How Can I Prevent Someone from Using My Images for Marketing

[weezielucy]

My question involves independent contractors in the state of: Ohio

I am a wedding photographer and had hired another area photographer to be a second shooter for a number of my weddings. We did not have a written contract in place because at the time, there was established trust. One of the terms we agreed to was that she was permitted to use the images she took on her personal website and Facebook page, but she was to give credit for the wedding to my company. We recently had a falling out after I found out she had been involved in criminal activity, and we parted ways. Since then, she has been using the images from my weddings with her own watermark and not giving credit back to my company. I work hard to acquire a specific wedding clientele and pay a lot of money to market my business - it's not right that she is using images from my weddings to promote her own business as if she were the one who secured the wedding and originated the creative ideas in the photos. Is there any way, without having a written contract in place, that I can force her to remove the images from her websites? In hindsight, I should have put a written contract in place, but at the time we were friends and I never anticipated anything like this would happen. My biggest concern is that she is a criminal and I don't want people seeing images of the same couples from my site on her site, and think that I or my business was also involved in criminal activity. I'm concerned for the reputation of my business as well as my personal reputation. Please help!

(The criminal activity she was involved in was insurance fraud - she faked a burglary in her home and claimed items of value - some items which she didn't even own - had been stolen so that she could collect a large insurance check. Much of what she claimed as being stolen was photography equipment, which was the same equipment she continued to use to shoot weddings with. I didn't put the pieces together until she showed up with $7000 worth of new equipment at the last wedding we shot together, claiming her grandfather had left her an inheritance that she used to purchase the equipment. I've heard that she has since left town, but her social media sites and website are still in place.)

[Mr. Knowitall]

Your oral agreement, at least as stated above, creates ambiguity as to whether the agreement was that this person's photographs would be works for hire, with copyright held by you (I expect you have written contracts with your wedding clients holding that you retain copyright) or if your understanding left this person as copyright holder of her own work with your being licensed to use the photographs for your wedding clients. If you hold copyright the most expeditious means of having photographs removed from third party websites is through the use of DMCA take down notices.