clockwise!

if you recall a few months back i briefly reported of one my pictures being stolen, entered to nation wide contest and getting published in its book. since then i wrote a blog post in my website which thanks to Social Media went viral and even a few photographic websites picked it up (more on that later). but as my blog post is only is Farsi and another photographer's work (two times Pulitzer winner!!) had also been stolen by the same person i felt the need to write about it here as well.

last year around April i was notified one of my pictures had been entered in a nation wide Mobile photography contest and had made been shortlisted. i figured it was a joke but after checking the finalist pictures on their website i found someone else's name under my picture. so i immediately contacted the organizers and explained the situation. they asked me to provide them with proof, so i sent them a link to an interview with me on Sony's website. it contained the stolen, a picture of myself and the interview. i figured it would be enough and they'll pull it out of the contest. so i followed the story no further.

a few months went by and one of my friends brought me the contest book and there it was. i was furious, i called the organizers and demanded to speak the head directors but only got to speak to the secretary and one of the people involved who just kept asking me stupid questions like whether or not i took that picture on a tour (entertaining the idea that someone happened to be there with me and managed to capture the exact frame with a cellphone and apply the same post production as i did) or that the picture's exif suggests it's captured with a phone and it's impossible to change that info and a whole lot of other BS. for the record this genius is the head director of the second term of this contest which is held this year. they also denied me and a journalist -who was following the story-the access to thief's contact info. they said and i quote 'it's unethical'!

there was another picture in the book with same person's name. a photograph by AP photographer Muhammed Muheisen two times winner of Pulitzer prize.
one thing that was mutual in both pictures is the shallow DoF which you don't need to be a gearhead to know that it's impossible to get with a phone but it somehow got past organizers and judge's attention and even after pointing it out they told me it's possible to get such a DoF with some mobile phones!

it occurred to me that i can't get anywhere by negotiating with them - they even denied an apology - so i decided to take it to court. i went to talk to talk to a lawyer who'd held a from a seminar on copyright for photographers a while back. i told him about the case and asked his opinion. he told me i would n't have a lot chances in court and it's best if i settled things out of court. it was about my right, not money. i did a bit of research about the similar cases and most of them had n't got anywhere in court. also the copyright rule states that the work must "first" have been published in a nation wide media to be able to protect it by this law and if it's first published overseas it's not covered by this law. i let it go but there were a few things that bothered. Maybe even more than my picture being stolen i was bothered by how people who use Art for indecent purposes. Organizers who claim their goal is to support Art and Artists but treat a young artist who's the victim as the accused, and turn the tables and instead of accepting their responsibility and issuing a simple apology go on and make idiotic claims to free themselves from the blame. And the other thing that did n't surprise but disappoint me was the photographic websites which claim to be for the artists but most of them denied publishing my story but they cover every little detail of this contest's second. phat sponsors, eh? of course a few independent websites took it up (one of them had over 10k views in only a day) and the social media which i received great feedback (and by that i mean my friends physically showing me their facebook or twitter accounts as i'm on neither) and support.