Eric S. wrote:
Its our RIGHT to prevent the rampent THEFT of our hard work.
All I can say, is maybe one day you'll see your stolen images on another paysite somewhere in Bulgaria or Bangkok, where they snipped off your tiny little copyright in the corner and are making money with YOUR work. Until it happens to YOU, of course you people won't understand, and will ignorantly see it as "shameless advertising"
AND aside from that, when images are either hotlinked from my server or downloaded and used on another site, ie free smut sites, my copyright serves a couple purposes.
..............

I empathize with you on all these points. But you seem to have your 'mark' on small portion of the print and not across the face of the Model.

This is the cost of doing business on the Web. That is also why I don't have a single commercial image on the web and I work strictly with secure email and printed portfolios when it comes to my clients. I have done work for the Atlantis Hotel, Bayliner boats to name a few and not one image will be on the web. Its just the nature of this beast.

I has some of my work stolen in the past by another photog, and also used by a Escort Service! And it sucked.

But no matter what you do if someone wants it they will get it and alter it.

But, I guess it a matter of whether you look at the images from a artistic standpoint for which we don't want you to mess it up with your 'Mark'. Or, from a commercial/business standpoint where we want people to get the idea of our work but don't want it stolen.

Additionally, some DO put there 'Mark' on the image for Ego purposes too.

Mark

UnoMundo Photography wrote:
For me it is NOT ego.
In the past year I have discovered my images on escort sites 3 times.

Only a irate complaint  and a promise of a ten second Tazer burst has got my images removed from the escort list.

MM does NOT protest images from downloads, so anyone scumbag can rightclick copy your image and post it to "sexygirls.com"

So somes images I splash across the front!

I empathize, but what were you doing cruising those sites to find them? ???

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
Photographers should be more concerned about the image, then their name. Did Da Vinci paint 'DA VINCI' right under Ms.  del Giocondo's (Mona Lisa) chin!?!?!?!? No!

Photos--especially those on the Internet--are a little easier to reproduce than paintings.

MikeyBoy wrote:
remember boys.. pics on this site.. which is a networking site and therefore it is to your advantage to have ego stamps on your work.. as this is the purpose of having pics here.. to be seen by others and name recognized....

This is my pet peeve, and I find that putting watermarks or big logos across your image, is immature, childish, and down right amateurish.

How many magazines splash their copyrights across the images, yet their scans are tossed about the Internet for years.

And, *YES* I've had more images stolen, re-used, and pirated than any 30 or 40 people on this board.  I have not released any new images in almost 10 years, and during december I downloaded several of the Usenet groups, and still found my images being recirculated.

It makes me mad, but at the same time it means I must be doing good work, since it hasn't been screened out by others yet, *AND* 95% of all my released works were GIF's or converted GIF's to JPG, so they were only 256 colors

We did good conversions.... BTW.

Some of our images have shown up in classifieds, national magazines, and such without permission. 

But, if you want to ruin your image by splashing a watermark across it, go ahead. 

Agencies don't do it, they don't blot-out a models breasts because by seeing them you are "stealing" their IP rights.  LOL!!!  Amateures.  GETTY does it, and gave some sort of "go ahead" to others to do it, and it's why I don't use them, either.  There are plenty of other stock sources that give you good, reasonably sized images to view, without intrusive watermarks.

You will *NOT* stop the theives and pirates, but you will often leave a negative first impression with someone looking for a professional to deal with.

Disagree if you want, but it's your loss.   

Scott
aka Bodyartist

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
Having the photographer splash his/her name is big BOLD letters across the front of them.


Come on guys/girls. Put you name on the bottom and stop ruining the image. Are you THAT worried about someone stealing your image? Please.

Photographers should be more concerned about the image, then their name. Did Da Vinci paint 'DA VINCI' right under Ms.  del Giocondo's (Mona Lisa) chin!?!?!?!? No!

