Xiaomi accused of passing off copyrighted photos as shots taken with the Mi 3

By Williams Pelegrin August 1, 2014

xiaomi accused passing copyrighted photos taken mi 3 4 front — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back in 2012, Nokia was in hot water for attempting to pass off video footage taken with a DSLR as taken with the company’s latest Lumia handset at the time, the Lumia 920. Nokia apologized for the blunder, but it looks like Xiaomi is continuing where Nokia left off, according to John Gruber on his personal blog, Daring Fireball.

According to Gruber, Xiaomi stole copyrighted images from different places of the Internet and tried to pass them off as those taken with the company’s Mi 3 handset. Some of the images were from Flickr, 500px, and even National Geographic.

While this may seem like a boisterous accusation, only one section titled ‘Beautiful Pictures Taken With The Mi 3‘ explicitly states that the pictures were taken with the Mi 3. In addition, the rendered image that showed the copyrighted images has since been updated. You can see the original on the left and the altered version on the right in the gallery below.

It’s likely that Xiaomi did not post those copyrighted images on the camera roll by accident, lending credence to the idea that it’s not confident in the Mi 3’s ability to take good pictures.

xiaomi accused passing copyrighted photos taken mi 3 gallery before — 1. Before
2. After

xiaomi accused passing copyrighted photos taken mi 3 gallery after — 1. Before
2. After

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Williams Pelegrin

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…

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