LaLa.com Stole My Photo

That's my Angels & Airwaves photo being used illegally on the A&A page on lala.com. They appropriated my photo from Flickr despite it clearly being labeled "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED."

Why do companies jump through all the music related copyright hoops and then go to Flickr and steal photos?

Are photo-related copyrights somehow less important?

I think not.

I suppose they think linking back to my Flickr photo lets them off the hook, but they are wrong. All Rights Reserved means exactly that.

The thing that really burns me up about this is by using this image, they could be getting me into a ton of trouble. Many times bands make me sign a contract that states I will not use the photos I take for commercial gains or reuse them on other sites, and by Lala.com stealing my photo, they are doing just that.

If you wonder why less and less of my work is ending up on Flickr, now you know.

A huge tip of the hat to the lovely Kathryn Yu (one of the best photographers around) for giving me the heads up.

**UPDATE** - A few hours after this post went up Lala.com has taken down all the artist photos on their site. The Modern Age, a fellow victim, has a much more eloquent take on the whole matter. There is also a very long Flickr thread about this whole situation. I was lucky, they only stole one of my photos. They stole 17 photos from Kathryn Yu. 17!