We've shown recently that there are things we can do to limit picture theft, so it's folly just to resign ourselves to it as if it is inevitable.

After recent pressure from FF members, Curvage has now removed a thread on their site containing many stolen pictures, and added a take-down request form to the bottom of every page.

You're right that the safest way of all is not to upload pictures in the first place, but then there would be no FF or Curvage. What we're trying to do is minimize the amount of theft by making it as difficult and awkward for the thieves as possible.

"© 2014" seems to be the general consensus, so we'll go with that.

As stated, the copyright symbol may be some deterrent, but won't stop the pics being stolen by determined users. However, even if the image is cropped to remove the symbol it may make it easier to get pics removed from other sites. If you send a copy of the original to the web-master, they will be able to see that efforts were made to protect the copyright and that the picture was not just uploaded to the public domain.

In regards to the recent controversy about picture theft, I see some of you have started adding a copyright watermark to some of your pictures.

It is possible to add a feature to the website that automatically adds a copyright sign to the bottom of your your picture. Perhaps something like:

© username, fantasyfeeder.com

Do you think this would help prevent theft? How would you feel about a feature like this?

I'm locking this thread because we now have the attention of the Curvage webmaster and it's only fair to give him time to respond.

Curvage is not an enemy of FF and the two websites share many of the same users, so the aim isn't to destroy Curvage since that would be a great loss to many or our members. I have full confidence that this will be resolved amicably.

We allow them to advertise because it helps with our running costs, however the issue of them systematically stealing photos from this website has been taken very seriously indeed.

I have contacted the Curvage webmaster on behalf of all of you asking for the thread to be removed and steps to be put in place to prevent your pictures being stolen in the future. He is currently in the process of looking into copyright 'fair use' law and considering his options. Obviously if they need to change their policy on where their pics come from then this could have quite wide ranging implications for their website.

If you are angry enough about your pictures being stolen then now is the time for each of you to contact the Curvage webmaster - while he's making his decision. The more pressure we can put on him then the more likely he is to remove the thread and prevent pictures being stolen from here in the future.

The webmaster at Curvage has the usename SuperJ707 and the guy that seems to be stealing most of the pics has the username Heart & Mind.

Please direct your anger at the perpetrators - not those trying to help.

There are a few unscrupulous members from other websites that are systematically lifting pictures from this site and posting them elsewhere.

They have taken the view that since you have made material available on the web and not explicitly tried to protect your copyright, there is an implied license for them to use your pics as they see fit and that your pics are now in the public domain.

I strongly disagree with this view for the following reasons:

* It is the law in most Western countries that your copyright is protected by default, so you don't have to explicitly protect your copyright.
* This website automatically tries to protect your content by only making it available to registered members, and disabling the right-click -> save as browser feature on view pic pages. Therefore it would be difficult to argue that the content was made freely available.
* The content owners are known and in most cases easily contactable on this website, yet very rarely are owners ever asked permission for their content to be used.

Therefore, anyone posting your pics on other websites is blatantly breaking copyright law, so there is something you can do about it. As a first step I would contact the website owner and ask for the pics to be removed. In most cases your pics will be removed without question, since generally they realize that their website could be shut down if too many complaints are made against them. If this doesn't work they a complaint to their Internet Service Provider should do the trick, although to be fair this should be a last resort.