[nileshbhatiaa]

While on my recent visit to Dhanushkodi at Rameshwaram, I was thrilled to notice that the Government has chosen to feature photos of local tourist attractions that were originally published at Team-bhp. The trademark team-bhp logo can be seen on the bottom left of these pictures.

This is testament to the effort of our online community in creating a forum that has wide reach and popularity. I am sharing below the picture captured at the island of Dhanushkodi.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by nileshbhatiaa

The trademark team-bhp logo can be seen on the bottom left of these pictures.

This is testament to the effort of our online community in creating a forum that has wide reach and popularity. I am sharing below the picture captured at the island of Dhanushkodi.

While this certainly is a testament of this community's efforts (as you rightly pointed out), and we should be happy about that, at the same time, this is also a probable violation of copyright laws. The copyrights of these images belong to the forum members, and using these images in this manner (without permission, with site logos etc) is certainly not ideal.

While I am not complaining, (I believe whatever images we publish here are anyways for public use), but just pointing out the obvious paradox in the situation - that we feel happy about someone violating our copyright :-)

The modern world, with free access to published material on the internet and the AI models using all the public data anyways, is a very complex world for copyright and intellectual property issues.

Again, not complaining! Just thinking aloud!

[nileshbhatiaa]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

The copyrights of these images belong to the forum members, and using these images in this manner (without permission, with site logos etc) is certainly not ideal.

True this is indeed a copyright violation and gives us legal rights, unless they have taken specific permission from our administrators to use our content.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by nileshbhatiaa

, unless they have taken specific permission from our administrators to use our content.

Look at the design of the board and the language used.

Do you think they really care or even know about copyright violations or taking permission for usage?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by nileshbhatiaa

True this is indeed a copyright violation and gives us legal rights, unless they have taken specific permission from our administrators to use our content.

Well, unless Indian copyright is different from most, I don't think the copyright of the images lies with TeamBHP. Only the copyrights of the logo.

The copyright of the images belongs typically to the photographer of the image, unless it has been agreed otherwise. I don't think I loose the copyright of the thousands of images I have uploaded to TeamBHP I would hope?

Jeroen

[MyLife_MyCar]

Although I don’t understand how the copyright and its violation works, but anything posted on a forum like TBHP is publicly available, free of cost. I think it should be alright then for some to use its content/pics as long as they mention the source.
Here, the logo at the bottom itself mentions the source of the pics.

[AMG Power]

FUP or Fair Use Policy permits use of copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without permission from the copyright holder as long as due credits have been given mentioning the source.

As Team Bhp has been mentioned, there is nothing further to be done.

Team Bhp also contains lots of pics from the net that are not original contributions. Most of these have the source indicated to conform to FUP guidelines.

[avdhesh15]

This doesn't look like a government sign board because there are no logos etc. Seems to be a group of local tourist guides who have pieced this together.

[nileshbhatiaa]

The whole idea of this post was to celebrate Team-bhp logo being spotted in a public space. Let’s leave the copyright issue aside.

[Samurai]

The Team-BHP logo on every image says that the copyright of the image belongs to the owner of the image, that is the member who posted it.

It is not our copyright to enforce.

[SmartCat]

Wonder which thread they flicked those images from. Did a quick visual scan here but could not find it: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/galleryV2.php

[ex-innova-guy]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Wonder which thread they flicked those images from.

They have taken it from this thread -
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...ml#post4374727 (S-Cross'd : Land's End (Dhanushkodi))

Google Lens to the rescue. ;-)

[dicor]

Regarding image stealing, well, this has not happened for the first time.

I remember ages ago, Zoom car stole an image of a team-bhpians XUV5OO and published their in-home page carousel. However, the BHPian decided not to take it further.

[Samurai]

Image stealing from TeamBHP is very common. Lots of us post interesting photos here, and they are open to the whole world.

One of my photos from this thread, is probably the most stolen and circulated photo I have ever clicked. The fellow with 8-pack abs.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

One of my photos from this thread, is probably the most stolen and circulated photo I have ever clicked. The fellow with 8-pack abs.

Oh wow, yeah, I've seen that photo literally everywhere! Great to learn it was you, very strong visual, wish you had been given credit.

'Flicking' images is all too common these days. Forget local tourist sites, I've heard professional photographers complain about national newspapers stealing their photos and publishing them without credit.

So basically, if you don't want to risk one of your images being stolen, don't post it online; or post a very, very low res version; or add watermarks all over the image.