Protect your pictures

The internet has provided fabulous marketing opportunities for photographers wishing to promote their work.

Unfortunately it also means that our work can be rapidly copied and duplicated around the world by people with unscrupulous intentions or who are just ignorant as to the law.

As photographers there are things we can do to protect our work in the first place and then certain steps we can take once a breach of copyright has been identified. This has become a personal crusade for me after having images stolen and labelled as the work of another. We have ongoing legal action in that particular case that has meant a great deal of research as to options. Here are some of the findings, hope it helps anyone else in similar situations.

Firstly put a watermark on any image that you post online. Now this can be a great big one in the middle of the image to disrupt any attempt to print them or a more subtle one that identifies you as owner. The choice is yours and I prefer the latter option to maintain the beauty of an image.

You can also put a copyright notice on your blog, forum or even facebook entry that clearly identifies you as the owner.

Also consider embedding metadata into your images that identifies you as owner of the image.

As photographer you will always own copyright of the images you take unless you were employed by another photography company to take the images (they will own the copyright) or you actively sign over your rights to the images.

If you are posting images onto your own website or blog then make sure you have an analytics package embedded. I use Statcounter which is a free piece of coding, simple to set up and gives much valuable information. It will show you who is visiting your website, where they are clicking from, what keywords they used to find you etc. In the context of image protection it will also show which images are being downloaded from your site and by whom.

Now not all downloads are to be considered malicious. I'm sure we've all seen a particularly striking image and saved it for use as inspiration ahead of future shoots. Whilst technically a breach of copyright it is at the lowest end and providing their is no public display of your image then not worth bothering about. Where the lines become blurred is when that image is taken off your blog and then displayed elsewhere on another blog, pinterest board etc. Where some of these will credit you as photographer and it can be flattering to see your image displayed it is a breach of your copyright and could be challenged as such.

A much more obvious breach occurs when images are taken off your site and presented as the work of another photographer, presented uncredited, printed without permission or basically put into the public domain by someone without your agreement.

If this happens then gather your evidence straight away.


Follow this link for good guidance as to how to go about it.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p05_copyright_infringement

Other complications occur when you have been booked to take images of a company or work with a model.  In these instances make sure you have a licencing agreement in place for the images or a model release which says exactly how the images can be used.

The international nature of the internet means that identifying where the breach has taken place can be problematic. Even in our small island the differences between English and Scottish law can be torturous. This is when getting expert legal advice on board is desirable if pursuing through to court.

My basic advice is to challenge anytime you see your images being used without permission. If we all do it then the message will get out there that our work has value and cannot be taken. The more we communicate with clients and peers about how images can and cannot be used then the better the awareness and whilst ignorance is not a defence under law, better informed people will hopefully not be so ready to steal our work.



Useful links

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p16_photography_copyright

http://www.tineye.com/

http://statcounter.com/