I fully agree.  But, you won't change the people who feel that they need to stamp their names all over stuff.  When I can see a watermark on the thumbnails, I don't even bother to look at the larger images.

It is intrusive, and ruins the "image" in many ways.

I find that anyone who has to do that, doesn't believe enough in themselves.  They have to try to "protect" all the good work they've done, because they've done so little. 

We put a small copyright, sometimes larger advertising on our images.  On our commercial products, there is only a very small copyright.  On-line products, because they are so often stolen, we use a medium copyright, so that redistribution still points back to us.  That's good marketing.  But we never run it over the model, into the scene, or over any part of the image that would be of interest to the viewer.

We actually make (and made) more money on those pirated images, since every customer they drove to us was "free" of acquisition costs.

10 years ago, stealing images was so rampant, there was no understanding that it was *not* legal to do.  15 years ago, it was even worse.  20 years ago, there wasn't much to steal

The best thing I can say, is vent about the morons who do things like that to their portfolios, and realize that they come across as unprofessional, amateurish, and worse. 

Just do your thing, and do it the best way you can. 

The more people who splash those huge obtrusive watermarks over their images, the more you will bubble to the top in this growing sea of content.  Good content always survives, bad content dies off.  Good content suppliers stay around.  We've out lived almost everyone who was around when we started in 1983/4, and our first images were on-line by about 1986. 

Bodyart.com was registered in 1993 ? somewhere around there.  Sites boast about "10 years" or even "5" years.  We've been around on-line (BBS's) since the late 80's, and there's a reason.

We value our viewers, as much as we value our own ability to produce the content they want to see.

Do the same, and you'll be fine

Don't worry about what others do, and realize that when they do it, they make you look that more professional

Scott
aka Bodyartist

MikeyBoy wrote:
has nothing to do with stealing, even though most camera jockeys here feebly attempt to guard their pics like frikiin gold dubloons...

it realy is the insatiable need for ego satisfaction.. "Look at Me !".. please please .. see my name.. leave comments...adore me.. zzzzzzzzzz

Not at all. Have you ever had someone use your images and say they shot them? Many have, because their watermark/copyright info was so easy to remove. One simple crop to get rid of the info in the corner and there ya go. An image all ready to go to say you took it. And then what if that person who did that develops a bad rep, pisses lots of people off and then they see the profile/website of the photographer who actually did shoot the photograph and they recognize some of the photographs because they were on the imposters profile/website and there is nothing you can do to convince them that you shot the photo. rumors start flyin"hey that photographer, he changed his name, its(insert name here) watch out for him".
If you can not tell that a photograph is good or bad simply because of a transparent watermark, well, I just dunno. I can easily tell if a shot is good or not with one there. It does not ruin it for me anymore than a car that has the make and model on it and its logo as a hood ornament.

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
...Look at all the great, well published photogs out there. Do you see there name in big BOLD letters in the middle of the image.

Photographers should be more concerned about the image, then their name. Did Da Vinci paint 'DA VINCI' right under Ms.  del Giocondo's (Mona Lisa) chin!?!?!?!? No!
...
Mark

Not trying to start trouble Mark, but man, I am almost sure that if Da Vinci and del Giocondo lived in today's times, Da Vinci would be her model manager and he'd be using DigiMarc as well as splashing his name on the front of her. I'm almost sure of it. He'd also have a real estate business going on the side and who knows what else? Pay site maybe?

Fred Prose wrote:
I empathize, but what were you doing cruising those sites to find them? ???

I have had some of my shots end up on websites like that and worse. You do not always have to look to find them .Sometimes friends and models tell you. Sometimes some use digimark, which traces where your images are , if someone has stolen them. Some of us shoot for those types of sites. Their money is just as green as any client.

Bodyartist wrote:
How many magazines splash their copyrights across the images, yet their scans are tossed about the Internet for years.

Magazines have already made their money from those images. Some photographers have yet to make money from the images they put logos on.But actually, some magazines do put copyright info or a logo on every page or early every page.

