While browsing through my city photos, I came across one of my star photos—the one that has always been my top-performing photo. To my surprise, I discovered that the same photo is now being credited to someone else.
It’s clear that this individual ([Maps profile link redacted] restricted profile) has stolen the photo. What’s more shocking is that this stolen photo is now being featured. It’s deeply disappointing that, despite such advanced algorithms and AI systems, issues like these go undetected.
My original photo was uploaded in 2019 and had garnered over 4 million views. However, this copied version was uploaded just last year.
Out of curiosity, I followed this person’s restricted profile to view his contributions. I discovered that he has stolen another one of my photos as well. His profile appears to be full of personal, irrelevant uploads to Google Maps, with hardly any valuable or genuine contributions. Clearly, he is a spammer and scammer.
[screenshot redacted]
Here is the link to his profile [Maps profile link redacted]. I believe this person should be banned, and all stolen content should be removed.
I even filed a legal copyright complaint. The process was long and complex, but unfortunately, the result was inconclusive.
Now I understand why my photo stopped receiving views—because someone else stole and re-uploaded it. What a shame.
Thanks @SholaIB for quick reply much appreciated.
I tried to tag and notify relevant people only. The matter has been due for week I had no other choice other than posting it here.
Thanks
Thank you for your tag, @Trail_blazer
I’m very sorry about your experience, and I hope it will be fixed soo.
A violation of the copyright is always a bad experience, but reposting the same photo in the same place, well, this is really bad, and discomforting.
Unfortunately the algorithm is not working as expected on this side, this is something I have reported tirelessly in the last seven years.
Hope one day Google will improve it.
No need to escalate it, @SholaIB , as a Google Moderator has been tagged here already.
Thanks @ErmesT for quick response.
I tried everything possible like reporting photos and profile as well. The profile is utter violation of policies I hope things will be taken care of from here.
Anyways apart from this I also have this question if reporting photos under various categories like irrelevant, not photo of this place, spam etc. does this kind of reporting work ? I always report this kind of stuff but I feel bad when I see it there even after months.
I asked the same question directly to the team 8 years ago, @Trail_blazer , and every year I raise it again and again.
I know that, with more than 500 million contributors, checking the photos on a proper way can require a lot of resources, but I really hope this situation will be improved soon.
In my country we can take a legal action for the use of copyrighted material. A stolen photo may cost up to 3000€ to the one who steal it.
I sympathise with you @Trail_blazer last year I had one of my photos stolen and I reported it using the copyright complaint and the Google team looked after it quickly. A few months ago I saw that the same guide had stolen a photo in the same plaza from another guide. I reported it but unable to use the copyright complaint nothing happened as it wasn’t my photo.
I mentioned it to @ErmesT and he he passed it on to the team. After reading this post today I checked and his photo was down. Of course his profile is private so I was unable to see how many more were stolen.
Glad to say ErmesT that the photo has been removed and hopefully that guide has been removed. Thank you ERmesT for this.
Be patient Trail.
This is first time I have seen this kind of stuff @TerryPG
But from this case I can easily say that it’s quite common. The guy literally replaced the the original content with stolen one. Most people with restricted profiles have suspicious contributions if you request a follow you will know the guy has literally zero contributions to maps just stolen content and personal, private photos nothing else yet AI preferred his profile and contribution that’s even more painful.
