copyright

Why is flickr so unsure place?
You can make the pics not allowed to be downloaded.
At the same time you can make it so that only your contacts or friends can see big size and download these.
You can make that you and your pics are not seachable...

isnt it so ?

Have no idea I don't use flickr but simply right click and say save image mostly work.

I can get the small version of your flickr photos on my pc without a problem or link it to another site.

To go a bit further, do you think it's hard to hack your flickr account?

Myself I think people worry to much about image theft, if someone uses your image without your consent then I see it as a compliment, then I hit them with a bill

I watermark my images, but only for advertising purposes.

You could put watermarks & copyright usages etc all over your images, if someone wants to use it, they will use it regardless of what measures you put into place. Its your job to then make sure they pay you for it, thankfully here in the UK county court costs are cheap & with http://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/ it is now very easy to claim any due cash along with the fees.

thoughton, it is clear from your comments you do not earn your living from your image making!

Well yes, along with 99% of the other members here, I do not earn my living from image making

absolutely tru.

And to talk about digi photos - I am owner of my K10 only for 1.5 years. Its my very first digi !
If there was no forum, I wouldnt put any of my photos to web !
(Except some family stuff, ment for parents and some friends. _ sth that nobody else is interested in

I wonder who would pick up me ! ?
there are tons of much better photos available

Photographing is the most popular hobby - isnt it

I worry that while I'm singing in the bath, someone from EMI will be standing outside the bathroom window with a microphone, recording me and will then make millions by releasing records of my marvellous renditions of 'Strangers in the night' and 'That's amore'.

Come off it!... Not more than one in a million of us needs to worry about our precious images being stolen!. Who do you think you are? David bleedin' Bailey!

I make my living in photography and I will do anything that may protect my images. So watermarking them and lowering the res is of the utmost importance to me.
So yes, I will continue to protect them in any way I see fit.

I do not consider myself to be a, in your words, a "David Bleedin Bailey" but I do consider myself to be a professional photographer making a living!

Very rearly do I upload images to forums and those that I do are only on here. I do not upload images of clients, only my personal work that I do in those rare chill out times.

Flickr and similar sites are not places that I would exhibit on. This is a purely personal reason and it was not intended to offend anyone, so Aiki apologies if you thought that was aimed at yourself or others that use it for your own reasons.

The subject of copyright is so huge but I believe that anyone who exhibits their hard work should be careful...but it is up to the individual. I just do not appreciate comments like Mowog's, it seems that he is inviting people to help themselves to our hard work.
You may not take images that mean anything or are of no use to you or others, but I, like so many others, am proud of my work and if there was a chance that they would be stolen from me, I would do anything that I possibly could to prevent it.

I feel for the professional earning his living in this situation. It's a very hard decision to take just how to protect your livelihood. I'm thankful that I'm in the amateur camp where firstly none of my images have any value and secondly I don't need to protect them.

If someone wanted to pinch one of my shots if it wasn't to ridicule it I'd probably be flattered. I asked permission of one contributor on a photo forum if I could use one of his images on a poster for my wife's amateur orchestra and of course he was delighted. I would not expect the same response from a professional!

Mike

An image is the photographer's property, expressed as Copyright, just as is the text of a book we have written or the content of a film we have made.

Some people don't bat an eyelid over stealing what they think is there for the taking, but they may not appreciate that costs and creative input need buyers to survive.

If we didn't buy CDs or downloads, who would finance making albums? There would be no professional standards, no large orchestras, just a mass of music made in someone's kitchen with a computer. No major world tours if there's no cost for tickets, a reduced spectacle if there's no chance of DVD rights for the live concert....

Going back to wedding photography, there are good amateurs and lousy professionals out there, but in the end you get what you pay for. And the good professional, producing superior work, can't finance his or her organisation if the pictures are stolen for free.

You'll have gathered by now that I don't buy pirate CDs or DVDs!

How did you get that from Mowog's comment? He's saying that only the paranoid, or the very very best celebrity photographers, should be worried about image theft.

Normal people like the ems82, me, Mowog, and many other members of this forum, have nothing to worry about. Poor old ems82 has gone and deleted her Flickr account based on your advice. I don't think that was necessary do you?

Yourself and gartmore, being pro photographers, can do whatever you think is best. My personal opinion is that you are wasting a whole lot of your own time. But it is your time to waste I said it earlier, and I'll say it again, people who are willing to infringe your copyright on the net are unlikely to be the same people who are willing to pay real money for a print of someone else's photograph.

But Tim you'd surely agree that wedding photographers need to do something to stop shots being ripped off web sites and printed willy nilly? They must rely on repeat prints as part of their income.

Mike

I can see where you're coming from Mike, however I think that is a very specific case, as there is only very small subset of potential infringers (the couple, and possibly their parents...). I'd also, as a married person, be pretty unhappy if my wedding photographer was displaying pictures of my wedding on the internet

The cost of repeat prints is a whole 'nother bag of worms I was quoted £350-£500 per set of prints by some wedding photographers I spoke to. Needless to say I didn't hire those guys!

There are clearly some differences in perceptions here.

Tim, when you were offered a "set of prints" for £350.00 - £500.00 what exactly were you being offered? What size and how many? And was that including the shoot or was that extra to the basic service? Did the photographers have shops or work from home?

It's hard to judge what it means without some more details.