Let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at Live And Let’s Fly today and strategize together how I can go after folks who are stealing my content. Sadly, it happens more often than you might think.
People Are Stealing My Content. Time For Lawsuit?
Theft is as old as the human race and therefore, it comes as no surprise when lazy and crooked people steal the work of others and misappropriate it as their own. As a blogger who has been at this for 15 years and published over 10,000 articles and 160,000 pictures, there has been a LOT of theft, though it seems to ebb and flow.
A reader just alerted me that my trip reports have been copied, verbatim, and images taken, then posted on Facebook under the handle Steff Ben.
There are dozens of flight reviews and thousands of photos stolen…
I’ve screenshotted everything and filed a take-down request.
This guy, if he is a real person at all, is quite active in stealing content online:
Then there’s the Taboola ad. Hundreds of you (no exaggeration) have let me know that an ad has popped up of my dad and me (stolen from my blog) promising, “Seniors Can Now Fly Business Class for the Price of Economy Using This Hack.” There’s another version that just has my mug on it taken on a JAL flight last spring. Sometimes, both appear at once:
Clicking on the ad opens up an article written by “Olivia James – Thrifty World Traveler” that seems linked to Capital One:
I’ve already had a forensic expert examine the photo and we can see that it was stolen from my blog and the date it was stolen.
Another image (of me) has also been taken in a “flight attendant shows how to fly business class for the price of economy” ad…
And I’m sure there are many, many more instances (feel free to bring them to my attention in the comments section below).
My Legal Options
This is not my area of legal expertise, though I’m willing to familiarize myself with this area of the law to explore my rights and remedies.
However, the LALF audience is diverse, deep, and smart…so I figured, why not ask you first?
It’s easy enough to eliminate the stolen content “whack-a-mole” style, but these Facebook posts, for example, have enjoyed some serious eyeballs…revenue that I won’t see.
I’m wondering what my practical options are to pursue damages…
The Taboola ad is more interesting. The Online Shopping Tools app uses the Capital One logo…which makes Capital One potentially liable as well.
The contact information for this website/app is 3525 Piedmont Rd. N Atlanta, GA 30305, an apartment according to a Google Street View image:
CONCLUSION
I’m tired of the near-daily emails or texts from folks wondering if I know that my dad and I are in an “ad” online. I’m tired of content I spend countless hours writing and photographs I line up way too early for (like an idiot) so that I can get unobstructed cabin photos are taken by others without my permission.
Any thoughts on how I can best handle this are welcome…
Not much. My wife has her X/IG content stolen all the time and posted under other peoples names. She tried adding a watermark to her images with her name. That helped for a bit but people just started cropping them out. IG is better about taking these down when alerted. X less so (insert snide Elon comment here). Not sure what FB does.
Good luck
@Cy … +1 . Agree to wish good luck to Matthew .
Although if the hackers are in Asia or India or elsewhere , as seems probable , then ask the lawyers what to do ?
My suggestion is do not contribute to politicians who allow this . Contribute to only politicians who stop this .
Do we want politicians to stop this?
How would they stop this?
@Matthew … Laws , my friend . Laws enforced .
Not ex post facto laws or bills of attainder , which were used to ensnare Trump .
The entire internet has been a gift to hackers from Asia and India .
Telling us you’re both an esteemed law school professor and the top law school graduate at Trump University without saying it.
@ Matthew — Lawsuit.
Who do you file a lawsuit against? Some dude in Uzbekistan who owns nothing other than a laptop and an Internet connection? Large mega platforms that harbor these people and have countless lawyers and just laugh at you?
Sure, you can whack a mole with DMCA take downs costing you countless hours and endless roads to get anything done. Only so that they will come back under another account and do the same. Who cares?
If you post it, you lost it. It’s that simple. The better investment is to make your content unique, real, and engaging. And to accept that others will try and use it for whatever. In the end what they are doing is not causing direct harm and they are probably making pennies on it and have chickens and sheep living in their house.
Very soon I predict more and more will migrate less from socials and return to a focus of getting content direct from news, blogs, and sites they trust.
Why don’t you just watermark the photos?
Why should I have to do that? I hate watermarks.
You shouldn’t have to do that, but it will help reduce theft. It is probably the quickest and easiest way.
It will take time, resources and money to constantly monitor, identify and go after those who steal your content.
Matt, I think step one is to connect with a forensic IT company that specializes in such security matters. Job one would be to determine the real origin of the Steff Ben site to determine if it is overseas or not. Even though it may look stateside, some of these are good at that obfuscation from abroad. That will make a difference in your approach.
3525 Piedmont Rd NE is an office building that seems to have a different entity in nearly every room. Including a law firm that seems to be a general “attorney of record” for hundreds and an IT company that does web site design and maintenance. So willing to bet it isn’t really whoever is behind the site.
I know where that is, deep in the middle of the Butthead area. I can go crack some skulls next time I’m in town.
I reported his Saudia post on Facebook immediately, both to Facebook and to the mods, but they don’t seem overly enthusiastic about shutting it down as it’s still there
For the unauthorized use of your images on ads, submit a California Consumer Privacy Act request to remove the pictures. If they fail to comply or respond, escalate to California Privacy Protection Agency.
I had no idea that you were so litigious.
Must be new around here.
HAHAHAHA
Yeah I hate it when people get all bent out of shape by thieves stealing their livelihood.
Call Delores Blasingame
I’m sorry you are going through this. I had no idea how prolific the thieves are. I cannot help in any way but I wish you lots of luck!
I’m only a 2L who’s taken property law, but you definitely have an actionable claim for the use of your likeness. The bigger question is how much time (money) you want to put into stopping these clowns. I think it’s really a judgment call.
