the essential
Fabrice Muwissen spent four years fighting against the French platform to get a content creator to remove photos that she had published without his consent. The Toulouse man also obtained the deletion of other images used without the knowledge of around twenty other photographers.
S. is lying, in a suggestive pose, on a beige sofa. She is wearing fine black lace lingerie. His left hand is hidden in his jet-black hair. The young woman casts a languorous look at the camera. In May 2016, in Fabrice Meuwissen’s photo studio, in Castanet-Tolosan, a suburb of Toulouse, the model has just put her underwear back on for the last photos.
At the end of this erotic shoot, the photographer does not charge him anything. He judges that the 520 photos do not meet his standards. “We exchange on Facebook and I explain the situation to her. I add that if she wishes, I can still send her a selection so that she has a souvenir. She assures me that these visuals will only be used on a personal basis”, recalls Fabrice Meuwissen.
In 2020, without the photographer’s consent, S. posts these erotic photos on his Me. You account. More (MYM), a content platform on which she has been registered for a year. On this social network with millions of users, creators sell their content. The young woman offers thousands of images accessible at 11.99 euros per month.
On March 14, 2021, Fabrice Meuwissen subscribed to S.’s account after “coming across his profile by chance while discovering the platform”. The forty-year-old discovers reproductions of his photos. A few months later, in December, he sent him formal notice by registered letter. She remains unanswered. The photographer then turns to MYM support and has a bailiff’s report drawn up. The social network responds that the photos have been deleted. For Fabrice Meuwissen, the matter is closed.
However, he remains convinced that S. is still exploiting his photos. In February 2022, the designer blocked her account. In April 2023, Fabrice Meuwissen decided to relaunch MYM to obtain clarification, but he received an identical response: the content would have been deleted. Mr. Meuwissen creates a new account on the platform to access counterfeits. He summons S. to the Bordeaux court. The procedures accumulate, without any of them being successful. In May 2024, after yet another bailiff’s report, the unexpected happened: his portraits disappeared from S’s account.
Fabrice Meuwissen still decides not to stop there and informs the other Toulouse photographers of the illegal use of their photos by the designer. In total, more than twenty image professionals were cheated. At the same time, he undertook an attempt at conciliation with the creator to obtain compensation for commercial exploitation.
“My motivation was to defend my work and that of my colleagues against a powerful company, which seems to turn a blind eye to this type of practice. This fight goes beyond money,” assures Mr. Meuwissen. After numerous reminders to MYM, the photographer obtained the deletion of S’s account. This long standoff cost him more than 20,000 euros between the bailiff’s reports and legal fees. The Toulouse photographer plans to file a complaint against the platform for complicity in counterfeiting. Contacted, MYM did not respond to our requests.
