I just found one of my photos from National Gardening Association being used online by a business marketing their flowers with my photo. I thought that our images were protected from this happening. On one hand, it's nice to see that my photo was considered good enough to market their product, but on the other hand, the company did not get my permission. Do we need to place copyright information on our images when we download them? What are my rights and how do I prevent this is the future?

It helps to put the copyright info on your photo (some crooks will crop it off). When you upload your images to the site, choose "All rights reserved" when entering info. I looked at a few of your photos and it looks like you did that, or maybe it is the default. It appears your photo was illegally used and you can contact the perp and ask that they remove it. Most cooperate from what hear.

A lot of folks on the dahlia thread have recently had their photos stolen. It doesn't make it right, but most of the companies removed the image(s) as soon as the NGA member contacted them (as Connie suggested).

Johannian said: A lot of folks on the dahlia thread have recently had their photos stolen. It doesn't make it right, but most of the companies removed the image(s) as soon as the NGA member contacted them (as Connie suggested).

Thank you for your responses. I have always checked the box about copyright protection when I post photos. I have seen some of the photos when I GOOGLED the plants names after posting them but it has always indicated the photos are from NGA, whick is good. This was the first time I have had a problem. I have now notified ETSY of the problem and asked them to have the company from Sri Lanka remove my photo. Thanks for your help, everyone.

You should also contact the seller directly. Tell them you have already contacted Etsy so they should remove it ASAP.

Out of curiosity, I checked for rose images on Etsy (I always forget that there are plant sellers on there too) I usually make sweeps for my most popular rose photos a couple of times a year.
I found 2 of my photos, complete with my name on them, they didn't even bother to crop that out. Seller is selling rose seeds. Some are wonderfully photoshopped, such magical colors, such talent!
I messaged him to remove my images.

This happened to me more than once. I contacted the seller of the plant (it was in an ETSY shop in the UK) and asker her to remove it, she did. More recently, I found that a Youtuber has used a segment of an entire THREAD from this NGA site with my screen name in a video he did on his plant channel.

Mine were removed this morning. And despite saying their shop is in CA, I suspect it's actually overseas.

Gina1960 said: This happened to me more than once. I contacted the seller of the plant (it was in an ETSY shop in the UK) and asker her to remove it, she did. More recently, I found that a Youtuber has used a segment of an entire THREAD from this NGA site with my screen name in a video he did on his plant channel.

Did you talk to the Youtuber about it? Any results?

Calif_Sue said: Mine were removed this morning. And despite saying their shop is in CA, I suspect it's actually overseas.

Glad that you got a resolution to your situation. I don't like to put my copyright on the photos that I post because it detracts from the flowers, but I will in the future. Also, unfortunately, I will assume that if I post anything in the future, it can be used by someone without my permission. It would be difficult to find every instance that this happens. Thanks again for your helpful comments.