MLG Copyright Infringement - Page 3

I don't normally browse Reddit, but when I do I don't expect to see a major North American ESPORTS tournament organization blatantly infringing my copyright.

In August of last year, I went to MLG Anaheim and I brought my camera along. I had lots of fun and learned how to use that camera while discovering a passion for taking photographs of progamers and fans of ESPORTS, something that has really made me feel a part of the community. I've gone on to cover a number of other events and always brought my coverage of said events here to Team Liquid. You can find that in the blogs that I have composed over the past few months.

Now, among the photos I took that MLG Anaheim weekend was this one of Sheth:




Imagine my horror when I browse Reddit /r/starcraft and I click on an innocuous looking thread title, "Good or Evil?," and see this:



That is clearly my photograph, reversed, and used without permission on an MLG pay-per-view broadcast.

How did this happen? I have a theory. In the past, one ESPORTS organization, Liquipedia, asked me for PERMISSION to use that photograph on Sheth's Liquipedia page.

--- Log opened Sun Feb 12 18:33:16 2012
18:33 -!- Irssi: Starting query in QuakeNet with Koorb
18:33 <Koorb> Hi there itsjustatank are you here?
20:23 <justatank|bnc> yes
20:23 <itsjustatank> whats up
20:24 <Koorb> Hi there! I was looking for a good picture depicting Sheth, 
and I found this one, which if I'm correct is yours: 
wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/File:Sheth_at_MLG_Anaheim.jpg
20:25 <itsjustatank> yeah
20:25 <Koorb> And I wondered if you were confortable with me uploading it on the wiki?
20:25 <itsjustatank> yeah, that rezie looks weird though
20:25 <itsjustatank> resize*
20:25 <itsjustatank> did you keep the aspect ratio
20:26 <Koorb> I just cropped the upper side, 
maybe your browser need to refresh the page without the cache?
20:27 <itsjustatank> oh that's why
20:28 <itsjustatank> well id kinda prefer the uncropped version but that's just taste
20:41 <itsjustatank> dl.dropbox.com/u/12650804/pics/IMGP1160.jpg
20:42 <itsjustatank> this is at 1000px longest side
20:42 <itsjustatank> how big do you need it
20:42 <itsjustatank> or small
20:42 <Koorb> I'd say, around 400px wide
20:43 <itsjustatank> ok
20:43 <itsjustatank> dl.dropbox.com/u/12650804/pics/IMGP1160.jpg
20:43 <itsjustatank> there it ids
20:43 <itsjustatank> is*
20:43 <Koorb> Looks great, thanks a lot!
20:44 <itsjustatank> no problem

My theory is that MLG just looked up Sheth on Liquipedia, found my photograph adorning it, clicked it, ignored this...



... downloaded the photo, put it through Photoshop to reverse and resize it, and aired it.

MLG, if you can charge the ESPORTS community $20 dollars to view a pay-per-view stream with no free option, you can certainly pay an employee to ask me for permission to use my photographs. Because it was to be used on a pay-per-view basis, and because you are obviously a for-profit enterprise, we would have worked out an acceptable licensing fee or you would have chosen perhaps not to use my photograph after all.

The fact is, however, that you didn't go through the proper legal and ethical channels in putting on production for MLG Winter Arena. I couldn't afford to buy your product this weekend because I've been out of work for a while now, so I wasn't able to see whether or not you pirated any other of my photographs; I can only rely on screencaps from Reddit, I guess.