Blogger Rachele Cateyes is mad, and rightly so. As are thousands of her followers.
The Milwaulkie blogger posted a bikini photo taken by her husband on her blog about body acceptance, which was then used by an online diet company without her permission.
“I wanted to show that all bodies can wear a bikini on the beach and have a beach body,” she said.
Followers of her popular Nearsighted Owl blog let her know that her image was being used by diet company Venus Factor.
“They said, ‘Is this you? Why are you on this, is this you?’”
The diet company was using the photo as the “before” in its “before and after” shots.
A Portland News Station KGW8 joined in her fight trying to get the company to remove her image from their website.
They said they called the company several times, receiving recorded messages and emailed the company with no response.
Cateyes also sent a Facebook message to the company.
“These photos were stolen from me and are being used to sell your product, I would like your help in having them removed,” she said in her message.
The response she received read: “We have no control over it. You need to contact the people who specifically put this on his website.”
“You cannot steal someone else’s property. You cannot take their picture and make a profit off of it,” said technology expert Brian Westbrook. “Really, whether you profit or not, it’s illegal to download photos off the Internet and use them in any sort of way other than what the original composer of that picture intended.”
Cateyes said she’s proud of her body and proud of the photo, but using her image to promote a diet plan goes against her principles and why she posted the photo in the first place.
“Using me to represent basically, ‘This is what you don’t want to look like, don’t be like her, her body’s bad,’” she said.
Image via Twitter, Rachele Cateyes