I take issue with Matthew being used in those ads for a travel hack. As far as the Facebook copy of reviews, I am less bothered by it.
While Matthew may hate watermarks, that might be the way to mark his review photos though the written content would be still vulnerable. It may be possible to just cover up the watermark if not remove it. However, simple people like me don’t know how to remove watermarks.
Matthew’s wife is in a health care related profession so she may know that lots of people try to pretend they are a real doctor or the “real thing”. Chiropractors, optometrists, nurse practitioners calling themselves “doctor” are among them. Chiropractors can do dangerous neck manipulation. In addition, they can go beyond massage and start to treat diabetes and other conditions with quackery. Optometrists who stick with glasses and contacts are fine but some try to convince states that they can do surgery without medical school or the medical school basic sciences and clinical experience of the whole body.
I think that you need to obtain specialist legal advice, not in terms of what’s in the statute books, but in terms of assessing the likelihood of recovery from the thieves and the sites hosting the content.
As others have said, there’s no point spending time and money chasing anonymous Facebook users who can’t be traced and/or realistically made to pay. To give you an example of how paralysing a simple legal process can be, I’ve had someone crash into my car in April (it was parked and I was inside). Even though we’ve identified the culprit and we believe he’s also being charged for drink driving, we still aren’t really in a position to sue him and his insurance company won’t pay as it insists that the car was stolen (it belonged to his mother and he declared it stolen after abandoning the scene)…and that’s from the perspective of a claimant who drafts contractual documents as part of his day job and has engaged the services of a solicitor specialising in tort law.
Even with the best understanding of the substance of applicable law, trying to second-guess how it all works in practice may well be a mug’s game.
@PM … The politicians are responsible because they allow this . Only the politicians have the ability to pass laws .
I’m already protected by copyright law. The problem here is not the lack of regulation.
The problem may be a lack of enforcement against the sites .
The politicians coddle and protect the sites from disagreeable oversight .
Well that stinks. I was plagiarized once in my blogging day–by a BoardingArea blogger, no less–and shamed the blogger into taking down the post. It sounds like you’re up against a more automated machine that won’t be as responsive though. I wish you the best of luck.
On the bright side, this really is a testament to the quality of your content!
Lawyer here (though not a specialist in IP law). For what it is worth, I think your post serves as a really clever cease-and-desist letter to the thieves! If they read the blog to steal your content (and are not a bot), then they are on notice that you are considering legal action. It would be kind of funny if they stole this post and posted it as their own (in a dark humor way)!
I think your strategy depends on who is behind the theft. As you have pointed out, this is a matter of remedies. For the Taboola ads, I think you should consult with an IP lawyer, since that is an entity that you can probably recover from in a conventional lawsuit (and a rational actor, so to speak). They may know from experience the nature of the relationship between Taboola and CapitalOne and whether you could realistically hold CapitalOne accountable for those Taboola ads.
For less sophisticated actors like Steff Ben, I think you probably can’t do much legally unless you can identify him as a person in the US. You might refer him to your local FBI or US Attorney’s Office. I don’t know how high this ranks on their priorities, but, if you can come up with a solid amount of monetary damages and it is significant enough, they might be interested in taking action—even if the thieves are abroad. I know that some US Attorney’s Offices have been filing civil actions and/or criminal complaints against foreign actors who are involved in significant scams, especially foreign crime rings. Their reach is limited to the extent that treaties and the state of bilateral relations permit. It is a long shot that the feds sue for you, but, hey, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take…. If you can speak with an Assistant US Attorney, they might be able to suggest some other options to you or other useful information.
Outside of legal action, I’d consider posting links/ads to your blog on Steff Ben’s Facebook page and other websites. There is always some risk that he could be so bold as to sue YOU, but that would be a gamble on his part, since he would be identifying himself and opening himself to be countersued. Plus, any reasonable person (i.e. juror or judge) would see that you are the originator of the content–not Steff Ben. I would seriously ponder any potential risks to this before posting on his page, but I think it could be effective. It would redirect any of his views to your blog and hopefully divert his audience towards your blog. I work in an area of law where I often deal with bad actors who do things that are legally actionable by law but cannot realistically be sued due to a lack of assets. The goal is usually to try to cut out the benefit that the bad actor is deriving from their misconduct. Hence, if you can deprive him of the clicks and web traffic from which he is deriving a profit, then you are hurting him and materially disincentivizing him from continuing to steal from you.
I hate that you have to deal with this problem. I have really enjoyed your blog since I found it in 2020, and I am frequently amazed at your ability to produce high-quality content on a daily basis while practicing law. It goes without saying, the ideas I provide above are just the product of generalized brainstorming, not legal advice…
It’s said mimicry should be taken as a form of flattery, but it’s not when it causes commercial harm or damage to reputation.
My guess is this “Steff Ben” is a Russian/Eastern European/Chinese/Indian bot, and so your chances of being able to get any kind of permanent resolution are likely close to nil, sadly. Law enforcement isn’t going to do anything to help, unless the bot farm is linked to some sort of organized crime syndicate that they’re interested in busting. I do sort of like the idea that one other commented suggested – fight fire with fire by putting links to your site in his feed.
For the Taboola ads, maybe try taking it up with Capital One? Does CA have a deceptive trade practices statute that you could potentially use as leverage?
IIRC there was something similar that happened to a blogger on Saverocity where the plagiarist was rather well known, being on BA I think. I don’t recall how it ended but it was an improvement from the initial situation if I remember rightly. Not the most helpful info I realize but there’s a lot of other less-than-practical suggestions above as well.