Ok, so I have, literally, thousands of photos from MotoGP, 125, and Moto2 from this season. Some of them are pretty decent, too and I would like to share them. Question; how do I put pics out on the interboob and still protect them from theft? Is it even possible? Other than emailing files to a couple riders and attaching some to articles I have not been able to figure out a way to share them safely. Ideas?
no safe way to do it. even if you disable right click, people still screen capture best option is to put a watermark over the whole image
Put a HUGE watermark across the center. Wont stop someone from steaslign it, but will make it undesirable to a theif unless they really really want to put time and effort into cloning it out.
Ah, that's kind of what I was afraid of. Thanks for the 411. Now, what programs do you use that can watermark like that? Simpler is better as I am pretty simple myself. I have been using picassa, but that only allows a smallish watermark that is easily cut away.
Yeah its pretty sad how people will blatantly steal pics. I've seen people use pics on sites with the watermark fully intact. Consider low resolution to discourage it, even though it degrades the product....
And when you catch people doing it, some of them want to argue with you about how they have "a right" to steal your original work and do whatever they want with it. One guy claimed that because he had bought a subscription to the magazine, he owned all rights to the copyrighted material it contained. (His ISP thought otherwise and took down the pirated material. And we canceled the guy.)
I run a forum and bust watermarked photos all the time, and usually get the argument that"they are of me, so I have rights to them, and since it is watermarked with www.stolenphoto.com's website I am not hurting them, I am HELPING promote them"
I try to keep up with it on magazines and news articles too. I basically allow similar to your RSS feed. A teaser paragraph copied and nothing more, then the link. Stealing is stealing, even if it is "just the internet"
Got a question about photos,some 30 plus years ago I met a guy shooting photos from behind the fence at Laguna and he told me he got some great crash photos of Yvon and sent me copies several weeks later,they had no copyright on them.I've only gave copies to two of the racers years later that were involved and have lost contact soon after after with the photog. Was I in the wrong to have released them?I did not sell them but gave as a gift.
I had one guy tell me that since it was on the net it was fair game. Asked him nicely 3 times to take them off his website. After he called me every name in the book (and then some), I notified Mongo who threatened some not nice things. He took them down soon after.
Yeah I guess. It's a lot easier to keep someone from riding your bike though. Since I'm not a pro I guess I wouldn't care too much if someone used one of my pictures (that's why I asked). Maybe if I took better pictures I would care more.
Hypothetical here.... Lets say one of your pictures is used by say... John up there in his magazine, which he makes a significant amount of money on. Do you expect payment for the use of that photo? It was free on the internet though right? Same idea, but smaller, a pro rider uses it on his race trailer to promote himself. Should he buy rights? smaller, trackday guy wants it just to show his friends... should he pay you for the work? How small of an amount of money is too small to matter anymore?
^ Yeah that makes sense. Never been in that position so never really though about it. Was just curious too if there was some other reason I wasn't thinking of. If John used one of my photos I'd be flattered. =]
Thanks for the responses. I had a guy who is a trainer for one of the very up and coming Moto2 riders approach me wanting a shot of his guy that he wants to use on his website to promote his business. I think he should have to pay for that picture. People take pictures to earn a living. Digital SLRs are so good now that almost anyone can get decent pictures. If those pictures are available for free on the internet then it become that much harder for professionals to earn a living. Oh, by the way, John I have a couple nice shots of Mr. Noyes if you need them.
If I were to have a picture on my website that you wanted and you "copy" it, do a screen save or whatever, that is stealing. No different than me going to your pit and taking something that's not mine. I took the picture, the rights belong to me. No one has a right to use it, copy it, or give it to someone else without my permission. No matter how harmless you may think the reason is, it's still stealing. If I send it to John, he has the right to use it because I gave him permission and he agreed to pay me a fee. That is how it works.
