I've been ripped off in my professional life many, many times. The worst was when a rival magazine completely carbon-copied my magazines's cover, right down to the placement of specific stars, and passed it off as their own. (The same mag just did it again this month, though not quite as blatantly.)

But I think more often, I've had great ideas that I didn't fully explore, and then have seen others fully explore them. In those cases, it's not the person running with the same, separately conceived idea that you're mad at so much as yourself.

I didn't invent street photography. I didn't even invent shooting hot men with an iPhone in public; I was inspired by a defunct French site called Guys from the Street. But I think "Guydar," which I've done for like four years to the tune of at least 3,000 men, is well established.

But it's a bit frustrating to see similar concepts popping up as full-on sites, sites I could easily be running myself. Guys with iPhones is the gold standard int hat all the men are hot and all the men know they're being photographed and so you have fewer issues with complaints. (I've had only one request ever to take a guy down, BTW.) I don't think it was a site inspired by "Guydar."

Another that's taking off is Tap That Guy, which I do think must have been inspired in part by "Guydar" (or maybe not, but no offense taken either way).

And now SubwayCrush, which is just "Guydar" on the subway. I went over to see if any of my shots have been stolen by users and submitted as their own only to find a "blond beef" image that wasn't mine, but that was literally taken moments apart from mine by another surreptitious shooter!

All of these sites are great fun and more power to them, but they do make me wonder if I should just be doing a separate spin-off site devoted to my "Guydar" subjects, which I personally think are mostly hotter and which are at least occasionally differentiated by a purposeful or accidental arty quality.

So what do you think? Is there room for still another surreptitious photo site? Is it even worth it? Or maybe I should just work with them? Keeping in mind I have "Guydar" posts waiting to go up through February 2012.