Copyright of Photos and Images on the Forum

[NightHawk]

I have opened this new topic to discuss the copyright of the photographs and images we post on the Forum.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and past experiences on this matter.

Laurie.

[NightHawk]

As far as our members are concerned we all have an implied copyright of photographs and images we post.  We all respect this and would not use them anywhere without their permission.

Since we opened the Forum to 'everyone', our photographs in particular are more at risk at being downloaded and subject of misuse.

As most of you know, Kathy and I design a lot of our own graphics, we set up a web site for this specific purpose, and in the past we were actively involved with other graphics artists and their web sites.

We heard many times of their graphics being misused by people downloading them and passing them off as their own.

We all had copyright notices explained on our web sites advising against doing this, but you are always going to get unscrupulous people who have no regard for other people's work and go ahead anyway.

The topic of embedding copyright notices into our graphics was discussed at great length, by using many different methods. They ranged from inserting a visible copyright message at the bottom of each graphic, and/or to actually embed an invisible copyright notice during the initial creation of the design, whereby you could track their usage elsewhere.

The concensus of opinion was that whatever copyright method was used, there was always a way for it to be circumvented.  The use of graphics software to remove the notice present on the actual graphic to them resaving the image and putting their own copyright message in it.

Any method of copyright we embed on our graphics/photographs does give us a tenuous leg to stand on should it be necessary to take legal action for misuse of our material.
The fact that someone else actively removes our copyright notices implies they have deliberately 'stolen' our property, and cannot be regarded as anything but that.

The crux of the matter then is, if we decide to take legal action against graphics/photo thieves, then we have to be prepared to pay the cost of doing that.  This can work out to be an expensive procedure, and the thieves are relying on that course of action not being pursued.

I have been monitoring the recent actions of 'Guests' on our Forum and have noticed that a variety of topics are being 'printed.'  This could be genuinely interested onlookers who are using the information for their own benefit to enhance their gardening experiences, and not to misuse our photos.  But it is a situation we need to be aware of.

So, my advice would be for us to put whatever copyright notice into our photographs that we see fit (if that is what we wish to do in the first place), so it is at least made clear to 'everyone' that we do not want our photos to be misused.

Let's hear from our other members now as to your thoughts on this subject.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

http://www.copyrightaction.com/forum...-public?page=1
This makes interesting reading. Not heard anything more about it yet though.

[roiphil]

its a difficult one, when i sell my plants etc on ebay, ebid or my site i sometimes do tend to put a copyright text on it, but when i sell the seeders via dropship i allow anyone who is advertising them to use certain pictures of mine on their website, but again this allows anyone to use them, i dont have the funds to go into expensive copyrighting of pictures so i use a free program that places your text on the pic, even when copyrighted where do you place the text, can the picture be cropped to remove the copyright text, are there people who have the knowledge to remove such text if you place it in the middle, you can do a image search on google for magic seeder and i bet some of my pics will be on the first 2 pages, so what do you do, put up with it,

If i have a plant in seed form that i need pictures for and i find a picture i email if it is ok to use most of the time if it a small business its fine, and vica versa if some one emails me asking permission its fine i dont mind,

most of my plant pics from last year now have my white label one them anyway so i know that is my pic if i see it anywhere, where it should not be

Laurie you mentioned some printing of topics what topics are being printed, out of interest, please pm if you dont wish to make it public

Phil

[Edited by Laurie - I've sent you a PM Phil.]

[Four Seasons]

Laurie, Thanks for taking time to explain various issues related to copyright of photographs and images posted to the forum. Like so many people, we use IT such a lot but at the same time have only limited skills and understanding! Protection of the copyright of photos  or images is not an area  in which we have any expertise but it is  a subject of  importance for nearly everyone who posts data. It seems a basic right that who ever has taken and posted  a photo, should be credited with the photo and they would not be happy to have the photo downloaded and used without consent.  It would be ideal if a camera could be set to embed an invisible copyright marker at the time of taking the photo but as far as we aware this can not be done. Alternatively we would like to learn how to embed a copyright into the photos at the time of downloading to the computer but we have no idea how this could be done.

Tony

[NightHawk]

Unfortunately Tony, digital cameras aren't that smart yet to put a proper copyright notice on our images 'in camera', so you're correct in saying that. 

Seriously though, copyright issues are a major concern for a lot of people and there are many ways to embed personal info into our photos by using our computers.  Having said that though, there is no sure-proof way to protect your photos once they are posted on the Internet.  Determined thieves will get around any methods employed.  For example, taking a screenshot from a web page containing any photos will not store any copyright info.  So by resaving any images captured they could put their own copyright info on them.  This is not a trade secret, so I'm not giving anything away here.

A very drastic way to copyright your photos is to put a logo across the middle of them.  It spoils the look of the photo and no-one would want to mess with them in a graphics program - too much bother.  You've probably come across this already on some web sites.  Companies selling some products for example.  They're not too concerned about what the photos look like but it stops people from wanting to use them.
Obviously, when we post our flowers on the Forum we ARE concerned about what they look like, so that method is not an option.  I just used that as an example to highlight the most extreme method of copyright.

Anyway, what can we do now once we have taken our photos, got them onto our computer, and wish to embed a copyright notice into each of them.
One method is to use some independent software.  Phil ("roiphil" on the Forum) mentioned in a previous posting elsewhere that he has a FREE program that does just that.  You could ask him what he uses or do a search yourself on the Internet.  I use Download.com but there are others.
Otherwise, you may already have a graphics program on your computer that you use for enhancing your photos.  I use Photoshop Elements and the method is very simple.  With your photo open in the program you click on File/File Info, and the menu that is presented allows you to type in any number of bits of information, including your name (obviously) and free text boxes for entering detailed copyright info.  Once you save your photo, that info is saved automatically.  I imagine other graphics programs allow a similar procedure - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact as some examples.

