Why I watermark aggressively

[mobbes]

Heck, I know there are a lot of you out there who don't like it when someone posts their images with big big watermarks. Wasabi for one, na7ure too ... hahaha they gave me their honest opinion in the last thread where I posted pictures - the Miss T launch (http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6759)

Anyway, I had just changed to that watermark recently. In fact it was a toned down version of a more aggressive marking scheme which I'll show you next.

Here it is ... a screen capture from someone's myspace photo gallery (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID=133597998)**:

**you need to be a member of myspace to view any member's pics gallery

10906

I think this marking is relatively aggressive, though I've seen more aggressive marks LOL ... but if I posted that in SA, I think I'd get booed hahaha.

So why did I watermark like that? don't know ... just had a gut feeling that I should. But when it came to the Miss T pics, I reckoned I'd take off the red ARR mark in the corner but put a red bg on the email addie.

That's just one of many pics I took of an artiste who performed at live and loud recently. I went thru all of them about 100+ shots and edited and posted up 48 to my private web gallery. And I made sure I didn't put it up onto my flickr stream.

If you go visit his gallery (go ahead & along the way you can also give me c&c lah), you'll find 53 pics .... I haven't figured out the additional 5 yet :)

Anyway the point I'm making in this post is that my pics have been taken and reproduced elsewhere without my permission. AND I don't have to go thru hoops and do triple somersaults to prove they were mine because they were heavily watermarked, especially the red ARR mark in the corner.

Without pre-empting anything (and I have been in contact with him, though I don't know if he is still contactable ie if communications is still open on his end) I am now exploring my options and next course of action.

Any input that y'all may have that'll help me is greatly appreciated ... including any recommendations or referrals to legal counsel stateside. However, let's try to keep this civil too :)

Thanks folks

ps: I may not reply to your comments for fear of jeopardising my position in this thing... hope y'all will understand.

[djspinnet]

I had someone hotlink one of my images (digital painting) before, complete with my signature at the bottom of my painting. in myspace.

i got lucky though, he was a bit dumb in doing his crime - all i needed to do was to change the URL.

eventually I embraced creative commons and all my work unless commercial, are cc-licensed now. i allow reuse of my images so long they're attributed, and have slept well since. but this is my personal opinion lah :)

[zique]

KC, what you can do is, if he doesn't comply and remove the pic or give you credit for those pictures, just report to the service provider, in this case, Myspace. They will be able to either remove those pictures for you or they can ban/delete that user from their service.

In any case, you deserve to be recognize for your work and they should respect you by informing you on the use of the photo or give you credit.

[mobbes]

jinny - thanks for your input. in this case, the image could have been recovered from his cache or print screened. I've put in loads of code to pre-empt the usual suspects. And it's definitely not a case of b/width theft

mike - yeah that report this image button has been staring at me & beckoning me :)

Anyways, I figured out the extra 5 images. They are crops of some fullimages. He had initially uploaded 8 crops to his gallery but had taken them down when I told him it's a copyright infringement. And I had taken screenshots back then too:

10913

10915

The ARR mark is not visible 'cos it's cropped away. I have larger screenshots of indiv images if anyone wants to have a look :) I'm comfortable with posting the screenshots from this myspace gallery but not my originals. Till today, I have not posted any on any forums :(

I don't know why he's put them up again PLUS uncropped / marked versions of the entire lot.

[zique]

well, just press that REPORT this user button and point MySpace to the original location of the pics u put up. from there' they'll know wht todo.

[noruazumi]

why he put all your photos into his myspace? :?

[mobbes]

why he put all your photos into his myspace? :?
I have no idea noru :) Do you see still see 3 screenshots? I sent u a pm ... can you help delete pls?

[Freaky]

i agree with mobbes... too many thieves out there...

[noruazumi]

i deleted already. want to inform you earlier but go network hiccup just now. hehe.

[chuah406]

kc - well you should be flattered, that your photos were deemed good enough to be pinched.....i never had that "problem" !! haha! :D

in any case, the photos we post are mostly low-res (800 pxl max on the long side?) so these thieves can't do much with them. at best, they just copy to their own sites and claim it's their photos. i mean, they can't sell them......sites that buy stock images (eg shutterstock?) need high res photos. even then, the returns are pittance.

some of flickr photos were used by some online articles but they always ask permission to use them. it's always nice to see some of your shots being used even though it's some obscure online thingy that hardly anyone notices!

bottomline is.....in my opinion, it doesn't really matter. but it's your choice if you want to put watermarks on yr photos. if your livelihood depends on it, by all means, take preventive measures. just on my 2 sen on the matter...... :)

[limecity]

I spotted one of mine before. being used by the malaysian government tourism website. but the (C) copyright name was intact so.. i didn't do anything.. could have claim some royalty feesssssssss $$

[mobbes]

Chuah, thanks for your input bro. Appreciate it :)

About low resolution, not many realise that a cd insert / cover is only 4.75 inches square. At 300dpi, you only need a pic of 1425px by 1425px. At 200dpi, 950px by 950px.

And if you have an Alamy acct, they'll ask you to up-res your images before you submit them. The minimum they accept is the equiv of an 18mpixel file!

