
Reflections
How would you handle being ripped off?

Copyright infringement in some form or another is a constant issue photographers struggle with, whether its having work copied by other photographers, or people blatantly claiming your work as their own. I often get requests from people who wish to create artwork directly from my photos, and I never know how to respond. The other day I received an email from a man interested in creating a painting from the image shown above.
Curious to see who exactly this artist was (and his artwork) I entered his name into a google search. Turns out this artist who was asking for my “permission” had already gone ahead and painted the portrait- over 4 months ago! To top it off he also had listed the image for sale, asking for $5000 and not a single credit or mention was given to me!
Have you ever dealt with a similar situation- How would you handle it?