Ludacris is finding himself in some hot waters regarding a beach photo posted to the rapper's Instagram account this past Thursday. A shot of Perth's beautiful coastline, the seascape was posted on all of Ludacris' social media accounts to an estimated 28 million followers. The problem? The photo wasn't his to post.
According to WAtoday, the shot was apparently lifted without credit from the Instagram account of local Australian photographer Paul Pichugin.
“One of my Instagram followers spotted it and tagged me in Ludacris’ post so I could see it,” the photographer said. “At first I was pretty excited, but when I saw there was no credit I thought that wasn’t cool because it doesn’t actually do anything for me.”
Pichugin has since filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice with Instagram, having the photo rightfully removed from Luda's account.
“In general, it’s absolutely essential that photographers are credited so that people know who took the photo and who to go to if they want similar photos taken for a business or tourism campaign…There seems to be a very basic misunderstanding of copyright on the internet, that because something is posted on a public website it’s OK to use,” he said. “That’s not at all true.”
