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Don't even think of doing it! Under any circumstances. 

 

Why don't you share a link to your website instead? Like this: www.richardwayman.com

 

Otherwise your images are liable to be stolen.

 

Best

 

Richard

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Thats true. I dont think indeed that the buyers are on Facebook. Alamy is looking and avdertising to get buyers and they will find eventually your images if they need.

 

Even if a buyer would find your link on Facebook they will for sure not stay only in your portfolio and use instead the full database of Alamy. This is the advantage of a stock agency. to have many images to search for. At the end you are actually adverizing for Alamy instead of for you (What is of course also good).

 

Mirco

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I dislike social media, my galleries and agents do all the marketing of my work, but love Facebook at the moment. I was e mailed by someone a few months ago who said "have seen some of your photographs on Facebook and wondered if I can have some others", (he meant for free). As I don't have a Facebook account someone must have nicked them off my website. I tracked them down with the unsuspecting help of the guy who mailed me and my legal team (backed by my galleries and agents) went to work. I am now a generous four figure sum better off (due to the potential value of the images they took -  not general picture library stock stuff). The person who stole my work is going to have a rotten Christmas as they have to pay that plus substantial legal fees. If only more photographers would come down hard it would help stamp it out in time. Too many say "not worth the bother" etc. 

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I dislike social media, my galleries and agents do all the marketing of my work, but love Facebook at the moment. I was e mailed by someone a few months ago who said "have seen some of your photographs on Facebook and wondered if I can have some others", (he meant for free). As I don't have a Facebook account someone must have nicked them off my website. I tracked them down with the unsuspecting help of the guy who mailed me and my legal team (backed by my galleries and agents) went to work. I am now a generous four figure sum better off (due to the potential value of the images they took -  not general picture library stock stuff). The person who stole my work is going to have a rotten Christmas as they have to pay that plus substantial legal fees. If only more photographers would come down hard it would help stamp it out in time. Too many say "not worth the bother" etc.

 

But without social media that's 4 figures you would not have.... Income from social media does not have to be "conventional "

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Very true I suppose but I do feel for those many photographers who don't have the excellent - and expert in this field, legal back up that I do and who have to sit and watch their work get stolen. Also of course 99% of it never gets noticed by the photographers themselves while my galleries, agents etc. are constantly monitoring for infringements.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just to add another note..

 

a few weeks back i was commissioned to photograph the first play to be performed in a new arts centre in north wales. The dress-run was delayed in starting for an hour or two so i spent my time pottering around the building, admiring the architecture, and making some images of the interiors and exteriors...

 

I put these up on FB and Twitter later that day, 850px wide, heavily watermarked..

 

Today i have just licenced 3 of those images to the Londond based architects of the scheme for very good fees; all because they'd been sent a link to the pictures by the team running the centre..

 

Ignore the potential of social media at your peril. Make it work for you

 

km

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Very true I suppose but I do feel for those many photographers who don't have the excellent - and expert in this field, legal back up that I do and who have to sit and watch their work get stolen. Also of course 99% of it never gets noticed by the photographers themselves while my galleries, agents etc. are constantly monitoring for infringements.

So how is that different from checking on Image Search and using the IPEC small claims track? If they're doing something special would you care to share?

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Sharing a link to your collection on social media or a website, doesn't give away the rights, if you upload individual images on to social media, then your asking for people to nick them.

 

Sharing links to your collection helps google index them, which seems to lead to small personal use/powerpoint type sales

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"if you upload individual images on to social media, then your asking for people to nick them."

 

or buy them....

 

 

Quite.

 

I post loads of photos on Facebook. Every single one has a prominent copyright watermark. I occasionally get enquiries - usually from people who want something for free but one day someone with a wallet will come along.