Eric S. wrote:
Its our RIGHT to prevent the rampent THEFT of our hard work.

Sure, but I'd rather keep making good, awesome and totally fantastic images that others would like to steal, and which our viewers report and take care of for us....
Fighting the priates can be a full time job, with little benefit.

All I can say, is maybe one day you'll see your stolen images on another paysite somewhere in Bulgaria or Bangkok, where they snipped off your tiny little copyright in the corner and are making money with YOUR work. Until it happens to YOU, of course you people won't understand, and will ignorantly see it as "shameless advertising"

Too bad it really *wasn't* all you could say, since you kept talking.  But, I have seen my images on other pay sites, on the usenet for over a decade, and in print.  Nothing I can do about it, but send a letter, and get some sort of compensation for them not doing their homework.  I have also shut down more sites than I can remember, and even a couple of ISP's.  They aren't around, but I am.  If you have to live off of someone elses work, you aren't going to survive for long.

AND aside from that, when images are either hotlinked from my server or downloaded and used on another site, ie free smut sites, my copyright serves a couple purposes.

Why not put in a redirection, so when the image is linked to off site, you show an error message, or replace it with a "This image stolen" message.  Since the user's browser is requesting the image, it's hard to get around that.

1. Many people see it and eventually someone sees it who knows me, contacts me and says, "I thought you should know but your images are on www.dirtynastychicks.com

Good, then send them, and their ISP a letter.

2. Sometimes they end up on decent sites or forums, and I sure as hell want credit for my work, because at the end of the day, its all about PR.

Sure, it is, so send them a letter, as above.

3. I care about my models and don't want their image tarnished either by being on these disgusting websites. Mutual Respect. Same goes with my styling team.

great.  But, they could scan the images from magazines, or any other source.  If you don't want your image used illegally, don't post it.  Otherwise, send a letter as above.

4. Girls steal images of attractive girls and post them as their own likeness on MySpace, and other dating sites.

Weird isn't it.  Won't stop the practice, will take images from other places, if not yours.  Send letter as above.

5. You would never believe it but "photographers" actually steal other photographer's work and pass it off as their own, sometimes from the same site.

Sure, see the reply to the girls as above.

No matter how much some of you Monday morning quarterbacks bitch and whine about copyrights on photos, mine will ALWAYS be on MY work.

It has nothing to do with "monday morning quarterbacking" that is such a misplaced metaphor, even after "the big game".

Our copyrights are on the images, we file ours with the copyright office every so often, and are granted copyright by the fact of creation.

We just don't ruin the image, or it's feel, just to try to stop the theives, we value the viewers, and appreciate the advertising that the images do for us.  We also value image buyer's time, and how they *hate* to see watermarked images, since it's just a way of saying "we know you are going to steal the images, so we are making them useless".

here's a tiny list of sites where my images have shown up, usually hotlinked, causing my bandwidth to SOAR.

http://psv.netwerk.to/forums/HTML/forum48/658-3.php
http://www.pajilleros.com/showthread.php
http://forum2.mokkels.nl/cgi-bin/groups.pl
http://www.orgasmatrix.com/sexo/
http://section.blog.naver.com/
http://thinpics.freeservers.com/photo.html
http://www.dt125.de/Forum/
http://santacasa.blogspot.com/2004_04_1 … chive.html
http://forums.chasermag.com/forumdispla … rune=&f=46

You, or your ISP can block that very easily. 

Scott
aka Bodyartist

And of course
www.templatemonster.com

i M a g e ye wrote:
…And talk about Egos anyone who puts up personal business about what there doing outside this site…well is just as smart as a donkey; I mean isn’t bragging? Plus who really cares what you’re doing behind the scenes, talk about an EGO what an show off

Behind the scenes?

Are you talking about industry related, or other stuff, like being a superhero outside the industry?

UdoR wrote:

Behind the scenes?

Are you talking about industry related, or other stuff, like being a superhero outside the industry?

uh...uh...Both? :-)

Deaftone wrote:
Honestly I thought you could use PS to attach metadata so you can track the image.

