[SoCalyorkiLvr]

Originally Posted by HeatherHamptons

Well, its copyright infringement first of all.

It is copyright infringement in a lot of cases and the best protection is to put a bubble on the picture with the photographer's logo or other identification. If that has not been done, then you would have to sue them for copyright infringement and whatever other causes of action you can think of including fraud and misrepresentation if they do not remove the photo when you ask them to. I have also seen people place an ad on puppyfind.om when someone steals picture there and I bet that is effective!

The problem is you have to be able to prove damages and if they are using a picture of a yorkie that they get off a public website that has no copyright warning then they could claim the picture was not protected and that they were just using it as a representative photo of a yorkie, period.

There is also the argument that you have made your yorkie a "public figure" so photos of it are free game. It's like celebrity who puts out a poster and then claims the picture on the poster was copyrighted when someone uses in their marketing. It is free game because it was already used in marketing and no longer has the copyright privilege attached. this gets complicated, but if you have a business like some of the members here have doggie clothing websites and you use your yorkie in the marketing, you should make sure you state on the website that all the photos are copyrighted. I know there is a way to prevent things from being copied off a website but I don't know how that's done. Maybe we could ask admin.