Peter Figen wrote:
It's the registration of the work with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress that provides the legal protection for you work, not the copyright symbol in your image. While just creating the work does indeed give the creator the "copyright" to the art, registration gives the author specific additional legal means to be compensated for infringements.
In addition, the DMCA can afford you some very simple and inexpensive tools to have infringed upon images removed from any website, provided, of course, that it is a legitimate infringement claim.
I think a lot of theft occurs because the copyright symbol is not there. Most people assume if it is not there, the image is not copyrighted. Maybe this fact should be part of a public education program.
Most theft is not committed by companies just trying to avoid paying. It is done by someone that does not know any better.
I have long advocated a similar symbol for items in the public domain or free for use by anyone. That way images without the public domain/free symbol would be assumed to be copyrighted rather than assumed to be free.
Oh I love Canada and our implied copyright laws. To copyright CD's in Canada (no joke here, I do work as a producer) you put the Gold master in an envelope, and priority mail it to yourself. As long as you leave it sealed it is a verifiable document in the court of Law.
Hendrik wrote:
Maybe in the US a copyright notice is mandatory to give you legal protection, I don’t know. Problem is that almost never you will know that people use your image without your consent.
They're not. Notice printed on a photograph is not required. Here in the US a photo is copyrighted from the moment it is shot.
I have copyright information digitally encoded in my photos from the moment the camera takes them.
I also add in post.
I do however not add a visual copyright as I find it distracting in photos.
Oct 25, 2009 at 02:34 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Greg Hawkins wrote:
yeah i always wonder why people post without the Copyright symbol on the picture.
posting a photo is like leaving your car in a parking lot with the keys in the ignition, sure its your car and you don't expect people to steal it, but come on, this is the real world. a 15 year old girl is allowed to walk around downtown in a bathing suit at 3 am, but she doesn't for a reason, cause we cant be trusted. lock your car, out on some clothes, and copyright your photo. it's like people are allergic to using their head....Show more →
Yes you should know all about stealing photo's without copyrights. But they caught you the last time
Hendrik wrote:
Most people just like to watch your beautiful images more often and don’t have awful plans with them.
That describes me pretty well!
Many people are not aware of the IPTC data. So, a little, almost non-distracting name on the image can give some benefit, but (imho) do not have the illusion that it gives you any protection.
Yup, I always check the tags when trying to figure out where something came from. Another trick I like is the utility that places the hosting URL in the files' comments "Downloaded from: ______". Although that's on my end so I'll know where it came from. I guess a thief wouldn't be interested.
And what's this? Someone is here who was known for getting busted ripping off images? You guys like to play with fire or what?!?
Is all I see. I think things like this should NOT be filtered out. Outings such as this when verifiable, serve to apply peer and community pressure on those who would otherwise shy from honesty themselves.
I agree with Bifurcator, a running post is a good heads up for everyone. A banned person simply just signs up again at work or a friends PC and starts a new life stealing, especially to make money.
If you can manage [even FM] to add a site meter embeded, you can trace back those who have gone to your pages, get ip's, where they came from, and where they clicked to after. Sometimes you can track a theft to their own site.
I found one of my photos on an ecard once, with another persons name.
nathanlake wrote:
I think a lot of theft occurs because the copyright symbol is not there. Most people assume if it is not there, the image is not copyrighted. Maybe this fact should be part of a public education program.
Most theft is not committed by companies just trying to avoid paying. It is done by someone that does not know any better.
This is true. Many studies have suggested that people's propensity to download copyrighted material online is related to 1) their knowledge that what they are doing is illegal, and 2) their chances of being caught and 3) the ease with which the material can be downloaded (among a few other factors). Copyright notices help deter users who might unknowingly download copyrighted material by informing them that the photos are copyrighted. A copyright notice won't deter users who don't care about infringing on copyright (just as a right-click restricting code won't deter a user from performing a screen shot), but it will deter a large number of users who cannot figure out a way around the system or don't choose to become ensnared in the threat of legal action.