You could and you should. However, OMP and MM strips out the MetaData as soon as you upload them. Don't know why, but they do. When I upload them to my site (all content is stored in a database), the metadata is preserved.

i M a g e ye wrote:
uh...uh...Both? :-)

Hmmm... I disagree... this is an industry website, and if we don't talk about our experiences in real life professional, semi professional or hobbyist situations, how can we learn from each other and how can we know who to ask for advise.

If we don't share that, we should simply delete all the forums, shout and announcement box and being simply an image hosting site.

If that's what you are looking for, then there are quite a few that are better suited... don't you think so?

That's what networking is about in the end... or not?

UnoMundo Photography wrote:
For me it is NOT ego.

Sure it is.

MM does NOT protest images from downloads, so anyone scumbag can rightclick copy your image and post it to "sexygirls.com"

Maybe it really isn't ego, but ignorance.

"right click" block is pointless.  The image is already in your browser's cache.  Anyone who *really* wants to steal your image, can.

Give me *any* website, and I will be able to zip it up, and download it for you.  All right click does is mean I have to cut/paste the URL of the page into the downloader, rather than use rright click.

*BUT* what does the right click block do for you as a photographer or model?

It loses you jobs.

1) anyone interested in you is going to want to print, save, or otherwise archive your picture, or bio information.  They can't if you block it.

2) very often, people put a non-hotlinked email address.  So, the user can't cut/paste it into a mailer program.

3) the potential customer gets a *very* bad feeling about you, having to go through all this trouble, for someone they may only have been half-interested in anyway.

Oh, there's more, but all right click block does, with a pithy message about stealing or copyright, just pisses people off, or gives them a really, really bad first impression.

It *DOES* *NOT* *STOP* *IMAGE* *THEFT*.  IT does block legitimate users from filing you away for future use.

Any page that shows up in your browser, can be filed and saved by using some easily obtainable free, or cheap software, or by going around the windows issues, by disabling javascript, or specifically trapping and disabling right-click block.  This is *not* on the website, just in your browser, so there is no protection -- only a false sense of security, and a really bad first impression to legitimate potential customers.

Scott
aka Bodyartist

Glamour Boulevard wrote:

Magazines have already made their money from those images. Some photographers have yet to make money from the images they put logos on.But actually, some magazines do put copyright info or a logo on every page or early every page.

That isn't even the issue.  We are talking copyright.

Not money, or who used what first.

Most photographers and models will *NEVER* make money on the images that were taken, or misappropriated.  Especially at web-based resolutions. 

And, magazines, advertising agencies, brand-name holders, etc have a very huge stake in protecting their images and rights, and they too understand the balance between notifying the pirates they are doing illegal things, and distorting or obscuring their primary message.

Just because someone steals your images, doesn't mean you don't have rights, or that what they did is legal or acceptible.  It just means they stole it, and you have rights you may or may not be able to exercise in a cost effective manner.

you have the right to watermark, or obscure your image.  No one is denying you that.

But understand, that it makes you look bad, if not worse than the pirates, because you are telling EVERYONE who looks at your images you believe they are going to steal them, or do something with them, and that your rights are much more importan than theirs.

Agree or disagree.  The choice is yours. 

But, you will, lose more people and clients by obscuring your images, than you will have problems from having them stolen.  And, the really sad thing, is you'll never know about all the lost revenue you might have made, only all the 'stolen images' you are obscessing over, and driving yourself crazy with -- and the imagined lost revenue that those images could have made. 

(BTW: that is the biggest myth, since if they didn't steal your image, they would have stolen someone elses, they never would have paid for it in any event)

Scott
aka Bodyartist

UdoR wrote:

Hmmm... I disagree... this is an industry website, and if we don't talk about our experiences in real life professional, semi professional or hobbyist situations, how can we learn from each other and how can we know who to ask for advise.

