Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Dubai Real Estate Agents STEAL photos from Forums for their own use

You know the really cool thing about the Internet (apart from this blog) is that little people can have a big impact on many people all over the world. By little people I mean the ordinary Tom,Dick and Harry (or is it Hari?) on the street who dedicates his time and effort to a passion which then becomes an Internet site and gives much pleasure and help to many.

One such site is SkyScraprerCity.com ok it seem's on the outset to be a "Big Buildings geeks" guide to the world of errm Big Buildings but delve a little deeper and you find a vibrant community discussing property investment , Architecture and all sorts of other sutff. I have been using this site for nearly a year now mainly the UAE Forum section as it is geared towards my area of the world, it provides the BEST bar NONE construction updates to the massive building boom in Dubai with pictures. If you want to buy in Dubai look here first ask for advice and you will get it , if you have already bought in Dubai and want to know how far your new home as progressed look here they will even have pictures of the building work all very up to date.

These very same pictures are now causing a stir on the forums and I hope further a field. For every building in "Dubai Real Estate" there is about 10 agents trying to flog apartments to people , and they all want cool pictures of construction progression to show clients especially those abroad, I mean i wouldn't make a payment on my property if i thought the construction had stopped. So what do the bigger estate agents do? Yes you guessed it they STEAL the photos from this forum and post them on their own site without any credit to the original photographers who are just normal "little" people taking photos for the love of it and not for commercial gain. Some estate agents such as GoWealthy (one of the biggest) proudly display photos stolen from the forum along side awards thy have got for their great work, they even watermark them so no one can steal the photos off their site, clever thinking sherlock.

The main perpetrates of this theft are :

GOWEALTHY and BETTER HOMES " Real Estate Dubai " , notice no links to their websites I don't want to give them any traffic.

For more info on this incident please visit the Thread on the forum and read their open message to the real estate companies.

I'm tired im off to bed to sleep I know I will sleep well tonight as for these kind of unscruplios pepople I have NO IDEA how they could get a good nights sleep at all.

If you want to help please email : editor@gowealthy.com and Click Here for the Better Homes Contact form and ask them why their site is using pictures from a SkyScraperCity.com.

Source:http://www.thedubailife.com/index.php/main/blog/real_estate_agents_steal_photos_from_forums_for_their_own_use

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