Just imagine, the minimum camera they allow is 6mp eg D70s. And they only accept 18mp files - enlarged 300%!!! And it can be done & acceptable :)

If that's what you get at Alamy, then why can't our 800px files be upressed?

ok, the quality might suck. How about if we take a sequence of small pics and make a montage for the CD cover? Possible? I posed this question to a band photography group on flickr & nobody thought I was paranoid.

Sorry Chuah, not a rant at you but just to work out some numbers. oh & don't forget merchandising on mugs and what-have-you.

It's real. And wouldn't all of us wish we could make this passion pay some bills :)

limecity: you should've tried, attribution or not. No consent is no consent. Attribution don't pay bills & doesn't make it right. It's your fundamental moral right anyway.

There was a case recently where DBKL's sub-con used someone's bapa/anak pic for their Hari Raya buntings. Last I heard, they were going to ask for compensation. Even went to the extent of counting the number of buntings hung at various dbkl offices LOL

[N.Keong]

KC... I'm behind u in this.
I think the photog should have all rights over their photos / shots.

For me, if u wanna use them. Either you buy it, so remove the watermark.
OR give credits...
BUT watever it is, ask permission from the owner, us photog !

[Freaky]

I have used low res pics that my clients have supplied to me, (which they took off the net) for their advertising materials. So long as u dun have the pic big big, you can get away with it, Even big big, you can get reasonable results with a 800px picture...

So i say watermark your pix and go after those who steal them...

[lurker]

i would say whenever you are putting ur pics online there will be the risk of ppl leeching them. That is a fact, i am not sure if we can ever change that.. but at the present we can only try to reduce it

so if u do not want you photos being used without authorization, do not go online.
That's the only way it seems :(

[jetfynn]

I had a magazine who published my pic front page and the credits went to :

unit fotografi XXX Sdn Bhd......

Anyway, the magazine went "Kaput" oredi. So, no way to sue. Well....

[sinister]

wah.. sooo many stolen pics... :0

[noordin]

Nicking a picture from the net is quite rampant now. Yep, put your watermark by all means.

Me, I don't think anyone wants my picture. If they do, I'll be quite happy to boast about it. :D

[Freaky]

saw this just now, and is an interesting read...

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9835714-39.html?tag=nefd.top

[mobbes]

Thanks for the headsup freaky. I had followed Lane Hartwell's case till a few days ago when she finally broke her silence & issued a statement in her blog. There she dismissed rumours of her taking or having taken legal action against RS.

One thing I found jarring in the CNet article was the opening question in the interview:

CNET News.com: You seem to have a passion for the issue of copyright-infringing copying of photos. Has this become something of a crusade for you beyond just protecting your own rights?


Bold is from the CNet page which I just copy & paste.

What kind of question is this?? CNet seems to be insinuating that what she is doing to pursue her rights is against the grain ... and it's not, is it? Frankly, it's been the blogospere who have whipped up her case rather than herself. As she says in her own blog, she's pretty much kept mum while pursuing the matter privately with the RS people.

On about how many occasions have you had to deal with copyright infringement issues with your photos?
It's been happening a lot lately. In the past two weeks I have had five separate cases of it. I would say generally a few times a month. And mind you, these are ones that I have found out about; I'm sure there are far more.
The beauty of this is that you just don't know where your pics are being used, do you? There's no accessible/affordable technology now that works like the equiv of a RFID chip to beam back to you where copies of your images are!

The ones that you know about, you know about it by sheer luck. So do you think Hartwell or anybody for that matter is getting more jobs or recognition because their work is used by thieves?

Instead of going offline to avoid the problem, as one member suggested earlier, and which I think is really laughable, watermark and put your name / email / website addie on the pic! You just have to do it for yourself :)

Photoshelter ... good name :) Shelter from the current storm, eh? Maybe I'll open an account there... never know if/when your pic has been nicked for use in the US market ... it's said you can use the photoquote pricing machine there as a member... of course, it's really for the US market lah. Maybe someone will do a M'sian version :)

[Freaky]

Here's a link that highlight's pros' and con's of different ways to protect your images.

http://watermarker.com/how-to-ptotect-digital-images.aspx

[mobbes]

Thanks again freaky ... that's good info for those who have not considered this issue yet. One thing I always tell friends ... Flash is not as secure as it looks and it certainly is not unbreakable.

As I said before & I'll say it again ... the easiest way to nick a pic is to do a printscreen. The next is to go into the internet cache. Even videos are not safe hahaha go google mediapirate & you can have your youtube vids on your hdd.

I'll share what I use for watermarking now ... the Faststone Photo Resizer (http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm). Does double duty & it's free for home users. Nifty little program :)

[wasabi]

since my name been mentioned...


why i dislike some member's watermark, the reason is,i feel it spoil the whole photo. dont u think after u put those watermark ,
it looks very ugly??????? especially mobbes... :Poke::party1:

cant you make use of watermark to enhance the photo and look nicer :P

[mobbes]

since my name been mentioned...


why i dislike some member's watermark, the reason is,i feel it spoil the whole photo. dont u think after u put those watermark ,
it looks very ugly??????? especially mobbes... :Poke::party1:

cant you make use of watermark to enhance the photo and look nicer :P

oooohhh thanks for your feedback & suggestions wasabi :) can teach how to do those artwork? Happy New Year :D

[Freaky]

More reason to watermark your pics... siao...

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9867114-39.html?tag=nefd.top