As I understand it your work is covered by copyright laws regardless of any marking on the image it's self, so it's not necessary.
Any opinions?
Rob
Posted by Graeme Lee on August 22, 2007 at 8:59 AM
Hi Rob,
I prefer subtle ones in the corners as opposed to a great big thing across the centre of the image. To be honest there's nothing worse than not being able to view the image and it puts me off a site instantly.
That's my opinion, but if I earnt money from my images or thought they were worthy of nicking, then I might resort to something more drastic perhaps? but I don't.
Technically your work is automatically your copyright (unless you've assigned those rights), and you don't need to display anything on the image. (Copyright in the US is slightly different as it does need to be registered separately (at cost!) if you want to have the ability to claim for higher damages against an infringer.)
Some food for thought - there are a few reasons why you might want to include the copyright on the image and in it's metadata...
1) It says it's yours & has to be deliberately removed...
2) The effect of 1) is that no-one can then say they didn't know...
3) It provides a means of contacting/finding you if someone sees the image elsewhere.
4) There is the potential for some new legislation in various countries (including US & UK) - typically refered to as 'Orphaned Works'. This could open the way for the unlicensed use of copyrighted material if a user could show that they had taken 'reasonable' steps to find a works creator...but hadn't been able to find them. Bad news all round (musicians/artists/photographers/writers/etc). If you've taken steps to add your details to the image & metadata, then there is a slight chance it could avoid falling into the 'orphaned work' category if the metadata and watermark/branding haven't been destroyed.
That said, if someone wants to steal and re-use your images, then sadly there isn't much to stop them and there's little real chance of them being caught...unless they're a big organisation using it openly & publicly.
Posted by Elliott Neep on August 22, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Hi Rob,
I haven't bothered as my gallery is in Flash so the images can't be copied. Saying that, there are illustrative images on my site, but they are so small and low-res that they are useless for printing or any other purposes apart from web-use. To illustrate the point of a stamp, there was a case on here a few months ago where a photographer copied an image from a UKNP post and used it on their own site. The copyright stamp would deter that, but it does impede general viewing. If you do have stamp, have it on the edge so it does not obscure the view.
Posted by Peter Barritt on August 22, 2007 at 12:29 PM
I'm with foliosnap and they automatically protect images as part of their package which I think is good value at about £80 a year. You can easily design your own website with them and uploading your photos is a piece of cake.
have a gander at peterbarrittphotography.com
otherwise I would definitely agree with the others and put a small copyright note bottom right.
Good luck Peter
Neither offer much in the way of protection - OK right click/save may not work. But that isn't much impediment these days.
The few shots from your websites that I looked at in PS didn't have any metadata in them. You might like to add some. At least set the copyrighted bit, the rights terms and your contact details in photoshop/lightroom if nothing else. That way, if an art director or a designer takes a copy of a shot and drops it into Photoshop or a DAM tool such as iView/Lightroom/Aperture then they might remember who/where it's from as your details will be in there!
Posted by Elliott Neep on August 22, 2007 at 1:48 PM
Cheers for the pointer Nick
Posted by Rob Fisher on August 22, 2007 at 2:31 PM
Discussion
9 repliesI'm debating whether or not to include a © Robfisher stamp across images posted on my website. Looking at others websites some people do and some don't.
As I understand it your work is covered by copyright laws regardless of any marking on the image it's self, so it's not necessary.
Any opinions?
Rob
I prefer subtle ones in the corners as opposed to a great big thing across the centre of the image. To be honest there's nothing worse than not being able to view the image and it puts me off a site instantly.
That's my opinion, but if I earnt money from my images or thought they were worthy of nicking, then I might resort to something more drastic perhaps? but I don't.
Some food for thought - there are a few reasons why you might want to include the copyright on the image and in it's metadata...
1) It says it's yours & has to be deliberately removed...
2) The effect of 1) is that no-one can then say they didn't know...
3) It provides a means of contacting/finding you if someone sees the image elsewhere.
4) There is the potential for some new legislation in various countries (including US & UK) - typically refered to as 'Orphaned Works'. This could open the way for the unlicensed use of copyrighted material if a user could show that they had taken 'reasonable' steps to find a works creator...but hadn't been able to find them. Bad news all round (musicians/artists/photographers/writers/etc). If you've taken steps to add your details to the image & metadata, then there is a slight chance it could avoid falling into the 'orphaned work' category if the metadata and watermark/branding haven't been destroyed.
That said, if someone wants to steal and re-use your images, then sadly there isn't much to stop them and there's little real chance of them being caught...unless they're a big organisation using it openly & publicly.
I haven't bothered as my gallery is in Flash so the images can't be copied. Saying that, there are illustrative images on my site, but they are so small and low-res that they are useless for printing or any other purposes apart from web-use. To illustrate the point of a stamp, there was a case on here a few months ago where a photographer copied an image from a UKNP post and used it on their own site. The copyright stamp would deter that, but it does impede general viewing. If you do have stamp, have it on the edge so it does not obscure the view.
have a gander at peterbarrittphotography.com
otherwise I would definitely agree with the others and put a small copyright note bottom right.
Good luck Peter
Neither offer much in the way of protection
The few shots from your websites that I looked at in PS didn't have any metadata in them. You might like to add some. At least set the copyrighted bit, the rights terms and your contact details in photoshop/lightroom if nothing else. That way, if an art director or a designer takes a copy of a shot and drops it into Photoshop or a DAM tool such as iView/Lightroom/Aperture then they might remember who/where it's from as your details will be in there!
Thanks for all the input guys, very helpful.
Rob