Things I Learned From Courtney-Gate (Part One)

As many of you know, it came to my attention earlier this week that someone had stolen photos of Paprika off my blog and had been posting her image on another blog, calling her by the name Courtney. This person had even made up a different birthday for her and was portraying her as part of her family.

When the fake blog was shown to me, it made me ill. Physically ill. I think it may be one of those things that you have to see to really get the impact. It sounds weird when you hear about it, but everyone who actually saw the blog before it was taken down was sickened by it.

I don't want to say too much else about that part of it, because 1) I don't want to draw any more attention to the person who did this, and 2) for legal reasons.

Paprika's photos weren't the only ones used on the blog. There were photos of other children, as well. In the past week, we have found eachother (mostly through Facebook). We have been able to share information with eachother, which has been a great blessing.

I think it's best to move forward and talk about ways to prevent this from happening to others in the future.

Here are the lessons that I have learned this week that I'd like to pass on to each and every one of you!

1) Track who visits your blog:

The offending blog was found because a very wise woman kept great track of who visited her blog. She saw someone had come to her blog that seemed fishy, and she acted on that intuition. She was able to locate many of the parents whose children's photos had been stolen through some information she found on the offending blog. I am so grateful to her!

It turns out that tracking who visits your blog is rather easy. You can get a free tracker that you can install at one of these sites:

sitemeter
statcounter

You'd better believe, I use them both now.

2) Keep Your Real Name Off Your Blog

I will be the first to admit, I always thought it was really cheesy (maybe even paranoid?) when people used nicknames on their blog. I am not a cutesy person. But now, guess what...I'm using nicknames! At the very least, don't use your children's names.

When I started this blog way back when, I didn't know anyone who had a blog, and I never dreamed anyone besides me would read my blog. So I blogged using our real names. And after looking around online a bit the past few days, I realized I am so not alone in doing that!

If you have been blogging for awhile and you want to get your real names out of your blog, here is what you do (assuming you're in Blogger). I'm not a computer programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but here is what I did:

Go to your Settings Tab. Then stay on Basic. Then Click on Export Blog. The Save Your Blog to your computer. Then open it in either Notepad or Dreamweaver or something like that. Do a Find/Replace All on the words you want to change. Save it as a new version. Then go back to your blog. Delete all your old posts. Import your new version you saved. (You still have your original export in case you made a mistake).

Voila, your names have changed on your blog and you still have all your posts!


3) Watermark, Watermark, Watermark

I have to say, I have never been a big fan of watermarking photos. I have always thought it "ruined the image" and was unnecessary. For reasons I'll explain later, watermarking your photos is one of the best things you can do to protect your photos.

First, if your photos have a watermark on them, it will be much easier for someone to find you if they are stolen. Put your url on the watermark so if someone sees it, they can let you know.

Second, someone who might steal your photo otherwise will not want to take the time to crop out your watermark and will move onto an easier target (one who does not watermark).

I always thought making a watermark was difficult, but it's not. You will have to use Photoshop on your photos each time before you upload them to your blog, but I was already doing that anyway! There are many great online tutorials on how to make a watermark. One of these days when I get a spare sec I might make a tutorial myself. But for now, just use google and you will find lots of ways to waste a few hours and learn something new in the process!

You can also do an invisible watermark, which will not be visible on the image but will be embedded. For the purposes of deterring photo theft, and for letting others contact you should they see your photos on another site, a visible watermark is a good thing. Or, you can just do both!

4) Flikr/Photobucket

Upload your photos to Flikr (or a similar site like Photobucket) and make your settings private. That way when someone clicks on your photo, it doesn't open up big in the browser window. I was already uploading my photos to Flikr, but I have since increased my privacy settings.

Yes, uploading to Flikr takes an extra step. But once you get the hang of it, it's not too bad. You have to first upload to Flikr, and then you have to copy the html code into your blog (in the Edit HTML setting).

Here's how you do it:

After you have uploaded your photo to Flikr, click on it. Above the photo you will see a tab that says "All Sizes"- click on it. Scroll down to where is says "Copy and paste HTML into your webpage" and then copy/paste it into your blog post.

5) Add "No Right Click" To Your Blog

You can also disable the ability to "right click" on your blog. Of course, there are ways around it (as in ALL things). If you are using Flikr and have your settings set to private, this is one extra way to keep your photos from being easily stolen. Without uploading to Flikr first, this protection loses a bit of its effectiveness because a person can still click on your photo and have it open in a new window.

Here is how to disable "right click" saving on your blog:

Go to Customize> Layout> Page Elements and click "Add a Gadget" at the bottom of the page. You want to select HTML/JavaScript. Leave the title blank because the title will show up on your blog and we just want this to be invisible.

Type this code in the box ( Make sure you take out the X X in the code and put the name of your photography business):



6) Go To Law School or Make Friends With Someone Who Has!

As I said earlier, if someone really wants your photos, there are always ways around it. The goal is to avoid being an easy target. Nothing is perfect.

One thing going to law school has given me is the ability to sue people for free. Of course, I would never abuse that ability! If there's one thing this past week has taught me, it's that if someone is targeting my family, you'd better believe I will do everything in my power to protect them! I think every mom feels that way.

I have more to say, but Ginger just woke up and mommyhood calls...so those thoughts will have to wait for another day. (And yes, I will explain how I came up with those nicknames...soon!!!)

xoxo,
Erika