Easy stealing during DIGITAL ERA

[kombizz]

Easy stealing during DIGITAL ERA

During the film era, there was not that many cases about stealing images compare to our new era of digital photography.

These days the crooked people under the good name of Pro-Photographer could steal any images thru internet very easily. Then they could change them little bit and present them as their own hard work to few fools.

I DO have a proof.

I managed to caught a thief during my daily critic/comment writing among images. [(K=37501) on 3/3/2006]

Then I managed the spot this.

HERE

Now examine those images for yourself and judge if I am right in my reason.

Good luck.

[Bobtrips]

These days the crooked people under the good name of Pro-Photographer could steal any images thru internet very easily. Then they could change them little bit and present them as their own hard work to few fools.


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Hum....

I'd say that he took your snapshot and turned it into an interesting image.   ;o)

OK, here's the rules for the digital age....

1) If you don't want anyone making big prints of your images, then don't post large file versions.  

There's not a big market for huge prints made from 600 x 800 pixel files.  Few people hang them over their couch.

If some dirtbag steals your shot and passes it off as theirs remember that they haven't taken money from your pocket.

If some deep pocket corporation takes your small file and uses it on their site speak with an attorney.  

2) If you've got something really valuable, even as a small screen shot, then don't post it on the web.  

Sell it.

[dwdallam]

There is a guy locally where I live who is a drug addict I think. He scans images from books he buys and passes them off as his own.I know because I turned him in to a manager here wqhere he was showing his stuff in town with the book he scanned the image from. I knew something was wrong becasue he was selling prints framed for 75.00, which is a lot to a heroin addict--he probably makes 45.00 on each sale. The frames are cheapos with plexiglass. I started looking and thuoght a few of his shots looked very familiar. Sure enough, I had one of the books, which was a Scott Kelby book from about 4 years ago, I think.

Tehre is also a guy here who does good technical photography, but that is his only talen really as he lacks in imagination and style. He had a show going and was advertising himself as a "wedding photographer" which I know he has never done. The picture he was using was from a magaxine, again something I noticed that I thought was very familiar. Sure enough, I had the book and looked up the image. I knew what he would say if I said something though, so I didn't. He would ahve said, "I didn't say that was my image. It was just something I used to show I do weddings."

There isn't much you can do about these skaggs really. Their just deperate people with no talent of their own and are out for the money, not the task of taking and doing good photograhy, and they know that marketing is the key, not good work. The problem is that they are correct. if you market yourself well, you can convince people you are doing good work when you're rreally doing snapshots. I now a person who does a specific type of photography, and the people getting it done ahve no idea it's not good. The person in question doens;t even know how to set aperture or shutter speeds, or ISO--or even what the do. They just bought a high end camera and push the button with a flash on the camera. No idea how anything works or how to change setting for a different look or effect.

It's not going to get any better. I think there is a "photographer" for every household now that anyone can pull teh trigger on a digital camera and print a 8 x 12 with their 100.00 printer that everyone in the family thinks is "talent."

On the other hand, I do think is someone takes your image and changes it at least 30%, it's not a copyright infringment. I put 72 DPI 700 pixel maximum wide images on my site with a transparent copyright in teh middle of each image. You can see what I mean here:
www.dwdallam.com.

I'll never post anything larger or with more resolution and I never give away the RAW files or the high quality jpgs, unless someone is paying me big bucks so they can reprint when they want--and then they only get the jpgs, and never the RAWs. So if someone gets a minimum package done for 150.00 US, and they want the reprintable HQ jpgs, the price would go up to like 1000.00 US for a grand total of 1150.00.

[grepmat]

On the other hand, I do think is someone takes your image and changes it at least 30%, it's not a copyright infringment.

Yes it is. You own not only your original image, but also have the right to control any modifications to it.

That said, I agree that if one is concerned about copying, one should be pragmatic and simply shouldn't post high-resolution images in public. Thereafter, a pragmatic person will also accept that there will be a certain number of people that will download it and use it for their own purposes, and that there is little you can do about that.

Cheers.

[Monito]

Bulk register all your new pictures with the US Copyright Office on a regular basis, preferably every 90 days.  Bulk register (separately) older photos.  The Copyright Office is going to make it easier and a little less expensive than before because they are introducing online registration this summer.

http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/copyright/

Copyright is an international issue and almost all countries are signatories of the Berne conventions.  If you register in the US you have powerful tools (statutory damages and legal fees) to leverage against an offender if any aspect of their business or ISP touches the US.  Copyright also gives you power inside an offender's country if they don't touch the US in some way.  If the offence is serious you may be able to get US assets seized for you and the offender(s) prevented from travelling to the US.

Another aspect is that it is a US federal felony to remove electronic copyright information from intellectual property.

Further, the DMCA has provisions that can be used to get an ISP to remove material that violates somebody's copyright.  The alledged offender has 10 to 14 days to make a statement under penalty of perjury to get the material restored.  ISPs tend to be very responsive to DMCA notices.