Corey Ann’s twitter reaction to photo theft
In a bizarre case of art imitating life the woman behind the anti photo theft campaign PhotoStealers has had her own photos stolen by a photographer operating as In A Flash Photography based in Canada.
With this story being perfectly suited to the internet’s unique brand of community justice both Reddit and PetaPixel picked it up, and rallied photographers everywhere. This considerably raised the profile of In A Flash Photography, but perhaps not in the way the un-named photo thief had hoped. She has since shutdown her website and closed off her Facebook pages, but not before provocatively posting a worryingly delusional denial to her now closed Facebook group that Corey Ann has posted in full on StopStealingPhotos. In A Flash photography rather amazingly turns the accusations back on to the people who are making them in an unexpected crisis management PR move.
To add to the crime of stealing other photographer’s work and passing it of in her own portfolio the woman behind In A Flash Photography also appears to have added some twee stories to each stolen photo, as shown in this screen grab from Peta Pixel.
Except Peta Pixel report the baby is called Jonah and belongs to portrait photographer Katja Irion. Unless of course there are two identical babies living in separate continents and two portrait photographers also working in separate continents who have the same concept and set-up. The incident once again underlines the difficulty of copyright in the digital age, even in cases where the work is watermarked. If a big photo agency can’t stop people ripping of their stock photos the challenge to keep their work safe for independent photographers who for business reasons need to showcase their portfolio online is even greater. For all portrait and wedding photographers out there, no matter where your geographically located, it is worth heading over to Corey Ann’s website to see if In A Flash Photography has stolen any of your photos.
