swoopchick69 Loc: Ball Bay, Queensland, Australia

Hi my name is Jillian and I'm an old print now new dslr, photographer. I upload all my pictures with wifi, on my iPad and edit with the photo app that comes pre-installed on iPads. Ok so not much editing goes on. Truth be told I'm kinda afraid to even open that door. Now to my question, how do i best protect my photos, on the off chance that anyone did want to copy or use one?

Attached are some samples of my photos, any comments suggestions and critics are very welcome.

Thanks,
Jillian

Stephen King re-enactment JFK

(Download)

Nudibranchs Phillipines

(Download)

First attempt at star trails, Finger rock Bullhead City AZ

(Download)

Reflection in a water ball,

(Download)

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

With digital it is almost impossible - what you can do ...others can undo. To have copy-write you need to show that it is uniquely yours (How ?) and register it (Fee) then catch any breaches and pursue through the courts (Big Fee) for every image?

Putting your name on 'defaces' the image.

If posting on line use the smallest image size possible (useless to make print size from)

To be honest - if you are a hobbyist it probably isn't worth doing much beyond watching where you post your images. Popular sites are going to get ripped off with little action. With millions of images uploaded daily there is going to be some theft. - Duplication is the sincerest form of flattery.

Most businesses write on the back of any printed images (Do not copy...Property of,,,,,,,) which was fine in the days film and reprocessing. Now everyone has a scanner/printer.

Consider: blowing up your image 200% and using a small font, writing your name and email discretely so that at normal view it disappears.
Hope it is unnoticed. Should a law suite be taken against you you could try and reveal proof of ownership - but it would still be your word against theirs.

Unless it becomes a competition winner (appeal to the organiser) or put in print (Little chance of appealing....too late) What have you lost financially? Cost of your time only.

Not great news - but be realistic. Even on this site - how often does someone post an image 'they thought you would like to see' without even the decency to show the hot link to the original.

Don't let it get you down

swoopchick69 Loc: Ball Bay, Queensland, Australia

Thank you for the honesty, someday i hope to have some of my shots in a book and other ideas for profit, that's why i was asking. Will be far in the future when i can actually learn how to edit them, lol.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Many hate seeing signatures on photos, I do it anyway.
Many hate photos with large watermarks, too bad. One of our members is an excellent bird photographer who had a couple images ripped off. He starting doing very large nearly transparent water mark on his posted images. Yes someone good enough can get rid of the watermark, but at least he has made them work to steal his images.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Once you have published work in a book, then ownership is much easier to prove as it will go through many hands and processes. But I guess that is in the future. Till then concentrate on learning to shoot and process your images.

However, The law of Sod, suggests that you will get a 'once in a lifetime' shot in the next year or so. If you do - do not put it on the net......Go find someone to publish it in a magazine, newspaper, or even make limited prints for you and sell them. This all proves your ownership.

Have fun

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

REGISTRATION!!!!!!

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Double post. Sorry.

Haydon

Anything is suspect to theft if you upload onto the internet. Watermarking has it's pros and cons. Simply resizing to a very small scale in w/h can be a huge discouragement and can't be used for printing larger sizes.

swoopchick69 Loc: Ball Bay, Queensland, Australia

What do you mean registration?

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

Registration is only of use if you just happen to stumble upon your image being used without your permission. For example, if someone is making prints from your image and selling these in an arts and crafts shop in some quiet town in Ohio, chances are next to zero you will ever find out about it.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Registration is a process whereby your copyright is officially recorded with the Copyright Office in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act. You may register a single copyright or a group of copyrights in bulk for a reasonable fee. Registration is particularly useful should the question of a copyright ever arise in a court of law. Violation of a registered copyright is taken much more seriously in a court of law. Without registration, it may be difficult to prove the validity of a copyright.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

You seriously over-simplify the the effect of copyright registration to the point of providing misleading information.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Enter the info in-camera and Copyright statements will accomplish every file in meta data! You of course can add your watermark to every image.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Jillian,

The answer couldn't be simpler. You can't, other than not uploading the images in the first place. Any kid in high school can remove a watermark from an image. Copyright registration is cheap, and it does protect you in the event that a company uses your image without your knowledge or consent. If they use a copyrighted image that was registered before it was published (by you on a website for instance) or within 3 months of infringement, you can claim statutory damages for each instance of the infringer's use. So you post a picture of a kitten, some irresponsible sees it on Flickr or here and decides he/she want's it on the company's product label and advertising, and makes 50,000 copies of that image for the label, and 1000s more in published advertisements. Well, you can recover damages far in excess of what it cost you to produce the image, with a dollar amount attached to each use that can be as much as 150,000. This is important because if the facts of the case are clear, you can get an attorney's interest because of the obvious benefits to the attorney.

It still will not prevent someone from copying the image in the first place.

Placing a watermark, making the image tiny and not worth copying, etc etc etc will only serve to diminish the quality of the image and prevent someone viewing the image from seeing the image in it's best form. In the meantime, all you have done is slow someone down, but not prevented them, from stealing your image.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Nothing will, as long as you make available (posting), high enough quality files and someone is determined, there is nothing to stop him/her from doing that!