Unfortunately it seems that some peafowl breeders are using photos of other people's peafowl to sell their own birds.
For the most part I see very small peafowl breeders that I have never heard of taking photos from large scale, well known peafowl breeders and using them as their own photos. A common peafowl breeder that people seem to like to steal photos from is Sid of Texaspeafowl. I have also been contacted by someone trying to sell me peafowl and they sent me pictures all from Tart Peafowl. When I replied to them saying they stole those photos from Tart Peafowl's website, they never replied back. There are other examples out there certainly of people using other people's peafowl photos to sell their own birds.
Now comes my own story of my photos being taken. Have you noticed that the photos on this site say "www.bamboopeacock.com"? I put that on my photos and peafowl illustrations because all of a sudden after having this site up on the world wide web, I started seeing my photos being used elsewhere. I understand that if you put something on the internet you should be ready to see it in other places, but I say that people should at least show some respect in crediting the original photographer, and not only that, but the ACTUAL owner of the bird. Recently I was inspired to write this article, because someone found an add on craigslist for a yearling peacock. The poster had attached 3 photos. 2 of the photos were my photos, but one of them even had my website mark on it! Now the poster has removed that photo, I guess they realized they were giving me free advertising. They still have the other, unmarked photo of mine up.
So you may ask, why is this so bad? Well, it is miss-representation. You, as the buyer, want to know what the actual bird you are buying looks like so you can be sure that it is not sick, a different variety then the seller states, etc. You would assume that the seller would easily be able to show photos of the actual bird. Just think about it. In today's world you can take pretty good photos with your phone. Even if you can't, you have friends and family who can do it for you.
So why do some people use other people's photos? Well, to make themselves look better! Maybe they have poor quality peafowl. Perhaps their pens are messy. Or they want to trick you and they are hoping that you do recognize the photos as some large breeder's photos and they are then hoping that you are assuming that you are buying from said large peafowl breeder. What doesn't make sense to me is I found a website where this person had tons of photos that were not theirs. Then there was a video on their website showing their actual birds and pens featured on the news. Their birds were pretty, and their pens were decent looking. So in that case it makes no sense not to represent your own birds. If a peafowl breeder is not willing to show photos of their own birds, that is a red flag and you should walk away.
Just because I have my photos watermarked with my website, does not mean that people won't still use them. I have come to realize that. BUT that still does not mean that I find the unauthorized use of my photos to sell someone else's peafowl or to represent their own peafowl acceptable. I DO NOT appreciate this. All I can say is that I am the photographer of the photos on here, and I am the owner of the birds and the photos on this site.
An interesting point though that a BYC member brought up is that:
"If you use Google chrome you can right click a picture to search if a picture is elsewhere on the web."
Another BYC member said this:
"It's illegal to use anyone's photos unless they give you permission to use them. It is a copyright violation. When a person takes a picture they are granted immediate copyright of that photo."
So please, be honest, be thoughtful, and represent your own birds with photos of your own birds, not using photos of someone else. If you do those things, you will earn the respect of not only your buyers, but both large and small peafowl breeders and you will set a good example for them.
