When you have taken as many photos of Victorian trains, trams and buses as I have, there is little point keeping track of every time people use your work without credit.
An example of this occurred in early January, when someone spotted this temporary travel changes poster at Flinders Street Station and shared on a bus enthusiast group with the following comment – “I wonder who’s photo V/Line has knocked off”.
Turns the photo that V/Line had knocked off was one of mine – taken back in 2013.
Another case of deja vu occurred back in June 2009, when I spotted this locally produced poster at promoting extended opening hours at Geelong line railways stations.
The train at the bottom was the familiar part – a photo of mine that I shared to Wikipedia back in 2007.
In this case reusing photos on Wikipedia is fair game, provided attribution is given – though in reality, people don’t know and don’t care when taking photos from the internet.
Nitpickers corner
If you look closely, you might have noticed that the bus in the first photo doesn’t even say V/Line anywhere on it – it’s an ex-V/Line road coach purchased by private operator GLV Coaches, who stripped off the V/Line logos but kept the red stripe down the side.
How did it end up as the first choice for someone creating a ‘V/Line replacement coaches’ poster – I have no idea!
And an update
In April I was walking past Flinders Street Station and saw the rail replacement bus sign with my own eyes – only now someone had drawn the V/Line logos drawn back in using a black texta.
While a private person using my photos doesn’t worry me if they identify me as the photo taker, or at least don’t claim it is their own, public and private organisations should not thieve individual photos without contacting the owner. I find Wikipedia’s photo credit process too complicated.
I’m much the same – if you’re getting paid to do something, then you should learn how to do it correctly.
It’s the first photo that comes up when you search “vline road coaches”.
Why didn’t I think to check that – it seems that half of the first page of Google Image Search results is also my photos. 😛
[…] I’ve written about finding Wikipedia uploads in real life before, in Keeping track of V/Line ‘borrowed’ photos. […]