Kitten of Doom

I’m tired of kids obsessed with Larundel stealing my photos, so I’m going to make this post.  I’m doing so because the person in question clearly didn’t learn their lesson about stealing other peoples’ work the first time I pulled them up on it.

“Urbex” (urban exploration) has taken off in Melbourne since the end of last year, with a tonne of kids around the 15-20 age group jumping on the bandwagon.  You’ve probably seen a bunch of them in the media getting onto rooftops and into the City Loop with t-shirts over their faces.  This is apparently a good way to get famous, so they made a video about it.  At least they take their own shots and the video was nicely-made.

They seemed to have inspired a lot of other kids with this video, because there seem to be a bunch of them coming out of the woodwork trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.  In particular, kids who are obsessed with a once-derelict and now semi-redeveloped ex-mental hospital named Larundel (which I have posted about before).

If you want to make your own amateur video about how haunted and creepy Larundel is, whatever, go for it.  But just because you jumped on the bandwagon so late that you don’t have any good shots of your own (and by late I mean the last building has already begun to be redeveloped and is no longer abandoned) – don’t steal other peoples’ photos and use them to promote your upcoming “documentary”.

Here we have Instagram user “anthonyurbexmelb”.  Anthony used one of my photos without permission to promote his so-called “documentary”.  He also altered it by plastering text across it – another no-no.

I asked him to remove it, and noticed further down he had previously used someone else’s Larundel photo, again without credit.  I commented “another stolen photo”.  I didn’t think to screencap this one, so you can take my word for it or don’t.  Both photos were deleted and I was also blocked – I can only presume this was to stop me calling him out on other stolen photos.

So I had another look (yes, I can still see your photos, Anthony) and lo-and-behold there are two more photos used without credit which were taken by Shot by Matt – Matt Lindsay Photography.  He didn’t delete either of these, presumably because no-one has commented on them saying they were stolen.  So he doesn’t care about stealing other peoples’ work, as he only deleted the shots that he was called-out on.

^ Original shot by Matt here.

^ Original shot by Matt here.

Next up, a shot by Leanne Cole Photography which he altered and posted on his Facebook page.

^ Original shot by Leanne Cole here.

Amazing that someone calling themselves a filmmaker is using other peoples’ work to promote their video.

I don’t have screenshots of the other times my photos have been used without permission or credit, but the people in question took them down when asked so that’s okay.  There is still a Facebook account called Larundel Bundoora up with my same photo as their profile picture though.  Why someone has made a Facebook account as the persona of an abandoned mental hospital boggles my mind but oh well.

As a side note, I find it somewhat offensive that Larundel is repeatedly referred to as an “asylum” rather than a “hospital”.  It was a hospital, and if anyone did an ounce of research they would realise this.  I can only imagine how “anthonyurbexmelb”‘s documentary is going to turn out when he’s referring to Mont Park as a “bad boy asylum”.  Perhaps do some research, Anthony, and do your own work, rather than using other peoples’ without permission.

x Kitten of Doom

Posted in Time for a rant, Urban exploration
Tags: abandoned, larundel, Melbourne, mental hospital, urbex