I'm not sure, but I'd be frosted. It's worse than plagarism in my book, because not only did they steal the idea, but your artwork, and photography is artwork as much as an oil painting is. It would seem like your photographs are your intellectual property. I know it's an offhanded compliment, but when that picture is posted, it is assumed they're taking credit for your work without payment and making profit off it. Also, their customers (if they're anything like mine) shall come in with the photo in hand and want them to plant more of same, or sell them the plants so they can. IOW they're making the profit you should be. Whether it's legal or not, it's not professional and not fair.

BTW, that's lovely! Why don't you send them a bill? LOL. I prolly would and I'd bet they would answer then.

A few years ago a lot of people left this site (GW) when they changed the terms of use. My recollection is that one of the terms is that any picture you post on this site becomes public domain. If you post it, its up for grabs.

That is why so few professionals post pictures here.

For more on this topic...

Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb - Terms of Service

As I understand it:

If you took the photo and can prove it in a court of law then the photo belongs to you and is protected with or without a copyright (but it is much easier to prove ownership when a copyright has been applied).

By posting a photo here on GW you surrender those rights. But you only surrender those rights to GardenWeb not to the rest of the world. If GardenWeb isn't the one who stole the photo then it is still protected. By the wording of their terms of service - they can chase after these people and cause them to stop using the photo, as can you.

It is very difficult to protect your hard work when posting it on the internet. It can be done but it costs a lot of money and time. Most "pirates" take their chances, thinking that you will not make the effort to stop them. All you can at this time is have a lawyer send a "stop using my photo!" letter to them. You can only take them to court if they get the letter and ignore it. You won't make any money when this is all over (but your lawyer might).

You could check to see if they are simply linking to your photo cache (wherever you store your photos) or if they have actually captured the photo and store on their site. If they are linking you can remove the photo from your cache or slip in a different photo (maybe something really nasty?) so that their info now includes an inappropriate photo.

This is why plenty of people do not post photos.

This is why the people that do post photos do not post their best photos or they post photos at very low resolutions. This is also why people that want to protect their hard work limit the access to photos in their storage sites.

Thanks for the input- I am frosted. Here is a huge nursery, paying lots of money to a web designer or a staff person to go out and steal photos from the web.
I bet that their web designer listed at the bottom of their page knew what they were doing was not right.

Unfortunately the readers of this forum will loose out becasue I will not post photos.
I guess that big business figures that it ok to take advantage of little guys.
I contacted GW and they suggested I contact a lawyer.
not worth the time and money.
I also sent a letter to the two owners - I am sure that they do not care either.

All anyone has to do is go to "Google Images" and I guarantee that it will be there. I was surprised that all of the pictures that I posted on my garden blog were on this site. They don't even have to go to gardenweb. When I would check my stats I found out that half the hits came from this site, and they only came to my site to get a better picture.

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Images

Go to http://images.google.com/ and search on Fanciful Garden Collection Hypertufa, and there's your pic.

Mike, I was just on their site and don't see it. I don't even see a hypertufa class being offered. Maybe you got through to them. Billie

There is a difference in actually uploading content to GardenWeb versus merely providing a link to content on another site. If one uploads a photo to one of the GardenWeb galleries, then you grant to GardenWeb a license for it's use per the terms of use agreement.

But a link is not content. If one uses the link option provided at the bottom of a post block to some other web site, it would be preposterous to think GardenWeb then has a license to all that linked site has in content. A link manufactured by the poster in the body of a message is no different, even if it links to content that the poster owns. The link that plantman56 used to display the photo did not give GardenWeb a license for it's use.

I see no reason for posters to avoid sharing their photos by linking to them, for you give away no rights by doing so. Uploading directly to a GardenWeb gallery should not be done if you don't want to give GardenWeb a license.

Did Nunan infringe plantman56's copyright? Probably. It would seem that plantman56 didn't give Nunan a right to it's use. But plantman56 did upload the photo to Webshots, subject to Webshots' terms of use, which states ... a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, sub licensable, royalty-free license to use, store, display, publish, transmit, transfer, distribute, reproduce, create derivative works of and publicly perform that Content on and through each of the services provided by Webshots. The worrisome words used are 'irrevocable', 'sub licensable', and 'royalty free'.

Did Webshots sub license the photo use to Nunan? We don't know. It's a good idea to read the terms of service before uploading to any site. Compare the terms of service of Photobucket to those of Webshots. Photobucket does not include the words 'irrevocable' or 'sub license'.

Copyright is federal law and recourse for infringement can be found in US Circuit Court. Failure to place the copyright symbol on a work or failure to register the work does not bar one from recovery, though it may limit the recovery. Where the infringement was via the internet, some parties may be protected unless notified of the infringement in a formal manner.

Thanks for your input - all
The photo has been removed -
Appreicate everones help with this -
There is a lot of good information here.
Mike

That's why you put a translucent watermark on your photos. Easily done in any photo editing program. We get the benefit of seeing your work but anybody who wants to steal your photo will be advertising that it was stolen. Save a copy of the original, and make a copy with a water mark.

Your best bet when putting any photo in a public place is to 'brand it' Most photo editing software will allow you to take a black and white image, and use it to add/subtract intensity to another image to create your name, or logo in lightly frosted glass on your image. Place this so it is hard to crop out, but that it doesn't interfere with the subject of the print.

In addition, do a web search for exif, itpc editors. You can place your name/address IN the photo as a meta-tag.

Finally, always take multiple shots of something important. Most of us do anyway, just don't throw all the junk ones away. Having a bunch of similar shots is convincing evidence that you were the photographer.

Proving that a photo is your's, taking someone to court for infringement, getting them to pay you for your property or for damages is very expensive. You have to be the police force, the investigator, and the bill collector. It costs money. Even if your photo has a copyright and the infringement is easy to see it is not protected fully. High end software can easily get around any mark you put on a photo.

Sounds like yet another situation where all you have to have is a deficiency of ethics and The World is Your Oyster. If you don't mind stealing someone's pictures, then there is little reason not to.

Though I am primarily a book illustrator I also work as a graphic artist or commercial artist and plenty of times clients will include images that are obviously stolen from the web. Anything to save a dollar. I've even had them tell me to alter the image just enough to help it evade infringement! So don't ever put anything valuable on the web unless you have the $$ and time to chase after thieves. The track record of successful prosecution and payments to copyright holders is very poor so don't let anyone tell you that you can sue someone just because they took something that is yours.