Frischling's Opinion on People Who Blatantly Steal

Someone linked to this in a comment. It's Frischling chiming in on a 2007 discussion about a woman complaining that a guy was defaming her for stealing his website design.

Read this and tell us if this isn't ironic commentary from a guy facing felony charges for larceny and forgery, and who is trying to excuse his own theft by bashing the people he stole from?

Sep 24th 2007 7:42 pm

Get past the emotion of the original poster seeking sympathy. She is not the victim here, she is the perpetrator. She has not been wronged, she has wronged someone and is now seeking to feel better about it. What she did is wrong and she'd rather go to bed feeling good about herself than bad about herself. Well it ain't gonna happen.

Followed by:

Sep 25th 2007 6:31 am

So to recap, the OP knowingly posted up a web site, regardless of who designed it, with the following

-Stolen custom web page design
-Stolen photographic images
-Plagiarised text in regard to who she is an her experience (even leaving another photogs name in the text)
-Misrepresented herself to her potential clients
-Joined a web forum to simply cry foul when she is the perpetrator
-Joined a web forum to try and defame the victim
-Is unapologetic for her actions

I am shocked at the reaction by this forum. You all think this is OK? You see no problem with lifting intellectual property simply because it is online? Intellectual property is big business, just ask Bill Gates or Mark Getty.

Look past the forced emotion of the "girl crying victim" and look at what she has done. Look at the undisputed facts. Do not defend her actions.


Theft is theft. Deceiving clients about your images and your abilities is wrong. Not saying "sorry" and making the situation is wrong. She fanned the flames and Neil is defending his property legally and intelligently.

Even in her follow up post she comes off as the victim. She implies that she has been wronged. She seems to completely miss the fact that she had the opportunity to back down and apologize to the person that she stole from. She keeps viewing the actual victim of her actions as the perpetrator and that is not how the world works

Instead of doing the right thing ethically, morally and professionally, the OP came here to drum up support for herself. I won't let her do that and I won't let her trash a colleague. Especially a well respected one.

-Steven Frischling
www. fishfotoworldwide. com
fish @ fishfotoworldwide. com


PS: You would NOT seek a personal injury lawyer for defamation of character. Also a copyright lawyer would not tell you that you have a case against your victim. The evidence against you is overwhelming. I am sure you did not present the evidence to the lawyer to try and make yourself look favourable though. At some point he would have seen the evidence and informed you to drop it. None the less, a personal injury attorney is for physical injury, such as an auto accident, industrial accident or any accident where your physical being is in need medical treatment.

Sep 25th 2007 8:00 am

But that's not all... someone complained that new posters in the thread had no knowledge of digital media. So Frischling chimes in with these blatant lies about his accomplishments, which if true would make him an amazing pioneer in digitization:

In 1998 I was integral in converting the Discovery Channel Online to an all digital format with the creation of the DCO's Picture of the Day project. Most people were not stealing photos online yet. But the DCO was area of the issue and was already trying to disable "right click" theft.

From 1999 to 2001 I oversaw the conversion of five daily newspapers from film to digital and had a heavy hand in the implementation of the online presentation of the images from the papers being placed online. The parent company aggressively pursued a few of the image thefts. One by a major corporation and another by a political candidate. The publisher of one paper wrote an editorial on the candidate stealing photos on the day the candidate came to town to stump for office. That was obviously done in the public eye.

From 2001 to 2004 I was responsible for the full digital conversion from film to digital of an NCAA Division I university's athletics department. In this role I dealt with the online placement and digital distribution of the university's 20+ NCAA Div I teams. Theft was a huge problem. The university didn't go after students who stole images for personal sites, but they went after other online venues, such as those who stole images to resell them, those who used the images to try and make a financial gain from the images, and a sponsor of the team who used the image on the back of more than 30 of their regional delivery trucks (I know the details of that one as the company stole five images, all five were mine and I was party to settlement).

In the winter of 2002 I lead a team of photographers that switched the Olympic Committee into digital photography during the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. We were the first to provide real daily coverage of the games for the Olympic Committee, without the IOC needing to rely on news agencies to provide imagery. Many of these images were "lifted" and the IOC went after everyone they found using stolen images with a very heavy legal hand.

In 2005 I oversaw the direct digital conversion of five international business magazines, and peripherally implemented the digital conversion of a dozen other magazines owned by the same corporation. In this role I helped changed the use of photography in both print and the online publications. I also had to handle the rights management issues of the images from around two dozen sources each week to make sure we weren't stealing anyone's images.

Along the way I have also worked with other corporations, two pro sports leagues and a few colleges in helping them switch to digital and better using their visual assets online.

So I am well aware of online image theft. I am also equally aware of many companies that have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds/euros in the process of trying to steal copyrighted images. Additionally I am also aware people make mistakes and that at times out of court settlements are made as well.

To think we are ignorant because we are photographers is completely incorrect. Take a look at my web site and look at the companies I deal with as a photographer, it might give you some further insight to my base of knowledge.


-Steven Frischling
www. fishfotoworldwide. com
fish @ fishfoto.com

Happy Lying!