Well I left my car in the driveway with the door open and the keys in it last week before I went on vacation. Now the car is gone.
Similarly, it may be illegal to re-use those images (I don't know), but if you post you coveted pictures on the internet, its impossible for anyone to see them without downloading them to thier own computer. Where they go from there...who knows
There are ways of preventing theft from one's web site of pictures one displays there, although not 100% effective...the site can disable the ability to rip jpgs to the local PC, or water mark the image, or hide the images's addresses, or embed searchable information via GOOGLE, so finding stolen images can be easy...this idea doesn't prevent ripping but can make it relatively easy to find stolen property.
Posting images on Photo dot net is like leaving your car door open and the keys in it....I think the car analogy is not BS...it is very accurate in fact....
The guy that did the theft is a piece of sheet and deserves to be destroyed by the plaintiff's lawyers!
If for some reason one finds it necessary to publish his/her shots on the WWW, one must basically accept they are free for grabs.
"WWW" essentially equates to "Wild Wild West." That's pretty much what the internet is. The Wild West. Almost anybody can do just about anything and there isn't much you can do to stop them.
If it can be displayed on my computer I can copy it. PERIOD.
Regardless of watermarks or copy protection schemes, I can copy virtually anything I want. There are some schemes which will slow me down but I have yet to be stopped. This isn't a boast or a dare. It's just a fact of life on the internet.
If you post something on the internet, you are essentially throwing it to the four winds.
That having been said, there are things you can do.
First, don't post high resolution versions where people can get to them.
If you have a subscription or a membership service, put your high resolution pictures behind a pay wall. Make the membership agreement include language to the effect that the user is not allowed to copy the images except for his own, personal in-home use. If the user plagiarizes your work you now have a hook with which you can haul him into court with. Plus, you can ban him from your site.
Second, learn the practice of Juitsu.
In real lift Jujitsu is a style of martial arts where one forces his opponent to use his own momentum momentum against himself. If somebody tries to throw a punch at you, step aside, grab him by the arm and push him down to the ground. He will fall under his own weight and you simply have to "sit" on him. You can learn to do the same thing on the internet.
Take a look at some internet sites that post pictures of their V.I.P. events. Notice how they are virtually ALL taken in front of some kind of banner with the event's logo on it. How many pictures of stars taken on the red carpet have some kind of sign, poster or logo "casually" located in the background?
That's jujitsu! Any time somebody copies one of those photos, they are unwittingly advertising the original website from which they swiped the picture.
You can do some very subtle things. For instance, every Playboy cover photo since I can always remember has had the Playboy "bunny" logo hidden somewhere in the image. It can also be a trademark style or theme. I once remember a photographer whose trademark was a red umbrella. Almost every image I saw had a red umbrella in the picture. Gosh, it's been so long I don't remember his name but I do remember seeing one of his pictures and thinking, "There's the 'red umbrella' guy!"
Watermarking or Digimarc-ing is probably a good idea if you post a lot of pictures on the net. Yes, they can be removed but it's another obstacle that people have to overcome.
Essentially, there is no stopping anybody from copying from the internet but you can do things to slow them down but the best thing is to make every image lead the viewer back to YOUR website.
That way you can say, "Go ahead and copy my pictures! It's just free advertising for me!"
The case in point is however far more onerous. Here we have an individual who is alleged to have stolen others (many others it appears) work, and represented it as his own as an example of his work.
register images with the copyright office,
gang registration is not expensive, and it is easy.
once they are registered if anyone takes and uses them and
publishes them without consent the owner of the copyright
has a legal leg to stand on. it is very hard to prove anything
in a court of law without copyright registration.
DCMA letter to the website's hosting company. Though recently I found a shot here http://danilorreis.blogspot.com/2009/07/aquario.html and google claimed it saw no resemblance to my shot here: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=8345298 .
register images with the copyright office,
gang registration is not expensive, and it is easy.
once they are registered if anyone takes and uses them and
publishes them without consent the owner of the copyright
has a legal leg to stand on. it is very hard to prove anything
in a court of law without copyright registration.
it is very hard to prove anything
in a court of law without copyright registration.
I disagree. All you need to do is show that you are the maker of the image. Not difficult, when you are.
The "copyright register" is just one step on the road that ends in divorcing the photographer from the copyright he holds. You do not need to register to own the copyright. It's a right given at birth.
So all such a register does is provide a way to say "too bad, you sad person" when it is used in or out of court to steal copyrighted work.
Works are not orphaned, free from copyright, when you do not pay a bunch of people who have no role to play in the entire copyright and entitlement issue for putting them on a list they run.
That only applies in the US (I think). In the UK we do not have copyright registration.
In the UK we do have the crime of Theft by Finding. This means that if you find someone's car with the keys in the ignition (to use ic-racer's example) or more likely, you find a £20 note on the street. It is theft to pick it up and claim it as yours because you know it isn't.
Steve.
Yeah.... great right? I'm waiting for registration to go through with library of congress for my next step though....target isn't going to be the blog owner though, I can say that much.And the credit on the blog didn't even clue them in? WOW.
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