Baby Roleplay - The Instagram Game Using Stolen Photos of Other People's Children
If you're a parent who's posted a picture of your child online, the role-playing game #BabyRP may make you double check your privacy settings. Players take photos of children harvested from other people's accounts. They then post the stolen pictures to their own Instagram account with a new name and an imaginary storyline, inviting others to role-play being daddy, mummy or child.
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"Stolen" is the incorrect term here. Those photos were not taken from the parents (thereby depriving the parents of the photos), they were copied without parental permission.
Sucks that it happened, but if you don't want something on the internet, you probably shouldn't put it on the internet.
Getting people riled up about "stolen" baby photos sounds like a great way to push fun new copyright laws.
Congratulations! You've successfully published your new photo album. All photos in this album have been copyrighted and anyone who republishes them in any media without your express written consent is in violation of US Copyright law.
Technically, you're correct. You sort of already get Copyright automatically once it's been created.
Having it and enforcing it, however, are two separate things.
I gotta say regardless of the copyright laws that may or may not be applicable here, this is pretty deplorable. I've read about people making this much more sexual than ... well it shouldn't be sexual at all. Its pretty demented.
But the fact still remains, if you don't want something online- Do NOT post it to a public forum. If you must upload it then you should set it to private or back it up to your dropbox/Mega/box/etc.