When you have half a million followers, and spend your days travelling the world and taking amazing photos for your blog, there’s not much you can imagine going wrong.
Except when you find that someone has been following your every move, and recreating your photographs down to every last detail.
When Australian Instagram star Lauren Bullen, known as Gypsea Lust, says she discovered a 'fan' was doing exactly that, she was "truly shocked" and "creeped out".
"At first I thought it was all photoshopped & had to take screen shots to compare the two," she wrote on a post on her website.
"They honestly did an incredible job copying our imagery, controversially insane mimics... But stealing someone’s art - that’s never okay."
Bullen said the woman, who has since set her account to private, mirrored almost every detail of her shots, down to her outfits, props and poses.
When Bullen was first alerted to the account, she woke her boyfriend "in the middle of the night" to show him.
"We both were extremely confused and shocked and I quickly took screen shots of all the posts," she said.
Her next step was to confront her carbon copy head on.
"When I messaged her about discovering her page and how crazy and ridiculous I thought it was, she tried to justify it by just saying everyone copies us and even big accounts are taking same pictures at the same place," Lauren wrote.
"[She] told me I should make my pictures private if I don’t want this to happen - I think she missed the point that no one has copied down to this extreme before and it’s completely different."
Bullen finished by saying she was still able to laugh at the situation.
"Whatever comes your way - take it with a pinch of salt & make sure you remember to have a laugh. Last from me about this - Off on the next adventure to create some fresh content (sic)," she finished.
Top Comments
Whatever happened to 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'?
Copyright infringement law became a thing!
I take people's photos and put them on my Pinterest - am I breaking the law?
Only if you profit from them, or make your own versions and claim the original idea as yours. Doesn't Pinterest link it back to the original anyway? If not, consider putting a small mention to the author there, so they get something out of it. They need to make a living too, and deserve recognition for their art!
I hope she reported this to Instagram. I wonder if this woman is only copying her shots, or also other users'? Is she just incapable of coming up with ideas herself, or is she stalking in a weird, roundabout way?