I Googled my name and found 4 Chinese websites with images of a product that I designed. I only released the images though Coroflot. Now all the websites have given my name to give credit for it, but still…seems wrong to hijack the images off of the Coro page without permision from me or Coroflot. What gets me is that the 3 images I posted are the ones being shown so I know they hijacked them and they have their own website logo/address on the photos as if it was their property. I have contacted Coroflot to let them know what’s going on and I tried to contact them but they are Chinese and I don’t know how the hell to send them an email in Chinese. Any help or advice is appreciated. Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered they think it’s an interesting piece, but for the love of Mike ask me first!!!
I can help you translate the emails, but … what do you expect to achieve?
If they are decent, they would have asked you for permission to begin with.
Metalman,
There is no cultural basis in Chine for the idea that someone can own an Idea, Image, Design, etc… In the west we started intellectual property protection in Venice hundreds of years ago. China has only had this thrust upon them in the past 20-30 years.
I know of an Industrial Design magazine in China that regularly takes articles from IDSA’s innovation and other magazines around the world and reprints them without requesting permission.
I know this is not an acceptable answer to our way of thinking, but it is the answer. Also, good luck stopping this anytime soon. Saying it is “wrong” does not make it wrong in their eyes.
hhhhhmmmm…
same is the case with my products too…
guess how i got to know?..i googled my name ! 
More than 30 websites (from china, germany…etc etc) who have showcased my design… (i am flattered!)…and the last thing i expected…i have got an award too…hahahahahahahaha.
Check out my web publications at : http://www.differentialdesign.blogspot.com
I remember a Russian website had some photos of mine for awhile. Their website is no longer operating though…I guess my designs were just that bad! Anyways…
When you post anything on the internet, consider all control gone. Think of all the images posted on Core. They are hyperlinks, cut and paste. As long as the web is free and open, it will be a wild west where nothing is 100% secure. I say, “Live free or die”.
Haha, I just googled my name, and suddenly, I see my project on 4 or 5 different gadget sites/blogs. Basically, I gave permission to one site to use my project image, and therefore these leechers used the same image conveniently. I don’t mind though. Some of them are french!
Surprisingly I requested to have them removed and a formal request be sent to me. One of the sites actually removed my page…Sorry this page no longer exists…Now if they send me a request, I’d be more than happy to send them the proper image.
Same thing happened to me. I guess there’s nothing you can do to avoid it.
I wrote to this Chinese site but never got a reply.
Anyway, if they give you credit and point to your site, there should be no problem.
In my case, the product was the result of teamwork, but they only gave credits to me because it was taken from my portfolio. That wasn’t nice.
Just be sure about what you publish and maybe include a watermark.