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Having Richard Prince steal, or rather appropriate your photos into his own "artwork" is one thing, but having the whole world copy, edit, share and even sell your original photograph is another thing. It can be both flattering and frustrating, especially if you happen to be a budding photographer. A perfect example to illustrate this case is the photographer Noam Galai and his Stolen Scream.

Basically, Mr. Galai took a few pictures of himself and uploaded them to Flickr (you can find his original uploads here). After awhile, he noticed that his photo was being used not only in his locality, but all around the world. From book covers to posters to graffiti and street art to websites that sell artwork, his face started to pop-up all around the world.


 In this case, his stolen scream dealt him a double blow: not only was he not credited as the original photographer, he also never earned from these random and international uses of his work. Even the website that sold his image as prints ignored his communications (that's according to his video, the situation might have changed as of this post).

Fortunately, his Stolen Scream website has attracted some attention to his cause, and it's even helping him earn back through the merchandise he sells there. It's great that a photographer like Noam Galai can create something positive from his stolen scream, but his case just goes to show you that in today's digital world, a simple photo upload could lead to a lot more than a few random comments.