If we don't share that, we should simply delete all the forums, shout and announcement box and being simply an image hosting site.

If that's what you are looking for, then there are quite a few that are better suited... don't you think so?

That's what networking is about in the end... or not?

When you using the info for bragging purposes, what and how can that be useful for anyone else, when you’re not going to share that contact with a competitors anyway.

Jan 2006 Vegas magazine. Pg.75 bold red letters. Cop it

i M a g e ye wrote:

When you using the info for bragging purposes, what and how can that be useful for anyone else, when you’re not going to share that contact with a competitors anyway.

Jan 2006 Vegas magazine. Pg.75 bold red letters. Cop it

Oh?! Bragging purposes... sorry, misunderstood your point.

What's that Vegas magazine thing you are referring to?

I am lost...

Bodyartist wrote:
It *DOES* *NOT* *STOP* *IMAGE* *THEFT*.

No, but it does discourage it.  Anybody who wants something bad enough will get it.  The tougher you make it, the fewer people will want it that badly.  And lets face it, if someone is stealing images of the 'net, it's obvious they must be pretty lasy to begin with.  Cropping out the bottom of an image = easy, removing a logo overlayed on the subject = difficult, not impossible, but more work than most are willing to go through.

IT does block legitimate users from filing you away for future use.

I dissagree.  Most legitimate potential clients are sophistacated enough to understand that the logo is being placed there to prevent theft and they can still see the quality of the underlying work which is what they should be concerned with in the first place.  I think any rational client understands that an image they buy from the photographer won't have such a mark.

IMO, images displayed this way are meant for DEMONSTRATION purposes, not for you to enjoy.  If you don't enjoy looking at an image with a logo across it, that's your tough cookies, it probably wasn't intended for you in the first place.

Gary Davis wrote:
Most legitimate potential clients are sophistacated enough to understand that the logo is being placed there to prevent theft and they can still see the quality of the underlying work which is what they should be concerned with in the first place.  I think any rational client understands that an image they buy from the photographer won't have such a mark.

IMO, images displayed this way are meant for DEMONSTRATION purposes, not for you to enjoy.  If you don't enjoy looking at an image with a logo across it, that's your tough cookies, it probably wasn't intended for you in the first place.

Well written. My opinion as well.

Bodyartist wrote:
But, you will, lose more people and clients by obscuring your images, than you will have problems from having them stolen.  And, the really sad thing, is you'll never know about all the lost revenue you might have made, only all the 'stolen images' you are obscessing over, and driving yourself crazy with -- and the imagined lost revenue that those images could have made.

I'm guessing that Getty has done their research.  They know that they're losing less revenue from their watermarks than from stolen images.

UdoR wrote:
If we don't share that, we should simply delete all the forums, shout and announcement box

comments on this comment by not really commenting at all because my comments on 2 of these 3 are already well known -chuckle-

Fred Prose wrote:
I empathize, but what were you doing cruising those sites to find them? ???

All this information can be found by searching through your server logs. Unusual spikes in traffic usually warrant an investigation.

I have hotlinking whitelist on my sites for this reason. The whitelist is to allow me to post sample images to various modeling forum sites only. Hotlinkers from non-approved sites will see a generic "this image is hotlinked" notice instead of an actual image.

Brian Diaz wrote:

I'm guessing that Getty has done their research.  They know that they're losing less revenue from their watermarks than from stolen images.

They've just decided on their market, and I've been around long enough to know that things change. 

Sometimes, big companies do something, that may have seemed good, but later on, they find out was not, and they cannot change quickly, since they have made such a big deal over it.

Fewer and fewer of the poster companies, and other such sellers are polluting their images.  The losses from theft do not offset the losses from people not liking the posters because of the watermarks.  Some people think that the poster will come with that sort of watermark, and they don't want to take the chance.  The "impulse" purchase is lost, and that is big part of sales.

and, FWIW:  assuming *any* big company actually knows what and/or why they are doing something, is, well,  ....  irony??

Scott
aka Bodyartist