Image Theft in the Event Industry

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Event design is, by nature, a collaborative art. If you read through this blog, you'll notice that we often share the task of creating a great event design with florists, DJs, caterers, and entertainment companies. 

We want to share our work with our readers, so we credit the other vendors involved with links, credits and thank yous. Even though the primary goal of this site is to share our own work, we're also happy to share the work of the vendors with whom we collaborate, and promote them in the process. We deeply appreciate when other vendors do the same.

The only times that we truly take offense to the sharing of our images is when other companies use our photos in their own marketing materials when they had nothing to do with the event. 

Here is a photo of our work that we've loved and shared for several years:

Fire and Ice decor and lighting by Eggsotic Events • Crystal Plaza, Livingston NJ  • Photography by Egil Matiss

Fire and Ice decor and lighting by Eggsotic Events • Crystal Plaza, Livingston NJ  • Photography by Egil Matiss

This photo was taken by Egil, the owner of Eggsotic Events, at a bat mitzvah at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston, New Jersey. Eggsotic Events designed and produced the event. Our services for this event include:

• Planning and Consultation
• Floral centerpieces
• Table linen rentals
• Lounge furniture rentals
• Glowing furniture rentals
• Bar stool rentals
• Crystal columns with LED uplights
• Truss columns with realistic artificial flames
• LED uplighting around the room perimeter
• Flame lighting projections on ceiling
• Laser projection throughout room

Also, we set up this room in a very short period of time. There was an afternoon event before this evening event, so we had approximately one hour to make the room look the way you see it above. We worked very hard to create this event design, so it was very frustrating to find so many companies claiming this event as their own.

We found out that a company was using this photo in their marketing materials, and taking credit for it as their work. That led to us exploring further and finding several other companies using it as well.

Elite Entertainment - San Jose, California

This company took the theft of our image the farthest. Not only is it prominently featured on their website; it's also used on third-party sites where they have vendor listings.

Dragon Talent Agency and Event Studios - Las Vegas, Nevada

San Jose AV Rentals

CRE8AD8 (Create A Date) - San Antonio, Texas

EMO Ltd - Bristol & London, UK

Sound Stage and Lighting Hire - South Africa

How to Find Out if Your Images Have Been Stolen

All of these sites were found quite easily, and they are all from just one of our images. To see if other vendors have stolen your photos for their own marketing use, do a reverse image search through Google.

• Go to google.com, click Images in the top right corner, then click the camera icon in the search bar.
• Paste a URL of the photo, or drag and drop the photo onto the search area.
• Google will automatically find sites that use that image. If you have the image shared on Pinterest, then Pinterest will come up many times in the listings. 

We are sending cease and desist letters to all of the companies shown above and their sites will be removed from this post once they comply.

Thank you for reading and we hope that this helps other hard-working companies protect their work online.