So, a few weeks ago I signed up for luuux.com. I forgot about it and logged back on today. I googled a little bit about it, and found that a lot of bloggers were really upset because people were taking other bloggers' images and profiting from them.
If you don't know what Luuux is, you blog on the site and receive points for your activity for which you can redeem for prizes (really nice things like iPods and Louboutins, etc). I'll admit, I was excited at the prospect of winning things. I figured, hey, I'm a blogger, I have some nice pics... I should get some traffic on my account. The site rewards the winners for each day/week/month (people who have the most activity on their posts). When I was researching, I found that a lot of bloggers were irritated about the lack of controlling what people post on the site. You can upload anything -- even if it's not yours.
So upon browsing through past winners, sure enough, someone used my picture of my dandelion nails and won points for it. Which really really upsets me because this person is essentially receiving money (ie points to put towards prizes) for using MY pictures and MY design. They have our watermark on them for crying out loud!
I just don't think it's fair that people can just freely use other peoples' images, put a source in the credit bar (or not!) and still get credit for it. Even if you credit me for the design, it's still unfair that you're benefiting from something you didn't even do. It really makes me not even want to put anything out there anymore if people are going to steal my pictures and profit from them. I'm trying to shut down my account but I can't even figure out how to do that.
I realize I should've researched this more before I signed up for it, but I was excited and it seemed interesting. And even if I hadn't signed up, my images would still be on there without proper credit. I mean, it says right on the image that it's from here and people can't even credit the right website. Now the more I think about it, the more I think it's unfair and a scam. People want points so they'll post things that aren't even theirs.
Am I wrong in being frustrated about this? Opinion?
Thursday, September 8, 2011
7 comments:
We love hearing from you and read every one of your comments! Leave a comment below :) We request that you do not post links to your blog in the comment section. If you want us to check out your blog, please send us an email at mad.manis@yahoo.com. Comments with links will, regretfully, be removed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Amanda, you're right! That's really messed up. It's happened to me as well and I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I get, especially when I put a lot if work into preparing my pics!! I've never used Luuux but I'm sure as hell not gona use it now!
ReplyDeleteI'm on luuux, but use all of my own images. You're right though, there are several users who use other peoples images and don't even properly list where they found the image. I've seen your dandelion nails on there a dozen and three times. Contact the user AND a moderator and let them know you want your image from a particular post removed and they will make sure it is taken down and generally if they don't take down the image, they'll lose the points they gained for that post.
ReplyDeleteThat is so messed up, I try to recreate some of your designs on my nails but I would never steal your picture. Terrible! You are right, it is not fail and luuux should moderate it more carefully.
ReplyDeleteSo do people that can post on Luuux only use pics that are uploaded to the site or pics from anywhere on the internet?
ReplyDelete@Pixie -- I saw that a lot of your posts won... that's how it should be! I'd have no problem with the site if people made their own blog posts.
ReplyDelete@Amber -- Yes, people can make blog posts about anything, so they can put up any pictures they find online and win points for them.
Wow that is my worst fear as a blogger. I wish Blogger would make a way to protect photos uploaded to blogs!
ReplyDeletei HATE luuux and have had this happen to me a zillion times. i just have tried to block it out because it disgusts me too much. i've tried and won a few times to get stuff removed but far more times my objections go ignored by the user and the moderators.
ReplyDelete