daniel f aleman:
Copyright and ownership are neat ideas, but they have nothing to do with the interet - if you post it, it belongs to everyone...
wrong, all images are copyrighted to the creator the moment they are taken unless prior contract agreements are made. public domain only happens many years after the creators death.
for example go take a photo off corbis or getty's site and wait for the bill to come in, which in the latest round they where sending out bills inexcess of 5000 for even thumbnail images of unlicensed images, and in one case the bill was over 50K to a small business with payment expected in 15 days or they would be sued. if you can prove me wrong please provide case or federal laws that make it so. Its nice to know that they are protecting the rights of the photographers that have work available for licensing through corbis or gettys
as for the china comment, there are many ways to combat that. one most chinese IPs i have blocked from my server in the first place by my isp. then all of my images on the net that arent protected behind several layers of software are all water marked magnum agency style.
www.magnumphoto.com and look at the slide show on the front page thats the type of watermarking i do except for more indepth
Diver Dennis:
If you sell an image to a magazine, they own all the rights and can print posters or anything else they want to.
Why would this not be the same with a painting? Unless there is some contract with the artist...
thats not always the case, it all comes down to the contract terms and conditions and i explain everything detail out as i dont want any gray areas to come up. personally i wont give up the copyright to a image if i feel it has a good resale value if i dont it i still charge a minimum of 5x normal rate for that image/assignment.
for the one instance i have given up the copyright of a image it was given to a charity that i help with, plus i had another frame of the same subject at a slightly different angle (better) i can use for my own purposes.
bladephotog: i have seen that happen, thank goodness i only use pro labs and wont ever pull that; they have bought a copy of mine to display on there wall to show to customers.
ianw2: Amen, most people dont get it unless its fully explained to them
personally i do it the easy i way when i find a violation i DMCA the isp along with the request for the billing information of the violator to send the bill. if they dont comply i simply send them a warning on the day the papers are to be filed in court (small claims for small amounts) and i file them in my county so that they have to come to me. this normally results in quick resolution.
for the most part i dont put alot of my work online because it doesnt due the image any justice, and then a majority of the good stock will never be online. that being said any online are watermarked in a manner that trying to remove them makes it obvious they where stolen, and then i have data embeded in the file that marks it as mine and is traceable.