Tony,
after carefully reviewing all the great advice from you guys, I've decided to essentially do what David suggested:

1. send the owner a bill for "international advertising licensing" of the images. It will be substantial.

2. register all of the images from the National with the Library of Congress.

3. provide my lawyer with a copy of my original e-mail telling the owner that he had no right to use the images; a copy of my bill and cover letter; a copy of the owner's website with the images; a copy of 3 other websites where the owners are breeding to the dog and they've used the same photos.

If the owner doesn't pay the bill or at least negotiate a lower price, I'll take him to small claims court seeking a settlement of 3 times the licensing bill. I will also contact his ISP and notify them that he is using pirated images on his website. They are required to remove his site according to federal law.

That's about all I can do. And, in this case, I hope I get his attention. I'll let you know how it plays out.

Jim

Jim
It should be a slam dunk in small claims court because all your lawyer has to do is ask the thief for a license of useage and when the thief can not produce a license, you will get your judgment. Then you get to try to collect.

Good Luck and I hope it all goes well for you.

Good luck with your decision. I will be looking for the response.

Just a note on how oganizations are working to prevent theft. As a member of a national photo group, I worked on a commitee that went into national chains that produced photographs. We were to give them a print to copy that was clearly copyright marked. No matter what they do, we were to follow through and report back on the results. We all had the same chains at the same time.

Then the attorneys would contact the chains like Walmart, Office Max....etc
and explain in big money terms about how what they were doing was illegal.
Unfortuatley, many of the machines people are now using do not need a human action.

I guess with digital a clever person could copy anything. I would first have my printed releases, that I give the customer and have him sign, stating the proofs are not for any reproduction. The signed release agreement should be enough to scare them away from stealing and if not, good for any lawsuit. I have found that sending a release form to sign and have them return it, has solved any potential problems for me so far. I have pdf versions of all my releases that I can type in the clients name and details. I can either send an email one and have them print and snailmail it back or have a printed out copy for them to sign.

I would use a pdf (Adobe Acrobat PDF maker software) with copy and print protection on it for sending proofs to the client to view. If they are clever they could make a screen capture of the photo but you could also have your copyright notice splashed across the photo, also make the photo fairly small.

Sarah,
good suggestions but maybe not practical for the type of work I do. For a typical All-Breed Show, I'll send out multiple proofs to some 400 people. In a weekend, that's 2 shows and 800 people. To include releases and expect to be able to handle the administrative piece of sending, receiving and filing is simply not practical.

As for the type of proofs, I've sent small. I've sent larger with screened copyright info over the image. I've sent large with copyright. I've sent large without copyright.

When they're small, people can't see them. When they are larger but with screened copyright info, folks can't see the expression of the dog/handler/judge. If large with copyright, it always goes over something they want to see. If no copyright, they scan and steal.

I believe that on-line proofing is the realistic solution but there is the reality that (believe it or not) not everyone has a computer or is web-literate. So, what do you do for those folks?

Creating more process for me is not the right answer. My time is money (or actually it's cost). I need a solution that minimizes my administrative costs while maintaining the number of orders I now get.

Jim

Jim, what about proofs with small non-intrusive name with copyright and date on the proof and on the back print out a small legal statement. I know it would entail double printing but might scare off a few of the thieves.
Alternatively: enclosing a small printed legal statement about not using proofs for reproduction and violators will be prosecuted. This shouldn't take much extra time or resources.

Anything you do will probably take some extra work and expense. I really have no foolproof suggestions for you. Even taking violators to small claims court is a big hassle and loss of time and money.

I hope you can figure something out to stop this problem

Sarah,
I actually have put a legal statement on the back of proofs using labels which is not all that time-intensive because I can print out the labels during my down time.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. And I fear it's going to get worse. Folks with camera phones think they're photographers. Many people have no appreciation for what professionals bring to the process of creating decent images whether it's of dogs or of the Grand Canyon.

If people don't value what you do, they won't pay for it. And if they think it's OK to simply take images off of websites -- or music, movies, TV shows, etc. -- then they'll steal anything without having any qualms.

Sorry if I sound cynical. But when things are easy to do, people do it. Especially if it means getting something for nothing.

Meanwhile, all we can do is continue to try to produce a superior product and go find people who value it.

Jim