I'm afraid that is about the best that we can do for photos posted on our Forum.  If we have any masterpiece photos that we are intending to sell, then we don't post them anywhere on the Internet. That is the ONLY foolproof way to fully protect our photos.

So, adopt the method you prefer to copyright your photos (or not, as the case may be) and just sit back and enjoy the praise our members give you for taking the time to show them in the first place.

It's not worth getting too hung up on this issue though.  Be concerned and do what we can, yes, but don't let it stop us from sharing our photos with our fellow gardeners on the Forum.

I hope this has given you food for thought Tony, and our other members, and further comments are still welcomed so that we can all benefit from other suggestions, etc.

Laurie.

[NightHawk]

Here is yet another example of the lengths thieves will go to so that they can benefit from someone else's work.

During our years as graphics designers and web site developers, we heard from one of our friends about an unbelieveable Internet theft.  Someone had actually copied a WHOLE web site of a graphics developer we knew, using the same text and images (with just a slight variation of additional content - i.e advertising banners and such like) and passed it off as their own work.

Needless to say, the original owner contacted this 'person' and told them to remove their web site forthwith.  This met with unconcern and statements that the web site was of their own design.

The original owner then instigated legal action.  After a lengthy and stressed legal battle the original owner of the web site won their case and the offending web site was taken offline.

We wouldn't have believed this to be true had we not seen the 'cloned' web site ourselves.  What pride can anyone take from duplicating someone else's work?  These sort of people don't merit the label of 'human beings.'  They are evil incarnate!

Just another case that highlights the type of people that are out there, and that we need to be aware of.  Scary! and pathetic. 

Laurie.

[Four Seasons]

Laurie, Thanks for taking great time and care to explain much more about copyright issues related to photos ......and to web sites.

Our son used photoshop to help us to prepare the 'quad' pictures with views of all 4 season but otherwise we have  not used photoshop elements. Your suggestion has given us an extra reason to learn how to use it. However, we have always posted photos wanting other people to hopefully see them clearly and  enjoy them.......and this will continue to be our main priority.

Thanks again

Tony  (and Marie)

[roiphil]

 Phil ("roiphil" on the Forum) mentioned in a previous posting elsewhere that he has a FREE program that does just that.  You could ask him what he uses or do a search yourself on the Internet.  I use Download.com but there are others.
Otherwise, you may already have a graphics program on your computer that you use for enhancing your photos.  I use Photoshop Elements and the method is very simple.  With your photo open in the program you click on File/File Info, and the menu that is presented allows you to type in any number of bits of information, including your name (obviously) and free text boxes for entering detailed copyright info.  Once you save your photo, that info is saved automatically.  I imagine other graphics programs allow a similar procedure - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact as some examples.

Laurie.

if any one is interested i use this umark lite as its free and i like freebies  http://www.uconomix.com/Downloads.aspx there is another version which is better but you pay i think 20 dollars for it

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Tony (and Marie) wrote

"we have always posted photos wanting other people to hopefully see them clearly and  enjoy them.......and this will continue to be our main priority."

Exactly how I feel.
If I used photography as an income, then I would probably feel different.

As Laurie has said, there are ways of getting rid of the copyright on web images, and as for going to court if you find someone using your photos. I have more than enough on my plate already thanks.

Just my thoughts.

Malcolm

[Palustris]

Did get a bit annoyed when someone took one of my pictures messaed around with it and posted it to win £100 though.
Seriously though I agree about the occasional use of my pictures by others is not a problem. The Gov't claiming all uncopyrighted pictures is a different matter. I think perhaps we are talking about different things here.

[Eric Hardy]

This is an interesting topic, Laurie. I have several thousands of my photos posted on Flickr, mainly of churches and cathedrals. I post them to share them with people of similar interests and I have made several good friends that way. In fact we meet up every two months or so to do a joint church crawl. I don't feel too possessive about them and I dare say some people download them without my knowledge. My experience is that generally people are very good at asking permission to use them. One vicar asked permission to use a few of my shots in his church's new brochure, a copy of which he kindly let me have. I have had several magazines ask me for permission to use photos and only a few weeks ago I was asked permission for one of my church photos to be used on the paper cover of a book being published by the Oxford University Press. In that case Oxfam benefited by £300 for the use of my photo. One interesting one was a small gardening firm in Japan who asked to use my photo of our Kiftsgate rose in their brochure  I do agree that original art work is a different matter and copyright should be protected but I feel quite relaxed about people using my photos provided they ask permission. They usually give me a credit when they use them too

[Palustris]

This is still not the same as the Gov't claiming copyright on 'orphans' though which is what my original point was about!

[ideasguy]

Who bothers to read the agreements associated with sites which "invite" you to register as a member?

My son is a teacher. He asked his class - who was registered on facebook?
Hands went up. Next question - how many had read the terms and conditions when they registered? - no hands.
He told them to go home and read them.

Theres no such thing as a free lunch!

[newplantguy]

In the course of my work I regularly have to share images which have to be or reasonable quality for assessing plants, we have growers who visit and take photos, you rely on them to be honest with the use of images, it is just to much hassle to insert copyright notices.
It is more important for us that they do not post a picture anywhere as it can invalidate any future plant protection especially Plant Patents in the USA.
I also supply many of my own images to label printers for use in producing our labels. 
Paul

[ideasguy]

Interesting Paul! Your photos have an added parameter in that the actual plants are new introductions and must be safeguarded.
Since you are dealing with associates and known individuals then you can rely on trust.

On the internet, its an entirely different matter. The "dishonest" are the most relentless in pursuit of personal gains and nothing is respected.

I'm of the opinion that copyright of photos should and must be protected.