Today I would like to tell you a story: it's the story of a humble photographer (that would be me) who destroyed an image hosting website.
But let's start from the beginning:

a while ago I found a forum where one of my photos of Layla had been manipulated into an ugly signature and posted by one of the forum members. Needless to say, I was mad as hell. I usually get upset anytime one of my works is taken and republished without my permission, but when it comes to my beloved cats I get SERIOUSLY pissed off, they're my furry babies, part of my family, and I can't stand how random kids who think to be "digital artists" turn them into ugly signatures and blends. Apart from the fact that they're not allowed to use my photos no matter what, they could at least do a decent job!
Anyway, the first thing I did was try to contact the forum administrators to inform them that they had to take down my horribly manipulated photo. I also normally contact the image hosting website and file a DMCA to ask for the complete removal of the infringing material they're hosting. In this case the image hoster was - and I underline WAS - imup.se whose homepage only offered the possibility to create an account and/or upload pictures. NO contact information at all! Now this is intolerable: the webmasters have no direct control over what gets uploaded, anyone can access the website and upload whatever they want and no one's in charge, they just won't care!
By then I was even more pissed, but I decided to be patient and wait for the forum staff to get back to me... After two weeks nothing happened and I decided I'd declare war to imup.se. I used the Kloth NSLOOKUP tool to find their IP address, and since the IP I got was European I looked it up on the RIPE Internet Registry. Through their Whois Database I obtained the name of their hosting provider, checked their website and Terms of Service and, once I found the e-mail address I was supposed to use to report violations and abuses, I sent my standard notice for copyright infringement complaints, underlining that I had the best intentions to solve the issue directly with imup.se, but they were impossible to contact.
I've never received a reply from the provider's Abuse Department, and I wish I had, but yesterday I saw the results of my complaint and I'm really pleased. I have a bookmark folder where I store links to websites/pages/images that infringe my copyright and shouldn't be there and I check them on a regular basis to see if there are any "improvements".
When I got to the link of the picture hosted by imup.se I was pleased to see that it was gone. Then I thought I should check their homepage as well, to see if anything had changed, and to my amazement the whole site has been shut down. I don't know whether this is going to be temporary or permanent, but I know that it was the provider's doing in response to my complaint and I couldn't be more pleased. Whenever I think of it, I really feel mighty and I wish there were more providers as professional as this one.

So why did I tell you this story? Not to brag around... honestly, there's nothing to show off when it comes to copyright infringements and total lack of respect for artists...
I did because I've seen too many artists surrender: they keep finding their works posted without permission and, even though they don't like it the least bit, they think that it's inevitable, that it's "the way the internet works" and just do nothing... Please don't give up! See what I was able to achieve, fight and don't give up!

And now a few features of real artists, thank you for listening! ♥