Pirates

An article describing how one photographer is fighting back.

The business of real estate photography is rife with torpedo-style problems that can hit you at one time or another. Nothing serious, but certain things can be a pain in the arse. One of those things is naughty estate agents using another agent’s photos without a care in the world. It’s rare, but some operators think they can get away with using shots that have been paid for by someone else.

I was recently contacted by one of the agents I don’t work for anymore, telling me that a listing had appeared with images I’d taken last summer. It was a converted church in a village just outside Whitby in North Yorkshire. I remembered it well as I’d taken my eldest to act as an assistant, and then had an afternoon scouring the amusement arcades and fish & chip shops of the tourist trap itself.

The agent wanted me to do something about it, but to be honest, I’m just a freelance minnow, and the idea of threatening an estate agency with legal action by sending cease and desist notices isn’t in my vocabulary.

There is licensing and copyright information embedded in JPEGs sent to clients, and if required, I can generate a digital copy of a license agreement which lays out who can use the shots and in which media. The metadata gets stripped out of files when the likes of Rightmove publish them, so some operators think it’s fine to use them freely. Even if the homeowner themselves pay for the images to be shot, it doesn’t give them permission to publish them willy-nilly, as the license conditions dictate that. In this case, as long as the original agency has terminated their agreement with the seller and gives permission for the photos to be reused, I can send new copies with updated licensing conditions embedded.

I’ve only had one agent who refused to take copied images down, and there was nothing I could do. He was a wrong-un who never paid me a penny for the two (weekend) jobs I did for him, so had to just give up on that one. He didn’t last long.