 

Alan

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I dislike social media, my galleries and agents do all the marketing of my work, but love Facebook at the moment. I was e mailed by someone a few months ago who said "have seen some of your photographs on Facebook and wondered if I can have some others", (he meant for free). As I don't have a Facebook account someone must have nicked them off my website. I tracked them down with the unsuspecting help of the guy who mailed me and my legal team (backed by my galleries and agents) went to work. I am now a generous four figure sum better off (due to the potential value of the images they took - not general picture library stock stuff). The person who stole my work is going to have a rotten Christmas as they have to pay that plus substantial legal fees. If only more photographers would come down hard it would help stamp it out in time. Too many say "not worth the bother" etc.

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Dyn that is great news, but One of the problems with social media and life in general these days is that, people expect everything for free and have no idea of copyright, plus of course Facebook, Twitter etc promote the idea of sharing and of course any metadata is stripped out during the upload.

 

Also e-mails with images and digital images in general, once passed onto anyone even Alamy can easily be passed around and used.

 

Therefore without a legal team that you have, how does one stop these infringements, or does anyone know of a company who can do this on the photographers behalf?

 

I've had friends and clients of portrait sessions edit the size in order to put in social media, the local newspaper which is part of trinity group, takes stuff of people's Facebook accounts without asking, or Twitter etc and ive just noticed, whilst trying to find if one of my Alamy zoomed has been bought by anybody, I discovered one of my images on their website, with the copyright cut off, this was used three years ago!

This image is not on any site at all now, but I did put a few on social media at the time, so they must have stolen it then.

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You don't need a 'legal team' or 'agents and galleries'. Google image search will find many infringements and you can pursue them yourself  if necessary through the small claims track of IPEC.

Those newspaper uses are infringements- you give Facebook a licence when you upload content but not anyone else. If you can prove the 3-year use, they should be paying up.

Try this.

http://www.epuk.org/Opinion/994/stolen-photographs-what-to-do?pg=4

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I think this another example of photographers needing to revise their old model and accept that technology changes things.

 

The media buyers now or soon will be the social media generation.  They are experts at it and photographers need to be where the buyers are.

 

Before social media really took off the same argument was had about online in general. 'Don't put your photos online they will be stolen' I've had my share of infringements however the upside of sharing online has been far, far greater than the downside. You just need to be sensible about watermarking and be diligent about how and where you share.

 

As soon as you get a client use an image digitally it's effectively out in the wild anyway. It's easy enough to find Alamy images un-watermarked at 5000 px length.

 

An analogy is a shopkeeper not opening his shop because he's worried about shoplifting. It's an unfortunate consequence of being in business. You just have to make as many sales as possible to mitigate any losses.

 

Trey Ratcliffe seems to have done okay out of social media and a creative commons model.

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"photographers need to be where the buyers are."

 

absolutely

And depending on the sort of imagery you're making, social media in all its variety, is increasingly  not only where your buyers are, but where your buyers will then be using your work.

 

(fine art, limited edition, wet process, prints being one of the few exeptions......probably)

 

km

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I'm with Dyn,

 

I do not post anything on "Social Media" and do not see it as being of any positive use to me.

I've tracked down and collected on several unlicensed uses, to my surprise by major corporations

and institutions, and collected substantial fees.  All the negotiation and collection was done by me.

For the smaller thefts I just send a standard take down notice.

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Maybe i just dont have enought knowledge yet but in my thinking social media has only sense as far as goes promoting own work from own website. For your portfolio on agencies it is a different case. People that are visiting agencies dont want to choose only photos from your portfolio but they would rather check the whole collection unless you have something VERY EXCLUSIVE and SPECIAL. Also standard i dont think that image buyers are going on Facebook to search for images. They go directly to Alamy and use the search system. Thats why agencies are there for. Agency will do all the advertisements for their website and automatically also your portfolio since it is included. Thats one of the many reasons why we pay 50% commission for each sale. Also your photos are distributed if you choose for that. I think there is no better advertising.

 

My opinion is the time you spend for social media you can better use for taking more photos.

 

Mirco

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