rude. I guess we should be cordial and kind when people steal our things.
After notifying the user (and Ancestry & FindAGrave) of the exact URL for the images that were used without consent I receive the following three messages to my FindAGrave account.
Instead of apologizing and removing the content they continue to haggle, and insist that they didn’t know that using intellectual property that wasn’t theirs was theft.
The above is the email response I received after sending the URL for this page to the user. It’s a shame that people don’t understand more about copyright. They get extremely upset when told that they are in the wrong and often take the “everyone else is doing it” defense.
It really boils down to not using things that aren’t yours that you haven’t been given permission to use.
Hopefully the final email.
“Ms. Farst: Thank you for the removal of the infringing images. If I find more I will gladly let you know. What you do with your work is entirely up to you, however, how I enforce the copyright of my images is my responsibility, as it is for any copyright holder. It is not my responsibility to report infringements of other’s intellectual property, only my own. No additional communication between us is required, unless additional infringements are found. Good day. “