Copyright watermarks on pictures

[bassrock]

Hi fellow PADders,

I am looking for advice and your views.

Recently I have had a couple of pictures copied without permission and others with many direct links. I am sure you have all been there - it is a risk to put your pictures on the web. If only we knew where those direct links came from.

I started to watermark my pictures with a copyright symbol to protect them but now a few people have commented that the watermark spoils the pictures, and I have to agree. See the example below.

So there is the quandary. As I see it, there are a couple of options:

1) only put up small (e.g. 600 px on longest dimension), low res images but these look crap and spoil the viewers enjoyment
2) put up larger, hi res images with a watermark which again spoils the picture
3) put up larger, hi res images without watermark and run the risk of people stealing your work.

What do you do, and does anyone have any advice or have a better option? I would love to hear your thoughts and perhaps PBase has some suggestions for protecting our work we upload.

Bill

http://www.pbase.com/image/63211729

[lindarocks]

Bill

I must admit to looking at the shot you've posted on this thread (when you posted it in the meta gallery) and thinking it was a great shame to spoil what is a beautiful shot with the watermark, though I completely see why you've done it.

I've had a few shots 'stolen' in recent weeks and the new stats do, at least, make you aware when people are referencing a shot directly from pbase. I recently put a statement on a pic that had been stolen asking anyone who was viewing it anywhere other than in my pbase gallery to come forward and let me know.....I got no feedback whatsoever! But I did get the satisfaction of knowing that the site that was using it was at least being exposed for theft....the shot continued to get lots of hits for a week or so after I posted the message.

I routinely put my name embedded on all my new shots but I can't be bothered to go back and do this on all of my stuff posted before last summer.

The answer is unclear to me but I'd certainly prefer to take some risk (though I may live to regret that one) and still get the pleasure out of pbase.

[bmacdougall]

I've tried right clicking on my own shots to save and they were so small I found them useless. I hope this keeps the stealing down. The best solution is for Pbase to add no right clicking feature. Many other sites do.

[jypsee]

... who suggested on Bill's photo that he might think about not posting large sizes. I started posting at 600 pixels on the longest side and most of the right clicks have stopped. Someone who is getting TONS of direct links in a rapid time (who hasn't posted in a forum somewhere) is likely getting used by a blogger. That's what has also happened to me and downsizing won't stop that. In fact, bloggers like the smaller sizes so they can decorate more easily.
In regard to the small size looking like "crap," I disagree. Here's my photo for today, and I don't think it looks crappy at 600 pixels on the longest side.

http://www.pbase.com/jypsee/image/63323224

I do add a watermark to my photos, but it's usually on the bottom of the photo and done so that it looks like a signature. Sometimes I place the watermark on the subject, but make the layer less opaque.
There was something in the news recently about using digital noise as an identifier, but the problem is finding your stolen work in the first place.

[lglasgow]

how do you know if someone has directly linked to your photo?

[whig]

how do you know if someone has directly linked to your photo?

On pbase you got "5 direct links since 09-JUL-06" kind of line under your photo.

[dbarrettphotos]

Pbase should make it so you can't right click in a person's gallery.

[trimoon]

You can’t stop right click in a person's gallery. There always a way around it.

[packpao]

Millerlau, I've seen your shots quite a few times in the PaD gallery, and must say that the large 'C' does ruin the image's focal point on many occasions. As has been suggested, perhaps watermark your pbase URL in one of the corners.

A trmoom says, the right click functionality is pointless. If it's in JavaScript, then it can be disabled. Plus, there are many other ways. Basically, if an image appears on your screen, it is on your computer in some form.

Personally, I'm not too bothered if people hotlink to my pictures on Pbase - it' s more exposure as far as I'm concerned. Also, if someone hotlinks then perhaps it means it's a good shot.
The only thing that would bother me is if someone try to pass my work off as their own. But then someone determined will do anything to achieve their aims.

I've only used watermarking once and that was when showing proofs to the press (I happened to get some photos they were interested in)

Happy shooting.

Luiz

[whig]

Pbase should make it so you can't right click in a person's gallery.

I think that pbase shouldn't make it like that.
First of all you can't protect your photos with so called "right click protection" it's just useless. (I have javascript disabled on my firefox so that protection not working for me).
Second reason is that you make it harder to give visitor possibility to open links to new browser window/tab with right click "Open to new window/tab" thing.

So IMHO it's just better that there is no such "protection" like right click protection.

[gummyb]

I really hate those copyright marks on the center of the picture! My posted pictures are not that big for someone to steal and make big money. If they want to link...sure, just credit me. What's the point of posting a picture with a large C in the middle??!!

[norm4fun]

I put a personnalised signature on every pictures now.
I have found lots of my photos on european sites. I have seen some of my photos with lots of links, at least probably my name is moving around. I post max 800. and save at very low quality. But even then, I got a message asking for more photos of a series, and that person told me just wanted the files, no print since he was having them printed at a dept store.

[xstylus]

Well, for starters I can't exactly say I'm very sympathetic to your situation. I'm of the opinion that the internet is the absolute worst place to exhibit art, for the very reasons you're encountering. There's only two types of art on the net: That which has been stolen, and that which has not been stolen yet. If one posts their art on the net, they do so with that understanding, or one should not be posting it.

In any case, I came across this thread in an interesting way, and this is probably the first and only time I'll be posting here. I was at a webcomic artist's site earlier today, and as I right-clicked to open a new tab in my browser I had discovered she had disabled right clicking. This wasn't the first time I had encoutered such a hinderance that, in reality, is hardly worth the trouble since it's easily circumvented. The futility of this, yet the fact that people continue to implement it anyway, frustrated me so much that I made a rather long winded blog posting about it, and later did a google search regarding right clicking and discovered this discussion here.

I wanted to take a moment to convey my opinion regarding right-clicking and regarding protection of artwork on the internet (or rather, the lack and futility thereof), but not at the risk of causing a disruption this community since this could be a rather hot topic. If you wish to hear my thoughts on the matter, I would welcome yours at my livejournal.

[nzmalamute]

I monitor who access's my web page very closely so i block all search bots as they are the ones who are responsable for spreading your web page info.

[bchalifour]

The image is clearly identified as being yours. With or without watermark or ©, copying it without your agreement is illegal and an infrigement on the Berne convention of copyright.
[Ps it is also extremely easy to remove a "©" from an image, so what's the point of spoiling yopu image. Just upload it at 72 dpi for the size you want it to show on screen]