Yahoo Steals Photo From Flickr (?)

Flickr has been heaven for copyright violaters and photography thieves for quite some time now.. There are numerous stories on how someone's pic got stolen and was used by all the way from I-cant-shoot-good-but-I-cant-steal-and-show-off-online type of guys, to ad agencies and newspapers of national and international repute.. But who would have guessed something like this happening, or did someone? Yesterday, when I into the Yahoo mail ID, I saw a pic of a pug in one of the advertisement links.. After seeing the loads of dog pics day in and day out from the CUPA dog show that Bangalore Weekend Shoots/BWS (online Flickr group) attended recently, I thought I must be mistaken but that photo looked too familiar.. So thought would check it out starting with the BWS group pool itself then if I dont find it maybe check out individual pools of the photogs who attended the shoot that day. Anyway, I didnt have to search far.. A couple of pages down in the group pool, and I found the photo here http://www.flickr.com/photos/muttly/2663009361/

Click here to see the screenshot of the Yahoo page that I uploaded to Zooomr. The ad link directed to Yahoo Music site.

Can you believe Yahoo stealing directly from its own website (Flickr)? Do note that the photograph is copyrighted and tagged All Rights Reserved so Yahoo has no right of using the photograph anywhere. Even if Flickr is a Yahoo Co., the Copyright still belongs to the photographer. Yahoo does use Flickr images on its Flickr sign-in page but those are under Creative Commons licence. And yes, I did check with the photographer, Prabhu, who happens to be my friend, and he denied having given usage rights of this photo to anyone.. So, there you have it.. Wonder what explanation Yahoo can give for this one..

-------------------------------------------------

I wrote the above entry in my blog yesterday.. I did login to my mail again today and though I F5'd a couple of times, I couldn't see the ad again today.. Today, as an afterthought, what baffles me is the quality of the pic in the ad was such low quality but the Flickr photo is of high quality.. Plus no mention of Yahoo Music anywhere on the photo despite the fact that the link pointed to that site. What sort of ad has a totally unrelated picture with no mention of the site its pointing to? Freak technical accident? Perhaps and quite possible but how?