Using Copyrighted Images

[herron]

Just had a lengthy online discussion with a young man who was using one of my Mamiya ZE images in his eBay auction. He claimed he didn't know it was mine, but had picked it up from Google Images.

Well, I went to Google Images and, sure enough, there it was...along with many others, including some from friends who have Mamiya sites of their own. But it was only there to highlight sources of information, that were clearly marked as to where they came from, and there is a very clear disclaimer that says Google Images cannot give any copyright allowances...since those must come from the owner of the material!

Seems straightforward enough to me.

The young man used the image anyway...and tried to pull that lame excuse on me. Perhaps he really is as dense as he seemed in the conversation. But he had no answer when I pointed out that using my image as the item he had for sale could be construed as fraud.

I reported the incident to the eBay VeRo process, but the auction will be over before they can do anything. I intend to mention to them the whole fraud aspect, since that seems to get their attention faster than copyright violations.

In the scheme of things, I have not been materially hurt...but the whole idea of it frosts me...quite a bit.

What does everyone else think?

[majicman]

They are your images, I would have done the same thing.

[PeterW]

Ron,
Always defend your copyright. It means what it says, the right to copy. If the auction hasn't finished I would ask ebay to delete the picture forthwith.

Google (and BTW, ebay) have infringed your copyright by publishing your picture without your permission, and no disclaimer by Google about 'not being able to give a copyright allowance' lets them wriggle out of that.

I'll bet Google don't try that on many professional picture libraries (like Bill Gates' one for example). They'd have injunctions and law suits flung at them before they could blink.

Fake up a nice letter heading like 'Herron Photography' or 'Herron Picture Library' and send Google an invoice for an internet reproduction fee of $500 a month with a covering letter saying that it has come to your notice that they have reproduced your copyright picture and published it without permission, and this fee this is payable monthly, in advance, from the first of next month unless they remove your picture(s) from their image bank within seven days, and see what they do.

IMHO they've flagrantly broken the law and have no defence. I'm sure one of the big 'no win no fee' law firms would love to have a tilt at Google. Lord knows what exhorbitant damages they'd dream up!

I'd be very interested to hear Google's reply.

PeterW

[kiev4a]

The web has made copyrights more difficult to defend because material is so easy to obtain, plus the attitude, particularly among many younger folks that anything on the web should ge "free."

Several years ago when I was actively collecting Russian cameras I ran across an Ebay listing from a Ukranian seller on a Zorki, lifted directly from my web site. I emailed the person, told them I was flattered that they tought I was an expert on their cameras but said I thought I should be given credit. The seller turned out to be a woman who, from that point forward gave attribution to me for the descriptions. We actually got to know each other and I bought several cameras from her.

I also once ran across a Russian website where a guy had lifted several columns I had posted on the trials and tribulations of living with a beagle in the household. Turned out he was a real beagle lover who just liked my writing! Again, all I asked was that he give me credit, which he did.

Another time A Russian emailed me and asked permission to post a series of stories on his site, translated to Russian, I had posted about growing up in the 1950s in a small town in America. He said he thought a lot of people over there could relate to my experiences which I found fascinating--I guess kids are kids no matter where you grow up and no matter what the political system. Anyway, I told him to go ahead, again with credit.

With the exception of the Ebay description, these were all just personal sites--nothing where someone was trying to make money off my material. And the gal on Ebay used photos of the actual cameras she was selling. The material from my site was the history and general description of the cameras.

On the other hand, if I found one of our company's books, posted on the web in it's entirety, the folks would be hearing from an attorney.

Given the nature of the web, however, I don't think it will ever be possible to entirley protect material posted there.

[kiev4a]

Followup:

Most people don't realize that material created by an individual is protected by copyright (at least in the U.S.) even if a copyright is not officially filed. You don't even have to have the term "Corpyright" on the material. As long as you can prove you are the originator of the material, it is protected.

Originally, in the U.S. you could copyright material for 28 years and renew the copyright for an additional 28 years. Congress altered that law in 2000. It's complicated but any material that was in copyright or under renewal as of a specific date in, I believe, 1965? had its copyright extended to the life of the author plus 95 years. All new material falls under that same life plus 95 years, I believe.

