The popular website known as Photo Stealers has been taken down amidst a legal dispute brought about by, yep, an alleged photo stealer. The website had been active since 2012 and was instrumental in identifying and policing ‘faux-tographers’ that were using other people’s work to advertise to clients or win competitions.

“RIP Photo Stealers,” wrote owner Corey Ann on Facebook. “I fought the good fight, but in the end thieves win.”

Fake copyright claims

Corey Ann goes into more detail, to explain that her website got taken down by the website hosting company Hostgator. According to the same post, Corey Ann claims that a ‘photographer’ called Larry/AEllis (he goes by several names), whom Corey outed as an alleged photo stealer, issued what Corey claims is a fake copyright claim on the images that he himself had reportedly stolen.

“Larry/AEllis successfully got my site taken down with a fake copyright claim on the images he stole. HostGator, shame on you. I even complied by taking down the photos named in the email but they still deleted the website. Now I have to have a court order to restore the site,” Corey Ann wrote in a comment.

Jan 15, 2024:@NewfoldDigital served with a digital takedown notice for a website with 10+ years of IP theft. 20+ instances were cited.

No response, no action. Federal Law Violated.

Violations & thefts on cited page now exceed 150. +10 years of pages, hundreds of other victims. pic.twitter.com/IVkwtbQfOR

— AEllis | Art by D'Artisan (@SeasideBoudoir) March 7, 2024

A Federal lawsuit

But the story, it turns out, is a bit more complicated. After Corey Ann called out Larry/AEllis for allegedly stealing other people’s photos in January, he subsequently issued a federal lawsuit against her and Photo Stealers. According to Photo Stealers, he had hundreds of stolen photos appearing across multiple sites, as well as plagiarised text. Clearly, he didn’t like being called out on it.

On February 7th 2024, Corey Ann was issued with the lawsuit asking her for a laughable $100 million compensation.

After being served, Corey Ann posted on Facebook, and a few people who had prior dealings with this man came forward. Allegedly, this was not his first time in the community, including being accused of “terrible interactions with models”, and alleged several family-related issues (more information here).

Sadly, it appears that this time, Corey Ann may have bitten off more than she was prepared to chew. As a result, her website has been taken down, and she is trying to raise court costs in a GoFundMe campaign.

“The whole thing is absolutely bananas,” says Corey Ann in a Substack post. “While I am still pursuing trying to find another host, I have a feeling that no matter where I move/what I do, Larry will keep coming after the host with fake DMCA claims against images he has no legal claims to, much like how he’s suing photographers he stole images from because they called him out for stealing their photos.”

RIP Photo Stealers

Corey sums everything up by saying that although she has a meeting with her lawyer next week, she’s not hopeful, and any further actions would be incredibly expensive. Additionally, Corey Ann says that this guy is transient, has no money, and after all the threats he’s made, Corey Ann doesn’t want to ever meet him face to face.

So it looks as though Photo Stealers may be done, which is a pity because it’s done a lot of good work in the past, holding people accountable and helping prevent image theft and copyright infringement.

“If nothing else, Larry/Aellis has made the final time with Photo Stealers interesting,” finishes Corey Ann. “I’ll be proud of myself for not giving in to a bully. At least I attempted to do what was right despite the hell he put me through.”

Update (2024-03-14): Today, we received an email from Corey, which makes us incredibly happy an shares that Photostelears is up and running again.