Several participants on a ferry discussion website say British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. has used their photos of vessels without asking, paying or even providing credit.

The photos appear on the B.C. Ferries Vacations website, which a poster says is the online version of the interactive media wall at the vacation centre the publicly-owned company opened in downtown Vancouver in May.

“I've found two of my pics,” wrote a West Coast Ferries Forum participant going by Ship-Rider 16. “Not to say I'm not flattered by it, but BCF could have done a way better job of contacting the source of the pictures. They could have at least credited the owners of the photos.”

In a discussion thread that started around 6 p.m. yesterday, by 10 a.m. today a total of seven people wrote they believed B.C. Ferries was using their photos, most of them in the Fleet Overview section. Just one said he'd been asked for permission.

“This kind of behavior is totally unacceptable for a quasi-government organization,” wrote glasseye. “Post a letter to BCFS corporate and demand they either credit your work or take your photos down.”

Several participants in the discussion said they just wanted credit for their work and had contacted B.C. Ferries, while another characterized it as “photo theft”.

Spokespeople for the company did not respond to emailed questions from The Tyee.

Update, 3:30 p.m.: Still no response from B.C. Ferries, but posters on the West Coast Ferries Forum say they've received an email from a marketing manager with the company who explained they got the photos through Flickr "and were unaware that they were not actually the property of the person who gave them to them." They were also told they'd be given credit on the media wall.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.