Perhaps you might remember my award-winning diorama, The Stalin Line, that I posted here several years ago. Imagine my surprise when I find it being used as an advertisement on a Dutch model shop website.
While the RPM kit was the starting point for my work, one does not simply shake and bake the kit contents and produce this diorama. Unethical much? 
Is there anything that you can do or is this a company that’s in a country that u are unable to do anything with them?
If you, or anyone else, took the picture, and posted it online without a copyright notice, it is now public domain. You can ask the company to credit you, but that’s about it. Unethical, but perfectly legal—unless the picture was copyrighted somewhere and they didn’t get permission. Your build of the kit is probably not copyrightable. Still, simple courtesy to a kit builder should be a given. If I were you, I would contact them and ask for credit. Unfortunately, not for “cease and desist.”
Hopefully, if you contact them, they will be amicable and credit you as the builder of the diorama.
Unethical?
Is it possible they were unaware who to talk to?
This is absolutely not true.
By that logic, posting the text of a book online would make it public domain.
KL
Nope. Assuming the book was published under copyright, the copyright remains regardless of a portion thereof being posted online. Depending on the amount of text published online, the holder of the copyright has legal recourse against the online poster. Once the owner of the copyright becomes aware of the violation, they must request that the material be taken off the website. After that, the lawyers get involved. Note that the contents of a work in progress are protected by copyright law.
Now, if the owner of the copyright posts it in a public forum, such as this or another website, without a copyright notice, e…g., © John Public, they have relinquished the copyright. If the rules of the website state that copyright remains with the original creator, then the copyright remains the creator’s. If that is the case, get a copyright lawyer and send the violator a cease and desist order. They will either accede to the order, or offer compensation, or dispute the copyright because a third party (or maybe more) is involved. Then things get messy and expensive.
What they should do, and should have done, is give you credit for the picture and the build. They should have done this first, but what if they found the picture copied to some other site with no attribution? They’ve no way to know to whom it belongs.
Bottom line, if you want something to remain yours, don’t post it online, or do so with a copyright notice.
The actual diorama is and remains yours, though if you tried to mass produce it and sell copies, the model manufacturer might go after you—or not, depending on the amount of money involved.
Copyright varies so much from country to country that there is no one answer. Your “copyright” we be determined by the size of the bill from your law company.
Some years back I signed a contract for one of my images for a calendar from a big multinational company. 4 million copies. Well they edited the image contrary to thier own contract terms. Long story short they simply told me that they could afford more layers than me.
My advice? Suck it up. Yes its annoying but its not worth the stress.
There is some flattery to be found here. I know that nobody would ever copy one of my models for sale so I think you should look at it as an honor. Your work is good enough to be copied and sold.
