Image copyright.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Fabs suggested to me that I put a copyright blah blah into my jpegs when I post them as apparently there is some law being possibly passed that would potentially mean that images posted on web without copyright notices would/could be abused and stolen?

It does sound rather crook to me as I would think posting the image, the person making that post is immediately assumed to be the copyright holder, or at least that is the expectation on any online community. It's not that I don't want to have a copyright notice, or have not in the past, I am simply inviting comments relating to this apparent law being passed and whether what is the feasibility of any wrong actions being not recognized in a court of law when an image is stolen and the photographer has the RAW file to prove ownership.

I suppose law being a very gray area, there are a multitude of responses to this. Also, if anybody knows of a draft document of this proposed legislation then I'd love to read it.

Thank you. And looking forward to reading more about this.

[Ed Cordes]

The US law Fabs referred to is known as the "Orphan Works Law". I states that anyone or any company may use an image found on the web or elsewhere for any purpose that is not clearly indicated that it is copyrighted. The person or entity wishing to use an image must make a "reasonable attempt" to discern if the image is in fact copyrighted by someone else. I am sure it is much more complicated than this and there are friends here on BPN who know a lot more than I do about this issue. However, this is the essence of the law.

So, it is to your advantage to place a copyright on your images.

[john crookes]

The Orphan Works never made it through Congress and died this past September That said you should register your most significant work with the US copyright office and update it often


Here is a link to the story

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/orphan-works-co.html

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Thanks for the comments and links thus far. One interesting thing I read here:

Orphaned creative works are those in which the copyright holder cannot be promptly located. :eek:

Would it not be relatively easy enough for the person wishing to use the image to actually track the owner down? Geez! Say on BPN every member posting has contact details, so if an honest person wants to make contact, they will do just that. It seems the law is out to protect the crooks more so than anything else. I could only imagine old pictures, recordings or manuscripts perhaps to fall into that BOLD category. On the net everyone is traceable somehow. At least that is what I think.

Needless to say, I am deleting my (free) Flickr account and will put a Copyright notice into all my images from now on.

[Jim Poor]

Yes, and it has failed before which means it keeps rearing it's ugly head and, unfortunately, getting closer and closer to being passed.


The Orphan Works never made it through Congress and died this past September That said you should register your most significant work with the US copyright office and update it often


Here is a link to the story

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/orphan-works-co.html

[Paul McAdams]

I wish my work was good enough to steal ;)

[Ken Watkins]

Paul,

Nice one, me too!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

If you create an image you own the copyright. A copyright notice is not necessary according to current copyright law. It is impossible to prevent an image from being copied,(screen capture produces nearly identical images) and any copyright notice can be easily removed by the clone-stamp tool. The one thing that is somewhat of a deterent is image size, rarely larger than 800x600pixels, and this makes images only usefull for posting on another website. There is not much monetary gain by the theif., no capability to produce reasonably sized prints, or offer licenses for hi rez images. Nonetheless I generally place a copyright notice on images, but more for indicating who created the image(me). You could indeed register with the copyright office, for a fee of course, and although it makes legal proceedings proceed faster, I don't believe it is necessary. regards~Bill

[Ed Cordes]

FWIW, I have been registering my images with the Library of Congress. While I understand I should do it more frequently, I do send in images I have printed, posted and placed on my website at the end of each year. I used to do it via written forms and snail mail. It would take months and months to get a certificate. Now I do it on line and it works great and is much faster. It is also cheaper.

[Roger Clark]

Ed,
Could you please post info on how yoy submit to the Library of Congress online?

I encourage everyone to not only put a copyright on their images but also contact info, such as a web site. People steal my images all the time (probably dozens per month). I've had my images submitted to photo contests by others, sometimes with my copyright still on them!!! (Some people are really stupid.) Other steal them but don't change the file name. A google search of the file name can then find it on another web site. With a web site, other people will see the image and contact me (that also raises awareness of my site, which gets over a million hits per month).

Sometimes they steal images and modify it a little. Then use tineye.com to find such images. Tineye has found dozens of stolen and modified images of mine, particularly an image of a wolf howling (seems quite popular). I'm petty impressed by their algorithm. It would be nice to be able to auto check a whole web site (I would pay for such a service.)

It takes a lot of time to track thefts down, and more time to try and get the site taken down or image removed. I usually don't bother unless it is clear they are trying to make money. A lot of my images are stolen for personal web pages, including facebook. When I check such sites, I seems to me there are a lot of other stolen images on these sites too. The practice is quite rampant. But I've not had a larger commercial company steal images.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Interesting Ray. Though I guess as long as we keep putting our images online the risk will only become greater as the world's population will start to use the net more and more with less of the modern technologies needing phone lines to carry signals. I just read some news article a couple of days ago that only about 25% of the Earth's population uses the net and only about 5% of Africa. (So I guess the Nigerian scams are not all Nigerians ey? :D )

Almost ten years ago I found one of my seahorse images on a person's personal site with no link, reference or anything relating to who owned it (me) except that I had my name on the image and it was in fact stolen from the Australian Museum's ichthyology site. I tried in vain to contact this moron over and over and sent bills to no avail. So I let it be.

I find that funny how a person can be dumb enough to submit your image into a contest with your copyright logo on it. That is just plain Darwin awards stuff! :)

[Roger Clark]

Here is a site that seems to encourage stealing images from other sites:
http://www.polyvore.com

If you have a web site, type it in their search page. For example, type in clarkvision and I see one of my lion images in use. This is better than it has been in a while; it's been many images the last time I checked. This is pretty innocent in the scheme of things except its teaching young people to to steal, for example.

[Ed Cordes]

Ed,
Could you please post info on how yoy submit to the Library of Congress online?

Here is a link to an article from another website. I hope it is OK to post this link as it is not BPN.

http://www.naturescapes.net/docs/index.php/category-business/33-business/341-registering-your-copyrights-using-the-eco-system

I followed directions very carefully. the hard part is listing each image with a title and file number. I did re size the images as suggested in the article. I also keep a file, backed up in 3 places, of each year's images that I submitted for copyright.

I know I should do this more often, but I am basically cheap so I only spend the $35 once a year.

This year I submitted the images for 2008 in February and I have just checked the website yesterday to find the application was completed. A certificate is in the mail. Last year I submitted via snail mail in February and last month had part of it returned for some stupid glitch in the paperwork. I sent it back and have not yet received my certificate.

It is important to note that your date of registration is considered to be the date the Copyright office receives the first application.

I hope this helps.

Ed

[Paul Granone]

I take photos as a hobby. For me it is not a business.

As a result, I give away my photos. If people want to print them or use for other purposes that is fine with me. I am giving away my New Mexico photos to the local city school system to use. All the local schools teach topics about New Mexico. A good use for my free photos.

This website is just getting started ...

http://cid-5cc40c3b7ccad3c6.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public