Facebook user furious at photo piracy

Nic Fletcher says he is 'disturbed' by the theft and commercial use of his photo. Photo / Richard Robinson

An internet user says his image was stolen from his Facebook page and used in an advertisement on the internet.

Nic Fletcher - a piercing artist from the Illicit shop on Karangahape Rd known for suspending himself from his body piercings - said he was "shocked and angered" to find a photo he had loaded on to his profile a week earlier was promoting a website promising to test IQ for $3.

He said a colleague alerted him to the picture piracy on Saturday.

Since then he has contacted the operators of the IQ test demanding they remove his stolen image.

In a series of emails, the website failed to acknowledge it had stolen his image, and instead offered to unsubscribe Mr Fletcher from the site.

While he understands that by signing up to Facebook his profile information became the property of Facebook and there was a risk of theft, Mr Fletcher is furious that his face is being used for commercial gain.

Had the IQ testing website asked him, he would have refused to be the face for it, he said.

"I am more than a little disturbed that this internet giant sees fit to steal private photos," he said.

Copyright expert Kirsten Ferguson, a senior solicitor at Rainey Collins Lawyers, said the issue of internet user rights to intellectual property was usually dependent on the underlying terms of use for each website.

Facebook did not respond to the Herald's request for comment, but in its terms and conditions on the website, the company warns that all content on the site is the "proprietary property of the company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved".