Social media and Photography sites have clauses in their terms and conditions which make photographers uploading their photos approve the built-in Share functions on the site, but don't download and re-upload photos!
If you do re-upload copyrighted material, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and similar laws implemented in most developed nations provide the original photographers (and other artists such as musicians) with a tool to have the stolen material deleted from the offending account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
If someone engages in theft repeatedly, their account may be deleted.
Sometimes, when the case is serious enough, a lawsuit may also be filed:
Self-Proclaimed Photo Montage Virtuoso Is Sued for Stealing Photos
http://pdnpulse.com/2012/08/self-proclaimed-photo-montage-virtuoso-is-sued-for-stealing-photos.html
On behalf of all photographers, I thank +Marc Muench for causing copyright violators to think twice before using images without permission (outside of the approved, on-site share functions)!
I recommend that you go to the article and read the comments. Some of the dangerous rationalizations that people use are well represented there: "I didn't make (much) money from the misuse" is no defense.
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PDN Pulse » Blog Archive » Self-Proclaimed Photo Montage Virtuoso Is Sued for Stealing Photos
“He claimed he took all of these images himself, and he clearly doesn’t,” says Marc Muench, one of the plaintiffs, who is suing Barbèy in a federal court in Los Angeles. “The claims in this lawsuit ha…
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Anyone who claims to have shot photographs that they haven't deserve everything bad that comes there way.
This is very different from the person who genuinely doesn't understand how things work and posts the work of others to brighten up their stream. Not good maybe but understandable.
You would not believe the rude responses you get when asking somebody friendly to remove stolen images…
This is great news. Thanks for pointing it out.
Got to love this quote from the fraudster in question:
“I’m constantly asked about how I do [the montages], I would like to think that the pictures can be appreciated without any real knowledge of their technical virtuosity. The visionary inspiration and imagination is not a technical skill learned in school but rather to my personal belief a gift from God.”
Reading the comments make for an interesting add-on to the story.
nicely for a picture withe fiction tell all story
See what I mean, +Steve Johnson? The comments below the article are priceless. A little scary at times, but priceless.
I forgot to ping +Jim Patterson and +J. Rae Chip in the post. They've been doing a great job informing many photographers on G+ about copyright etiquette. It's pretty simple really: don't take other people's stuff! I don't take your car; please don't take my photos.
+Jeff Sullivan
, have you ever seen my article about handling online copyright violations? Let me know if you'd like the link.
+Jeff Sullivan Just come back from reading them (the comments) – I am amazed to say the least. The perpetrator comes across as a real piece of work.
I've received some interesting notes after having to resort to a DMCA takedown +Harry Kikstra. When I have to invest that extra time and effort to have the content removed, I block the offending account on that site, but one kid came back under another account and started arguing with various misconceptions about copyright protection. He had taken one of my video clips on YouTube, re-uploaded it, started making money off it, while directing people to his Facebook page. Yet he argued strenuously that he had done nothing wrong! It took me years and thousands of dollars in travel to complete that video, yet he wanted to make money off of it (and misdirect people interested in it), simply by taking my work and re-uploading it.
I'd love the link +Mike Spinak. Discussions on this topic can be very enlightening to some people who simply don't know better.
+Jeff Sullivan, Here it is:
http://naturography.com/fighting-back-against-online-copyright-violators/
what I think stinks is that they take credit for some homemade videos that are not infringement…. Happened to a vacation video of a friend
Every photograph or video created is covered by copyright protection +William Johnston. There is a misconception that the material needs to be registered with the U.S. Copyright office to be protected, and that's simply untrue. Copyright registration might help speed a legal case along or increase damages recovered, but it's not a requirement. Anyone can use the DMCA process to remove material stolen from them, and nearly every major site online has a simple form to facilitate filing the complaint. The material is typically taken down within a day or two.
Artists can voluntarily re-classify their material for approved re-use under a Creative Commons license, with various forms of CC license specifying whether there must be attribution (credit) and whether or not it's approved for commercial use, but the default is full "All rights reserved" protection for all forms of art, including, music, video and photography.
Wow – I got kinda sick reading the comments. The arrogance was rather depressing. He thinks just because he offered compensation after he was caught all is ok.
+Jeff Sullivan the vacation video that i was speaking of was just the family on the beach at CC Texas and only the family was in the video but it was taken down by DMCA and MPAA claiming that it was taken from a movie which is not true and they almost had to pay a $1000 fine
Isn't that amazing +elizabeth hahn?
When I worked at Cisco Systems, they considered creating a digital asset product which could detect and intercept copyright infringement, in the network. Wouldn't that be a cool product for telecommunications companies to implement at their connections to the Internet?
There should be a way to appeal the MDCA takedown +William Johnston. False claims are serious business, and can result in legal charges against the complaint filer!
Wow yes! +Jeff Sullivan . I will say that filing a DMCA is pretty easy. And once filed, the results were very fast in my case. The hard part is actually finding the theft.
I do agree there should be a appeals process though – In my case I had to show where the original file was and where the theft was. It was fairly straightforward since she admitted on her post to stealing mine, and many other's images.
Tag all of your images with your name +elizabeth hahn when saving the JPG file, then do a Google Image Search on your name and a lot will show up.
Tag as in a keyword? I do have it in the Copyright info.
Every photo and video I take and upload is in the public domain. Copyright is a digitally unusable, terribly outdated practice of law in my humble opinion.
Instead of moaning about "thieves" we should draft/discuss a solution, a workable alternative.
Any suggestions?
Key point in the PDN article is that the orginal images were formally registered with the copyright office (which most photographers negect to do). Ed Greenberg (copyright lawyer) has said on many occaisions that courts are not obligated to hear such infringement cases … unless you have registered the copyright. Copyright is the key that opens the courtroom.
+Gedeon Stol, you can post your images to the world and subsequently copyright them as "published" work. Four times per year, submit your images from the past 3 months; as many as you have, just $35 for the lot.
+Kevin Davis FYI:
"A copyright notice is no longer required for copyright protection, but it will help you prove that any infringement was intentional."
"If your copyright has already been infringed at the time you register it, however, you will not be entitled to the enhanced legal benefits of registration unless your work has been published and you registered the copyright within three months after first publication. As long as you registered your copyright before the infringement occurred, you will be entitled to enhanced legal benefits: you won't have to prove damages, and you can obtain statutory damages of between $750 and $150,000 per act of infringement.."
How to Enforce Your Copyright if Someone Infringes on Your Work
http://info.legalzoom.com/enforce-copyright-someone-infringes-work-20516.html
Your car is in the public domain in some people's opinion +Gedeon Stol. They may have their opinion, but that doesn't mean that there should be no recourse for you if they steal it.
My images cost me thousands of dollars per year to produce, and they produce my income. People taking them is like someone stealing a taxi driver's car, taking his valuable property and his livelihood. You can give your own images away, and your car as well if you want, but that doesn't mean that anyone wanting to steal a taxi (or a digital file) should be allowed to do so.
The DMCA laws and takedown process provides a great start at providing a solution to the digital theft problem impacting many artists. So I'm not simply "moaning about 'thieves"", I'm actually presenting the solution, the workable alternative which already exists.
+Kevin Davis as +Jeff Sullivan pointed out, you don't need to do this prior.
+Jeff Sullivan I understand your thinking but there's a massive difference between tangible things and the rest.
Like an architects drawing and the actual building. I'd love to see an alternative to copyright (after years of working in the audio and video world) I think it is now slowly unusable (unless you like the lawyer fees 😉
Jeff is correct when he wrote "Every photograph or video created is covered by copyright protection"
However, the courts are not obligated to hear every lawsuit. In the case of copyright infringement, registered copyright ensures that you get a hearing. I referred specifically to the vast expertise of lawyer Ed Greenberg … http://thecopyrightzone.com
My livelihood seems pretty tangible to me +Gedeon Stol… food on the table, a roof over my head, keeping my Ford running (no small task at times), paying for healthcare (I can't afford health insurance), feeding and housing my two kids, keeping clothes on their backs, hopefully providing them with the opportunity for a college education very soon. We all eat very tangible food, payed for by the tangible money delivered by the value of photography. That value isn't intangible when I eat it.
Ansel Adams said “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” If I spend $24,000 – $36,000 in a year to acquire them, that's $2000-3000 per photo, and I'd better earn $5000 from each to earn a modest living. Maybe I've come at the problem from a different angle than you, having been in high tech for 20 years and being involved in the evaluation of the market for potential products for digital rights management, but I assure you that the money spent to acquire images is very tangible and the value which digital images must deliver to the artist has a very tangible effect on their lives.
I get what you're saying about the implementation though. Laws are made by and for attorneys, and now since Citizens United, now corporations can lobby even more freely to blatantly tailor laws to benefit their bottom line, driving up costs. Healthcare costs can't come down without tort reform. Similarly, there are very wealthy and powerful high tech companies lobbying hard for the evisceration of copyright laws. If that happens, the phrase "starving artist" may take on a much more literal meaning for millions of artists.
+Kevin Davis As Ed Greenberg poins out in his book, your best bet is to register your copyright BEFORE you publish the work, then and only then would you be able to win statuary damages in a successful copyright infringement suit. If you register after publishing the work, you get no statuary damages, just provable real damages.
+Jeff Sullivan yes exactly, it's the implementation that's a mess and the world online doesn't help either.
I wonder if the whole concept of commercial photography could be modernised. I recall artists like Leonardo da Vinci worked on the basis of very long term and dynamic contracts on scrolls (they didn't have laser printers back then 😉 which allowed them to earn a living while spending lots of time on their work.
Maybe reusable photography is the problem/cause of copyright. Maybe a single client should pay for the entire job.
Is that at all possible you think?
I remember having similar difficulties with royalties, while creating a commercial video the musician of the soundtrack wanted a fee for every-time it was aired… I told him that I'm willing to pay him for his work and limit its application to this video but he wouldn't agree. So I looked for another musician who then composed a track specifically for this video with a full release. The music, fully paid for lived on in the public domain after it served its purpose. Obviously this setup is only applicable with scores, but it was a solution without copyright.