This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What should you do if a brand uses your photo without permission? Let's say you have taken some images for your products or for your blog or for your social media, could be personal images, could be images that you have used for a business purpose, but you otherwise have access to, like you have legal access to use these images. And then all of a sudden you notice somebody else has used your photo. And that also might be an individual or a brand. In this case, we're gonna hear from a content creator who travels full time.
So naturally they have lots of beautiful travel images. And they recently discovered that a company used one of their photos that they had posted on Instagram. And they use this photo without asking, how should they respond? Legal action isn't realistic in this case, just because that's complicated, that's expensive, but ignoring it feels wrong and just kind of frustrating. So how can this person handle it professionally while keeping their focus on future growth?
Because ultimately your best interests are probably not gonna be served by spending a ton of time on this issue. But as I said, it's frustrating. So what do you do in this situation? Let's talk about it. Detailed question from our caller and my answer coming right up.
[Music]
Hi, I'm Taylor. I'm from Florida originally, but now travel full time as a content creator. And most of my engagement comes from the photos I post on Instagram. So a company recently used one of my pictures without my permission, and I don't know how to approach them. Should I just let it go?
Or is there a way to handle this professionally without hiring a lawyer? I'm afraid of it escalating, and I don't have the resources to hire legal counsel right now, but it's really frustrating me to see someone take my content. What can I do? [Music]
Well, first I'll just say it's incredibly frustrating when someone uses your content without asking. It just acknowledge that.
It can feel like your hard work isn't being respected. And so it's kind of tempting to react emotionally, but you're gonna be better off most likely if you handle the situation without derailing your creative momentum. You were in this situation because you've done good work. You want to make sure you keep doing good work. So what do you do?
If it is worth your time, and that's only for you to decide, then you reach out professionally. If the company seems small, if they're open to communication, just consider sending a polite but firm email or direct message asking them to credit you or take down the image, whatever you prefer. So you could say, "Hey, like I noticed one of my photos from Instagram was used in your recent marketing post without permission." And then make your ask. Your ask is like, "Please credit me or remove the image," whatever it is. "Please let me know how you'd like to proceed." So that just kind of keeps it direct but respectful.
You're much more likely to get a positive response that way instead of like moving to a big threat. And then again, here in this scenario, we're saying that we don't want to actually take legal action. We don't want to do that. Maybe there's a world in which it is worth doing that, but I think for most people it's not. If this starts happening frequently, like if you are an artist, it's a bigger deal.
For artists who are seeing their work replicated frequently, consider adding a copyright notice in your bio or in some of the comments on your posts. Just mention, if you're reposting, please be sure to credit me. You can also look into some content tracking tools. One is called Pixi, one is called Copyright Hub. Those can alert you when your images are used online.
And in some cases, those services can even help you pursue compensation. Again, that's getting a little bit more complex. I tend, as I said, to not worry too much about this because I'm just gonna get frustrated and I don't want to be frustrated. I want to focus on creating and moving forward. I don't have a lot of people who work for me.
I am pretty much a one-man show for the most part, aside from some trusted contractors. So I have a limited amount of time I can spend on my business. And I want to spend that time making things and being helpful. That's my perspective, others may differ, of course. And as I said, I do think it's often worth addressing it, at least.
And then from there, I just kind of let it go, usually. Taylor, best of luck to you. Listeners, wishing you well as well, sidehustleschool.com/questions. There's a notes page for every episode. There are other resources there.
There's some photos you can steal and post somewhere. I mean, I'm probably not gonna track you down 'cause I don't have time. New episodes come out every single day, seven days a week. I also have a newsletter, yearofmentalhealth.com, some other stuff going on tour soon, but I'll talk about that later. For now, thank you for listening.
My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