The ones who irritate me are museums who have photographs or drawings that are no longer protected by copyright, who try to charge outlandish fees for their use. For instance we had an instance when we wanted to use a thumbnail-sized photo taken in the late 1800s as part of the cover of a book. The college that has the photo said "sure, no problem. $800 please!" I pointed out to them that the photo was long out of copyright and although publishers often pay a reasonable fee for us of such photo, it is only to promote good will, not because of any legal obligation. So, we used another photo from the Library of Congress. The college could have got a little something for their trouble and a photo credit in the book which would have been good exposure. Instead they got nothing and no exposure.

[mickeyobe]

I was once told by a lawyer that a copyright or patent merely gave one the right to sue, if one could afford the costs.

But I see no harm in scaring the living daylights out of the offender.

Mickey

[herron]

I like your approach to it, Peter. I will send a note to Google, and see what happens. If there is any response at all, I will post it as a followup.

I have also had folks contact me and ask if they could use my images or copy. None have ever been for a commercial venture, or I would have charged them a usage fee. As it is, I have always let them do it, usually just for a photo credit. A few have used (word for word) my site text in an eBay auction which, when I know about it, I have allowed with attribution. The key difference is they asked.

Also, they were not trying to palm off my image as their sale item (goodness knows what their real camera looks like)...and that is an outright fraud.

My son has run across folks who have lifted his architectural images from high-end real estate sites, and used them to post on a multi-listing. He has a class-action suit started against a few who regularly do it...and has at least one who (quite reluctantly) paid him a usage fee when his lawyer contacted them. The usurper was indignant at first, actually saying to my son "Look, I'm just trying to make a living here!" To which Jeff replied, "So am I...and those photographs are how I do it. So pay me now, or see me in court!"

I also think you're right, Wayne. The Internet has young folks believing all this stuff is free for the taking, with little regard for any expense or effort involved in creating intellectual property in the first place!

[SidW]

There are at least a few things you can do to minimise the damage and reduce misuse.

Check the options of sites that are hosting your pictures in galleries - you will often find options regulating how you allow pictures to be shared or copied. Don't categorise your gallery pictures (sometimes called tagging), then they won't come up in searches (by e.g. a publisher wanting to sneak a picture of say Tower Bridge or the Taj Mahal).

Don't put large images on the web. Large JPEGs can be made smaller and fitted to a purpose without serious degrading, but small ones won't usually enlarge well. Use the lowest grade of JPEG you can put up with, they can only become worse with further use, never better. See what various JPEG grades really look like on your screen at various image sizes. I usually put images on the web within 500x500 pixels and grade 5. That way they won't be that much use to anyone else. It's a bit like MP3 sound recordings, heavily compressed and only good for cheap earphones.

Then there are things like watermarking, sometimes supervised comercially by e.g. Digimarc. But even one of your own devising means you have at least tried to leave your footprint there for ever. And helps proove your case if necessary.

[bobm]

Perhaps he really is as dense as he seemed in the conversation.

Chances are he knew exactly what he was doing.

Check the options of sites that are hosting your pictures in galleries - you will often find options regulating how you allow pictures to be shared or copied.

When you open a Photobucket account it defaults to sharing images - I only found this out when I noticed that my aircraft gallery had had a couple of hundred hits in the space of less than a month.

Don't categorise your gallery pictures (sometimes called tagging), then they won't come up in searches (by e.g. a publisher wanting to sneak a picture of say Tower Bridge or the Taj Mahal).

Further to the above, I performed a search within Photobucket and lo and behold, there were my images, all visible without me logging into Photobucket itself, and presumably visible to all and sundry.

Needless to say, I turned off the sharing option and to date I haven't seen any of my images being used elsewhere, although you can never be absolutely sure.

[herron]

Sid:
I usually make my images at the size they are going to be used. In a few instances, I have used GIF images, instead of JPG, since they are fairly useless for anything but their intended size and purpose.

I experimented with a couple of mine using Digimark watermarks, but it was just too much effort to go through for the whole collection.

A few images (my Russian cameras) have a written disclaimer on the picture itself. I didn't want to do that, but because the cameras are in great shape and the pictures are good, they were constantly showing up as the item in someone's online auction (surprisingly, more often than my Mamiya collection).

Unfortunately, even the GIF images can still be lifted and used at their small size in an eBay auction.

