I have a silly question. I've noticed that some of you add a copyright to your photos and others don't. For those of you that do not put a copyright on your photos, what do you do? For those of you that do add one, do you have a backup method if someone edits outs your copyright? Is it really a good idea to add one even if it takes away from the photo a bit? Or is it all a matter of personal preference?
its really a personal preference. ; the only true way to make sure someone doesn't do anything with your photo is to not post it at all. ; all other protection methods can be easily worked around: ; watermarks, digital metadata, disable right click... ; none are 100% foolproof. you can however register your entire collection with the us patent/copyright office which gives you a possible leg to stand on should you choose to go after someone for taking your image. ;
Exactly - really nothing you do short of not posting can guarantee noone will use your photos somehow. ; My method is to only upload smaller sizes - no more than 1024 pixels long, or usually even 800. ; That way, there are limited uses someone can make of the photos if they do hijack them - can't publish, can't sell to stock agencies, can't print large...but short of that, I don't like watermarks myself and don't really feel like worrying too much about what little plagiarism someone can do with a small res version of my shot. ; If it ever came down to a battle on who's photo it is, having the full res original with EXIF should be enough proof to fight it if you had to, since they won't have the original.
I watermark everything of Steve's just as a precaution. ; I use a really transparent watermark right across the middle of the image. ; But still we have found people will do anything even scan published works of ours and use the images without authorization. ; We used to use digimarc which searched the web for our images but there is really no way to totally control it. ; Most of the time people will ask first but the rest of the time they truly don't even know they are doing anything wrong. ; Guess it's just part of the photo business! ;
That helps a lot Justin. All the photos I upload anywhere have a resolution of 72 and are about 600 x 400... so at those levels there really isn't much people are going to be able to do with it so I don't really need to worry about watermarking them, right?
That's my opinion at least. ; Sure, they can copy them and repost them as their own...but there's little chance they could ever try to sell or earn money from them, and if you ever found them and challenged them, having the original should win the day for you. ; In the end though, you just have to accept if you're posting pics on the web that there's a good chance someone somewhere out there has posted your shot without your permission, and maybe even taken credit for it. ; As long as they can't sell it, I'm generally OK with that.
I like to add my watermark really just for pride. I dont care if someone takes my photos off the internet, and I dont really care if someone uses them without permission. like tim said, the only real way to protect your pictures is not post them. the watermark is part of my batch processing for resize and sharpening so its easy to do. but, I only ever upload small web size pictures. I dont have any full resolution pictures on the web anywhere, even flicker
So I haven't ever put a watermark or copyright on my shots before. I understand the reasoning behind it and I will probably join the fold that do this when I get my new camera. But for right now my view on it is, I shoot with a PAS camera that's like five years old. Takes decent enough pictures but I don't think they are anything anyone is going to want to take and try and sell. ; But I am my own worst critic too though.
i used to copywrite everything, but i've become more relaxed about it. i realize it's probably just too hard to keep someone from stealing a photo, and as long as it's not sold then so be it, i do post full size to phanfare, but the download is locked by me via a sign in and so far their security seems pretty good
