Threat to Copyright on old photographs?

As someone who had his image ripped off and found as a half page spread in the Sun, one understands the problems, luckily the site involved pursued it and we eventually settled and split the fee we were paid… Grrrrrrr.

I had one of my pics ‘doctored’ and printed on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. Sent a huge invoice to them with a copy of the original photo, claiming breach of copyright and they settled it with a letter of apology. At the end of the day, if you don’t see your pic published, they will get away with it!

As someone who had his image ripped off and found as a half page spread in the Sun, one understands the problems, luckily the site involved pursued it and we eventually settled and split the fee we were paid… Grrrrrrr.

If you visited sites that deal with crew training, that is one way you would receive such advertising.

Difficult to remove watermarks will make it hard to steal the image, and you can also sue the one using it, although it may be hard in this global world.

To be safe embed watermarks or text into photos?

A week ago, I watched a short video on Youtube. It showed a cargo aircraft stall on takeoff and crash in a rather large fireball. Underneath, Youtube decided to run an advert for cabin crew training, and considering the subject of the video was very unfortunate indeed I thought this advert was in rather poor taste. How did Youtube end up doing this? I suspect its an automated process…linking content of videos to adverts by association. The margins are so slim for this kind of advertising to have direct human intervention is just not cost effective, and the volume of new content being uploaded daily would mean an excessive staff overhead. Automated processes are the only way to derive any income.

Watermarks may well deter anything that requires human intervention, but the content aggregators will not be interested – images will be scraped, repackaged and posted with advertising around them automatically. No one will ever think ‘Gosh, nice image…lets contact the photographer’…

So no, I don’t think watermarking will be a sure safeguard from this kind of exploitation.

To be safe embed watermarks or text into photos?

I guess you need to be a bit aggressive so it will not be removed.

This is a very confusing area. It seems there are two sides to this story.

If I were being cynical, I would think that those who will gain most, who have lobbied hardest, fully intended to make things more rather than less complicated.

Surely a photo can only be copyrighted by the person who took the photograph or the company which employs that person as a photographer.

Correct. However, the changes will mean whoever holds the exclusive rights still has the rights, but they are no longer exclusive. Under Orphan Works (Can’t find the rights holder, want to commercially exploit the image – OW) or Extended Collective Licensing (Can’t be bothered to contact the rights holder, want to commercially exploit the image paying a rate that suits the exploiter – ECL) then a third party can license your images. Everyone has, in effect, had their rights removed to help big corporations make more money. We have to lose, so they can gain.

I have a very large collection of photographs which have been loaned and given to me. I will always make photos available to other authors who ask, free of charge of course; but I have shared photos with collectors and have seen the photos published as part of their collection with no acknowledgement given to the original provider ie. the individual who kindly gave them to me. This is wrong and exploitative.

That’s the new world we will live in. Exploitation of the property of others, without prior permission or payment. We can thank this government for these changes…

But the regulations to enable these changes have yet to be released. We have a chance to affect the outcome. Signatures do count and will help those arguing against the proposed changes.

This is a very confusing area. It seems there are two sides to this story.

Surely a photo can only be copyrighted by the person who took the photograph or the company which employs that person as a photographer. You surely cannot simply acquire a photograph and subsequently claim copyright. It is not possible, for example, to buy a batch of old photographs from a car boot and then exploit them as one’s own and charge for their use. Or is it? Flickr is a massive repository of photographs for which people claim a copyright to which they are not entitled. I have seen many photos there which are, in fact, in the public domain (eg USAF); but the poster has claimed copyright. Some of these photos have even been watermarked!

I have a very large collection of photographs which have been loaned and given to me. I will always make photos available to other authors who ask, free of charge of course; but I have shared photos with collectors and have seen the photos published as part of their collection with no acknowledgement given to the original provider ie. the individual who kindly gave them to me. This is wrong and exploitative.

If, like me, you find these changes unwelcome then there is a petition running:-

e-petition

Please add your signature, and share the link

A guide to the implications and potential impact of the Act:-

Instagram Act explained

Creators like myself recognise there is an issue with historical images, their preservation and display. Creators would welcome non-commercial use of images like these, but orphan works are not really the main event. Extended Collective Licensing will have a far greater impact and everyone who takes a picture is at risk of mass exploitation. Everyone – amateurs and pros alike – may well find their images being used for any purpose, wether they like it or not. More here about how to mitigate the risk:-

Ways to limit the damage

In practice this might mean that once a photo has lost its copyright notice (assuming it ever had one) by for instance it being stripped by harvesting or database software or even manually, it is fair game for others to exploit.

In theory it’s not quite as simple as that. As I understand it you have to prove that you have made all efforts to contact the original copyright owner before using the material. What actually constitutes ‘proof’ though and how strenuous you have to be in seeking out the original owner I don’t know. I suspect it’ll be very little in both cases though, and everything without metadata or some other copyright notice will be fair game.

What constitutes a safe and unstrippable copyright notice?

Possibly a ‘watermark’ on anything posted on the ‘net, that would be too difficult to remove for anyone to make any commercial use of it. I have posted many photos on various forums and have had occasions where they have been ‘commercially abused’ by some people who think they can download them and sell prints of them, or publish them. Apart from a watermark, only uploading pics in very low resolution will help solve this issue, rendering them useless for any commercial use, but still okay for viewing on the ‘net.

As one who has made a good living from drawings that were transmitted through word docs and pdfs, I do have an interest in this subject. If they had been used after the implied terms were ‘expired’ – as they almost certainly were, I’d love to know what to do about it.