No More Images to be Displayed in this Blog

I just deleted almost two years’ worth of blog posts and images here when I realized how easy it is to steal imagery in cyberspace. Normally I’d be flattered if anybody liked an image of mine enough to steal it.

But now, another party is vulnerable, the online stock agency that represents me, iStockphoto. An image stolen from me is also one stolen from iStock, who sells my images. I’m told to watermark my images to make theft more difficult, but then I hear how easy it is to remove a watermark.

A month or two ago, I cancelled my Flickr account because of the site’s warning of theft. Recently, a photographer who posted images on Flickr was the victim of a massive theft, but the thief wasn’t done. He opened an iStock account and posted the stolen images there as his own. Immediately, iStock discovered the fraud and removed the thief’s site.

I’ll need to rethink where I’d like to go with this blog humchum.