I don't suffer any monetary loss when folks steal an image (at least I don't think I do...but there's a Japanese web site out there right now that has blatantly copied most of my better Mamiya images, and wish I knew what it said, but I don't read Japanese). I've tried to contact them, but cannot find anything on their site that says "email" (it's probably the character that looks like an upside-down dining room chair with a turtle shell over it).

I would probably allow it (1) if the user asked my permission first, and (2) disclosed that they were images from my site, and not the actual item for sale. What really galls me is someone passing off my camera as their sale object. That's worse to me than copyright infringement...that's fraud.

Over the years, I have actually had people contact me asking if I was selling my cameras, because they frequented my site and were familiar with it, and they had seen one of my pictures on eBay. I don't want that to happen either, because my reputation (which has taken a very long time to build) is affected by it, if the "lifter" turns out to be a real schmuck.



-----
BTW -- I just went through Google Images and found at least 115 of my Mamiya images listed...now I'm really going to be interested in Google's reply to my letter......

[herron]

Bob:
Unfortunately, my images are on the host server for my web site, and not on Photobucket, or one of the other picture-sharing sites. I've thought about adding some "right-click banning" code, but I've been told it interferes with some of the site functionality.

I have items on SmugMug (click on my Cruise Pictures link) and those cannot be shared...but they can be right-click downloaded!

[John Parry]

As I've never sold a photograph in my life, I always considered that any pictures I posted on here were for free and worldwide distribution. But I can see the point of view of any photographers who do make money from their trade. So yes - send Google a bill. Sounds good. Post regularly about the litigation!

Regards - John

ps - must post more pictures - I know!

[doubs43]

johnrparry said:

As I've never sold a photograph in my life, I always considered that any pictures I posted on here were for free and worldwide distribution. But I can see the point of view of any photographers who do make money from their trade. So yes - send Google a bill. Sounds good. Post regularly about the litigation!
Regards - John ps - must post more pictures - I know!

John, you've reminded me of a conversation between my father and the local camera store owner who was having a "contest" of local photographer's pictures that he was placing on display in the front window of his shop. The owner's name was Bill.

One Saturday afternoon when my father stopped in to buy something or other, Bill asked him why he hadn't submitted one of his "good pictures" in the contest. My father then asked Bill if he knew the definition of a "good photograph". Bill, a bit puzzled, said he didn't think he did. My father said "Bill, it's one that someone is willing to pay to own."

My father gave away hundreds of pictures to people over the years but had no interest in contests of the sort that Bill was having. Bill was a top notch salesman who knew little about photograpy and his interest was money so my father phrased his answer in a way that he knew Bill would understand and could appreciate.

Walker

[Microdad]

Even with the legal issues aside, it's very annoying to browse through private internet sales (Ebay, Craigslist, etc.) and find stock photos in their postings.

I agree strongly with the copyright issue, especially when I was shooting portraits for a while and people would scan the proofs and have them enlarged. So, to combat the problem I started giving out low-res "proof disks" that they could review on their computer. I even had a customer call me one time and flame me because he had taken his proof disk to Kinko's and tried to get some of them enlarged. The people at Kinko's told him the files were too low res for them to enlarge so he called me to "demand" hi-res copies. I promptly referred him to the price list I gave him prior to the shoot, never heard back from him. LOL

But, the lines get fuzzy when you have to consider the value of your time when persuing a copyright infringement. Someone using a pic on an Ebay auction (although annoying) may not be worth a lot of time persuing beyond a firm e-mail or two.

I used to design products in the telecom industry where patents are a huge priority (as opposed to the valves I design now, which are nearly impossible to patent). Companies in that industry regularly violate each other's patents, but the only ones that are vigorously persued are the high dollar designs which the company deems worth the expense of legal action.

[herron]

johnrparry said:

......But I can see the point of view of any photographers who do make money from their trade. So yes - send Google a bill. Sounds good. Post regularly about the litigation!........

I guess it really wasn't so much the copyright infringement, which was annoying, but the use of my image as the item he had for sale. I thought it was a fraud perpetrated on any bidder. I know I would be less than thrilled if the item I bid on looked terrific...but only because it wasn't really the one for sale, and something less showed up on my doorstep!

eBay must have agreed with me...they ended his auction with less than an hour left.