Argument with a Photo Thief

[Jill Morgan]

Yesterday at a dog show I ran into a photo thief.  I was doing custom mugs where they could put any image they wanted on a mug.  She asked if I had an Irish Setter and that was one breed where I hadn't found a great picture at a price I could afford, so I let her know that.  She said she would look through her phone to see what she had.

 

Came back later with a photo of an Irish Setter.  Did the mug for her and when she picked it up I asked her if it was a picture of her dog.  "Oh no, I found it on Google. She told me there were lots of good images of Setters, how come I couldn't find them?" I told her I have to pay for images. especially  when using for commercial use, and simply because she found it online doesn't mean it is free to use. I got this response.  "If online it's free to use unless it has a watermark on it."  I tried to explain to her that that was not the case but was beating my head against the wall.

 

Jill

 

 

[Sultanpepa]

It's a common held belief unfortunately. 

[Allan Bell]

In my opinion ALL images online SHOULD be watermarked.

 

Anyone/company who/which strips the watermarks should be persecuted/prosecuted.

 

Allan

 

 

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Allan Bell said:

In my opinion ALL images online SHOULD be watermarked.

 

Anyone/company who/which strips the watermarks should be persecuted/prosecuted.

 

Allan

 

 

Not the same thing, but in the EU it's already a breach of copyright to strip metadata.

[spacecadet]

3 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

Yesterday at a dog show I ran into a photo thief.  I was doing custom mugs where they could put any image they wanted on a mug.  She asked if I had an Irish Setter and that was one breed where I hadn't found a great picture at a price I could afford, so I let her know that.  She said she would look through her phone to see what she had.

 

Came back later with a photo of an Irish Setter.  Did the mug for her and when she picked it up I asked her if it was a picture of her dog.  "Oh no, I found it on Google. She told me there were lots of good images of Setters, how come I couldn't find them?" I told her I have to pay for images. especially  when using for commercial use, and simply because she found it online doesn't mean it is free to use. I got this response.  "If online it's free to use unless it has a watermark on it."  I tried to explain to her that that was not the case but was beating my head against the wall.

 

Jill

 

 

Unfortunately that means you may have innocently committed a secondary infringement. I don't know about Canada, and the damages wouldn't be very much, but you'd have no defence here.

I collected my largest ever licensing fee from a company who did the same with an image they got from a primary infringer. They were correctly advised to pay up. Better check first next time!

[Jill Morgan]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

Unfortunately that means you may have innocently committed a secondary infringement. I don't know about Canada, and the damages wouldn't be very much, but you'd have no defence here.

I collected my largest ever licensing fee from a company who did the same with an image they got from a primary infringer. They were correctly advised to pay up. Better check first next time!

 

I shall do that Mark.  Very unusual for someone to not want their own dog on the mug.  I just assumed (I know, never assume) it was her dog.

 

Jill

[Starsphinx]

3 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

In my opinion ALL images online SHOULD be watermarked.

 

Anyone/company who/which strips the watermarks should be persecuted/prosecuted.

 

Allan

 

 

I would also like to see it made mandatory in schools to have all students taught the rules of copyright and paying for images (and other created works).  Explain the reasonable use clause that lets images be used for school use but make sure every person leaving education knows that this stuff has to be paid for - not just to reduce the theft of works but to protect young people creating their own work from having it stolen - so they are aware if someone wants to use their work they should be paid for it.

 

[Cryptoprocta]

5 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

In my opinion ALL images online SHOULD be watermarked.

 

Anyone/company who/which strips the watermarks should be persecuted/prosecuted.

 

Allan

Hmmm, what about legally-bought stock photos? These have no watermarks and thus can be disseminated widely, and often are, esp the low-cost UKNS sales. :-(

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

I would also like to see it made mandatory in schools to have all students taught the rules of copyright and paying for images (and other created works).  Explain the reasonable use clause that lets images be used for school use but make sure every person leaving education knows that this stuff has to be paid for - not just to reduce the theft of works but to protect young people creating their own work from having it stolen - so they are aware if someone wants to use their work they should be paid for it.

It was absolutely taught to all pupils at the school I used to teach in, but the pupils thought it was "just something teachers were too old to know about", like so many other things where what teachers told them contradicted what their family and community believed.

[Starsphinx]

17 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

It was absolutely taught to all pupils at the school I used to teach in, but the pupils thought it was "just something teachers were too old to know about", like so many other things where what teachers told them contradicted what their family and community believed.

I have spoken to too many thoroughly surprised teachers who have no idea of the legal status of downloaded images to believe its teaching is either widespread or consistent.

I guess when I say taught in schools I mean it being presented so consistently and thoroughly that it becomes almost instinctive - like the "exams are important" message.  However while so many teachers are under the impression "it's not watermarked so its free" there is little hope of teaching the children.

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

I have spoken to too many thoroughly surprised teachers who have no idea of the legal status of downloaded images to believe its teaching is either widespread or consistent.

That's not so surprising.

That teaching was done by the computing department. Many things which are taught in one department are not known by the staff from other departments. I only know they were doing that because S1 pupils had to make posters explaining the legality of image use and they were posted all over the school. I'd imagine it must (have been at the time, at least) part of the official curriculum. (The Scottish education system [structure, exams, curricula, syllabuses] is very different from the English system, and always has been.)

 

Also, as downloaded files can be used for teaching, and most teachers won't be using them for any sort of commercial gain, it's probable they won't have had cause to think about it.

By the time I left teaching eight years ago, and at that time, we had to use a system called Glow to source images for teaching. Sadly I couldn't find much of use to my subject in Glow at the time, but presumably (hopefully) it has been vastly expanded since then.