Question by V.G. Grace: What is the definition of identity theft?
If for nine months, a person or persons unknown have been stealing a family’s images and writing explicit, racist, pornographic, and violent content on a social network forum, utilizing these stolen images, would that be considered identity theft? If so, isn’t identity theft illegal in all 50 states and therefore criminal activity?
@WRG,
Yeah, I know it isn’t a financial crime. What I am inquiring is whether this is considered a crime–at all.
@STEVEN,
then perhaps I used the wrong terminology. Perhaps “impersonation” would be the better choice of term. I’ve experienced a nine month campaign of having my family’s images stolen and the person/persons making hundreds of racist, explicit, and violent posts on the internet, using these stolen images of my family. I suppose my question is–WHAT is this considered and IS it a crime?
Best answer:
Answer by Bruno Thedon
In order to answer the question one must first address the question of identity.
Give your answer to this question below!
Identity theft is generally a financial crime. Using another person’s identity to get credit cards and such. What you describe may well be a crime but it isn’t a financial crime.
There is NO definition of Identity Theft. The term is generally USED to refer to ANY crime involving claiming to be someone else.
You CAN’T know it is not a financial crime, because it USUALLY is a financial crime.
The “stolen” images are technically copyright violations, so if there is any “personal profit” being had by the person making the copies, you could file charges for criminal copyright infringement. Otherwise you’re left with civil copyright infringement and libel.
You can contact any website that has published the stolen photos and have them removed as copyright infringements. If they are not quickly “taken down”, you can sue the website hosting company as a “contributory infringer”. Of course, only the actual photographer or other owner of the copyright can take this sort of action, so if you don’t know who made the photos, you have to find that out before you can do anything else.
Almost forgot: you can also bring these violations to the attention of each web host and ask them to remove the comments and delete the user for violation of the Terms of Service on users of the website.