Photo Copyright and Release 101

[hellosailor]

nautical, I'd have agreed with you more 40 years ago but things have changed.

"when you add a copyright symbol or otherwise say they are copyright, there is little room for doubt the infringement was intentional," Since the US became a Berne Convention signatory in the 70s, the law clearly says it is no longer necessary to indicate copyright. On the contrary, ALL work is presumed to be copyrighted UNLESS there is a disclaimer elsewise.

The only advantage to placing a copyright slug on the work, is that someone can say "Well, I tried to find the artist but there are 5000 "John Smith"s out there and I couldn't find the owner." That's still no excuse, although it might be taken as a mitigating circumstance IF they could prove they'd made some real attempts. Putting your name on the image, makes it more likely that someone can contact you.

Watermarks? Come on, no one actually needs to put a VISIBLE watermark across the image these days. There are technologies that put a totally INvisible watermark in the image, and then go out and search the web for images that have that mark embedded in them. These are all based in steganography, which has become a big business (and big encryption problem wrt espionage and terrorism) in the past decade. Steganography works, very easily and effectively, and any script kiddie can use it to invisibly watermark any image.

Most folks overcomplicate the issues around copyright, but the laws are fairly simple, the explanatory materials fairly good, and there's a HUGE amount of case law to clear up any questions that people have. Anyone planning to sell images (or simply protect them) needs to do a little research and come up to speed on that, the same way that someone opening a burger shack needs to find out the correct temperature to cook and store food at.

[MarkJ]

On looking back over the whole thread I don't wish my comments to be devaluing your original post. I appologise if it appears to be.

Mark

[nautical62]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

nautical, ...

"when you add a copyright symbol or otherwise say they are copyright, there is little room for doubt the infringement was intentional," Since the US became a Berne Convention signatory in the 70s, the law clearly says it is no longer necessary to indicate copyright. On the contrary, ALL work is presumed to be copyrighted UNLESS there is a disclaimer elsewise.

I agree, the law clearly states images are copyright, even without adding the copyright symbol. It's unfortunate more people don't realize that and I appreciate you emphasizing that point. My point is that the reason for adding the symbol is that it makes it clear to those who may not be familiar with copyright law that the image is indeed copyright and that you take such copyright seriously. Doing so may also help with potential awards and settlements because it makes it clear copyright infringement was intentional, even though as you said, people should legally presume all works are copyright.

You have made many good points. I have not commented on them until now, because I agree with all of them.

I very much agree with your point about copyright being fairly straight forward and am surprised that's been the major topic of discussion. Issues of release are much more complex.

[nautical62]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

On looking back over the whole thread I don't wish my comments to be devaluing your original post. I appologise if it appears to be.

Mark

Not devaluing it at all. In fact, I'm glad someone took the time to read such a lengthy, dry subject and take the time to give their view and experiences. Issues such as this can vary from place to place and people in different shoes, see the same issues from different perspectives. Actually as I read though your posts, I agree with or have experienced much of what you said. The continued discussion comes from the differences.

My experience in the photography forums echos much of what you said in your last post and that is most professional photographers get much less hung up about copyright than most amateur/semi-pros do. The pros usually make their money before images are ever displayed on the web (stock photography being an obvious exception.) and often consider any use of images after that a compliment, that is if they give it any thought at all. That was actually what I was sort of getting at with my response to the watermark. Its mostly the over protective amateurs that get into watermarking their images from what I've seen. As a part time, less than pro photographer I know I'm being overly sensative myself.

I think your points that most image copyright infringement that happens is minor and will never lead to any legal complications is a good one. I make my points not so much based on enforcement, but because I think many of the points GordMay and hellosailor and myself have made about copyright are simply not known or misunderstood by many.

[maxingout]

I hope that the images (3000+) I post on internet are good enough that people would consider hijacking them and putting them on their web sites. At last I will be a success!