Stealing photographs

[MBuzzy]

My wife spends a lot of time on some other message boards and they recently got into a very heated discussion about this topic, so I wanted to see what we had to say.

So we had an issue happen to us a few months ago. We went to photograph a horse show (20-50 shots of every horse/rider combination) and posted the proofs out in our proof gallery. The watermark at this point was not that obtrusive, but it was on there. Our proof site doesn't allow right clicking or saving of any kind. But one of the 15 year old girls from the show figured out how to screen shot and crop and "stole" close to 100 pictures of her and her friends. She then taught all of them how to do it. So all of the sudden, hundreds of our photos are appearing all over facebook and not a dime came to us. Now one of these shows is usually 8-10 hours on site, plus 10-20 hours editing photos. Our prices are competitive and reasonable, but we still get the occassional folks who complain about the price.

Then there are the people who do buy a print and scan it to send around the world. I don't have NEARLY as big of an issue with this, since they did buy it, but people don't realize that they did not buy the RIGHTS to the photo, only a print of it.

The thing is, with the digital revolution, this is getting much more commonplace. People really have no qualms about doing it either. In fact, even LESS than stealing music. For many people, stuff like this is their livelihood. Screen shotting a proof from online is stealing and takes money out of someone's pocket. The bottom line in my opinion is that if you don't like the price, DON'T BUY IT.......but don't steal it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I'm heading out the door now, but will put something up in a bit. In the mean time, report the images as stolen to FB. They might take them down.

 

[Carol]

I'm sorry that happened.

As far as your conclusion, its a good thought, but sadly, it is unenforceable.

Most of my public stuff does not have watermarks. However, everything that doesn't is 640x480 and below. I have the same concerns myself. I don't make any money at my photography but I would like to take on some professional work someday...if for no other reason, to finance my next equipment purchase

I'm going to be watermarking more, as I would like to be putting some larger images up online. That being said, another concern of mine is how to do that (I don't mean "how" in the software sense).

Do I use my real name like Bob does, which is far more professional?

Or do I use my generic-sonding makes-no-sense-outside-of-telecom web site, which offers me more privacy?

From a business sense, getting my name out there and trying to make professional contacts seems to be the way to go. However, I've had people stalk me online before....including a time within the last 12 months...which makes me hesitant to do so until I have more of a business.

 

[MBuzzy]

I forgot to post the results of our fiasco. We individually contacted each of the girls and informed them of the violation and asked them to remove the photos, with an ultimatum attached. Our ultimatum included reporting them to the authorities and never photographing them at another show, even if we were the photographer. We also said that we would advice other local photographers or their theft so that other photographers wouldn't work with them. All of them removed the images within a day, except one. We contact facebook immediately and the photos were removed within an hour of contacting facebook.

Carol - you're right, the whole thing is completely unenforceable, aside from education that it is illegal and wrong.

Our watermark is now VERY large and obnoxious and outright says "DO NOT COPY" on the front. It is a shame, but we have to do it.

 

[Carol]

Thanks for posting that result! I'm glad that worked out for you...sort of. Its a shame it had to go that far.

I saw something on Flickr over the weekend that made me ill. Your Flickr profile displays your favorite work from other photogs. I had just added a fellow to my contacts list, and I was surfing through a couple of his faves.

He had a favorited a shot from a photog in Eastern Europe. The photog had another pic up that said STOLEN across it. Pic is mildly NSFW so I'm not going to post it here. In the details, the photog reported that another photographer/production house was claiming it as their own!! They had photoshopped out the original photog's watermark and added their own instead!

That's not all. The original one was put up on flicker about a year ago, back in 2009. The production house uploaded thier copy on flicker the day before....and...went to the Eastern Europe photog and said SHE stole HIS work!!

Unreal.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Sounds like you got good results.

Minimizing this in the future involves educating your clients on what they are getting and what rights they have. I often will tell mine that I'm happy to provide web-ready versions at a nominal fee that they can use on their websites, blogs or Facebook, provided they do not remove my watermark. I've sent DMCA take down notices in some cases when they've scanned prints and posted them and ignored my remove requests.

When you distribute proofs be it in print or online, always mark them accordingly. Also, never use hi-res versions as proofs. I drop down to 480px, 72dpi, and watermark like crazy. (See sample). To minimize lost sales of prints, I've been scaling down my web prints so the best people will get is a grainy 4x6. You can't stop them unfortunately, but you can make it difficult.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Also, embed copyright and contact information in EXIF data in each image, along with DO-NOT-COPY text, which might stop some places from printing them.

 

[jks9199]

Let me throw something out there...

The first time I heard someone would prevent me from printing more copies of a photo of ME, I was rather amazed. I'm not talking some sort of art shot, but just a plain old portrait. After all, it was MY face, right?

Now, I've come to understand that there's a lot more that goes into taking that picture, and making it come out looking good -- especially if there's post-editing and retouching and the like. But I don't think it's earth shattering that people can feel that way, and feel that if it's a picture of them, it's THEIR picture, and they should be able to do with it as they wish.

I think Bob's got the right track; education is key. Especially as you deal more and more with younger people who have a rather different understanding of ownership of material than us old folks. I think this is coming from the same page as the people who don't have a problem downloading music/movies/etc. They simply don't perceive the ownership of the work in the same way unless you break it down and explain it to them. Facebook and the like as well as the various photo-sharing sites blur the line of ownership, too.

And watermark the heck out of the photos because lots of them just won't get it. I bet MBuzzy's success with this group was more due to the threat of never taking a picture of them again than any real understanding on their part, unfortunately.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Also, print on professional paper with the copyright info already on it.

Alternately, price your work to compensate for lost reprint sales, which is what I'm starting to do when I set up at events and shoot.