Internet Thievery
Will It Extend To Stock Photos?
Advance Notes: The big debate of the hour is about "image snatching" on the Internet. Is it real? Or just an unfounded fear that isn't worth the worry? This article opens up the debate, examines the threat and invites your
The Year is 2011. A photographer is jolted by a devastating report. Three dozen of her images have been snatched by an infamous cyber-outlaw who penetrates firewalls, de-codes passwords and hurdles even the toughest of encryption. The report says that the photos were stolen at midnight and sold before dawn through the DarkNet at Shanghai.com, which has distributed them to discount buyers worldwide. The photographer can do nothing about it. The increasing incidence of such cases is dramatically affecting the willingness of photographers to make their photos available on-line, and this convenient and efficient channel for images is drying up.
As a photo researcher, you might wonder who really owns copyright on the images you just licensed.
Well, this makes for a good Hollywood scenario, but don't waste energy worrying that it might happen.
Sure, some places, some times, "someones" will steal a photo. But the rare times this occurs won't warrant photographers giving up this lucrative avenue of marketing their work, nor making negative and inconvenient barriers to potential buyers by installing complex protection techniques.
"STOLEN PHOTOS..." That expression conjures up copyright infringement and neglect of a photographer's rights, and curtailment of photobuyers' image sources.
Periodically, I get phone calls and @letters from photographers who are dismayed that I suggest that Web sites such as Google, Yahoo! and others, should be allowed to display-for-view images that they find on the World Wide Web.
On first examination, this thought seems almost sacrilegious to some stock photographers. When I point out there is a promotional advantage to having their photos displayed (with their credit line) to Internet viewers (e.g. the public-- e.g. photo researchers and potential photobuyers), some photographers are still not convinced.
From my minority position, which is squarely between photo researchers who are looking for photos, and photographers who are looking to sell their photos, I don't see this situation as a disadvantage for either party.
In fact, if the practice of displaying photos in this manner were stopped, I would view it as an affront to both the photographer's pocketbook and the First Amendment rights of photo buyers and suppliers. Without the free flow of information, we all lose. (Photos are information.)
Here's an example: in our email newsletter, PhotoStockNOTES, and on our Web site, we include a very popular section called, "Photography In The News." Often we show pictures taken by top photojournalists from Time, Newsweek, and other major and minor news organizations, magazines and newspapers, under titles such as "How The Pros Photograph An Iowa Caucus," - or "How to Photograph a Seattle Demonstration," or, "Views of the Lunar Eclipse -In Case You Missed It."
If I were to carry this "image thievery" theme to its ultimate conclusion, you would not be allowed to view those photos.
Even though I am not selling these images, just pointing to where they can be viewed, the infringement police might take me to task. So I'd stop linking to this kind of photo display. I would not want to risk displaying a photo for you that was breaking a proposed new Copyright\Internet "forbidden to show" law. Besides, it would not be worth it to find the author and seek permission to display it.
"Worry is as useless as a handle on a snowball..."
--Mitzi Chandler
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We have all heard of cases of "innocent infringers," from church or community groups to local clubs, who have become "image snatchers" and lifted photos to use for their Web sites. More serious cases have now and then come up-- usually in the adult sites area, Playboy magazine, etc. No doubt the publicity these cases receive will serve to accelerate the education about copyright requirements that we need to get to the public.
Some photographers still hesitate to display their photos on the Web for fear of thievery, and therein lies the dilemma. In the age of the Internet, photographers need to assess whether it is smart business to hold back their photos (and credit line) from the viewing public.
It really is an "either/or" situation.
They're choosing between free flow of information, or placing handcuffs on you, the potential picture buyer by hiding images, not allowing them to be seen in public unless there is first a guarantee of payment.
I have a neighbor who builds bird houses. To advertise he displays three of them on a tall pole near his rural mailbox. "It's the only advertising I do," says Russ.
"But don't you lose any to thieves?" I asked.
"I've lost two," he said, "in the last five years. But I could've lost a lot of sales if I didn't display my bird houses."
Internet thievery is a reality with college term papers. Students can cheat by pointing and clicking their way through technical journals, corporate white papers, and work that students throughout the world have posted on the
As Web thievery grows, so do methods of preventing it. In the case of term paper plagiarism, college professors now use a Web site: http://plagiarism.org, that has the ability to run term papers and excerpts through a process that scans millions of Internet papers to test for plagiarism.
The music world has long had the problem of copyright to deal with. Most of us will accept that the glory days of copyright protection are long gone in the music world. However, some major music companies still insist that they can prevent copyright thievery by, yes, making it harder for the individual customer to play the tunes. A case in point is The Music Clip (Sony) where you have to stand on your head to download the (OpenMG) software instead of the standard software format, MP3. It becomes a nuisance to the customer. Enough to discourage sales.
In the case of photo display, stock photographers find themselves in a dilemma. If they display with "safeguards," they can lose, not by theft but by the hurdles and road bumps that customers have to go past (encryption, watermarks, stealth software, unfriendly warnings, etc). If photographers don't display, they can lose by curtailing their exposure and the availability of their work to potential buyers.
Photographers have a choice -- put the customer first, you, or copyright protection first. Stronger federal copyright laws to protect image makers could solve the problem. The current copyright laws give little protection to stock photographers.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and publisher of "PhotoRESEARCHER Newsletter," has provided on-line information to photobuyers, photo researchers and photo editors for two decades. For info: http://www.photosource.com/photobuyer/.
 Tommy Thompson |
 Kerry Kolb |
 Jon Saban |
 Jake Nelson |