{"id":57659,"date":"2018-03-26T05:57:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T11:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=57659"},"modified":"2018-03-26T09:36:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T15:36:21","slug":"the-dangers-of-image-theft-and-copyright-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/26\/the-dangers-of-image-theft-and-copyright-infringement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers Of Image Theft And Copyright Infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"

And the advantages of registering our important\u00a0photos with\u00a0the US Copyright Office.<\/p>\n

I realize that these subjects won’t be of interest to all of my readers\u00a0and some readers may have different views than mine\u00a0but that’s OK. But recent events have prompted\u00a0me to\u00a0address the issue in some detail. Be forewarned, this isn’t a short read.<\/p>\n

The moment you push the shutter you own the copyright\u00a0to that image and only you have the legal right to reproduce, modify, copy or publicly display it. Even if it’s the crappiest\u00a0snapshot taken with a point and shoot camera\u00a0in the history of photography the copyright is yours exclusively. And you don’t have to include a copyright symbol (\u00a9)\u00a0or register your image with the US Copyright Office to have ownership of that image. It’s automatic (unless that image falls under the category of “work for hire).<\/p>\n

Online image theft is rampant and it happens regularly to most serious and even novice\u00a0photographers who post online, including me. Sometimes it’s done out of ignorance (though that’s no excuse) – folks think “others are doing it so why can’t I?”. But as we’ll soon\u00a0see those folks\u00a0may be\u00a0taking a big legal\u00a0and financial risk.<\/p>\n

When my images are stolen\u00a0and used on websites with\u00a0little traffic and\/or they’re not being used for commercial gain\u00a0it often isn’t worth my time to aggressively pursue redress. If I see the infringement I\u00a0often\u00a0point\u00a0out online and publicly\u00a0that it was stolen and ask that it be taken down promptly. If it is, that’s the end of it. If it’s posted on social media I’ll often file a DMCA takedown\u00a0request with Facebook or whatever other social media site it’s posted to. But if my stolen image is being used commercially for\u00a0gain or profit or for political and\/or religious purposes\u00a0all bets are off. That’s where my IP (Intellectual Property) attorney enters the literal and proverbial\u00a0picture if necessary.<\/p>\n

Before we go any further I thought I should show readers an example from the past.<\/p>\n

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Several years ago a Florida plumber stole this image and used it in the online advertising for his business (“right click save” is disabled on my blog so folks have to go the extra mile to steal my images). I found the infringement using a reverse image search<\/a>. He had someone\u00a0photoshop pipe wrenches and other plumbing tools into the talons of the eagle and if I remember correctly he even had it painted on the sides of his service trucks.<\/p>\n

And this plumber made another serious mistake. If\u00a0an image thief removes or hides (often by cropping) your copyright notice to hide\u00a0the infringement the photographer is entitled to additional damages and that’s exactly\u00a0what he did. Like the\u00a0notorious Watergate\u00a0“Whitehouse plumbers” this guy wasn’t very smart. In the end\u00a0after receiving a cease and desist letter and then\u00a0a demand letter from my attorney the plumber\u00a0coughed up\u00a0a\u00a0fair and reasonable\u00a0settlement for stealing my image, removing my copyright\u00a0and using the photo commercially.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0this particular image infringement\u00a0was in the days before I registered my\u00a0photos with the US Copyright\u00a0Office. When images that haven’t been registered are stolen the photographer\u00a0is only entitled to the “fair market value” of their work. But if the image has been registered with the US Copyright Office\u00a0the owner of the copyright is also entitled to significant\u00a0statutory damages. That could result in judgments\u00a0up to\u00a0$150,000, plus legal fees.<\/p>\n

Several years ago I registered all of my saved images with the US Copyright Office. Not\u00a0just the “good ones” but all of them. Truthfully it was a cumbersome and unpleasant\u00a0task but I’m glad I persevered and got it done.<\/p>\n

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This is a screenshot of part of\u00a0my online record of registrations at the\u00a0Copyright Office\u00a0(such registrations are a matter of public record).\u00a0Most of these individual registrations represent thousands of images in that file (I’ve cropped out the registration numbers that were on the right to make the print larger and easier to read}. Notice that all of my images from 2011 are registered – that will become an important point in a few moments.<\/p>\n

Ok, now (finally!)\u00a0to my motivation for publishing a post on this subject – to warn readers of the truly serious potential\u00a0legal and financial ramifications\u00a0of any kind of image infringement, including “lifting” photos from the internet and posting them elsewhere without prior permission\u00a0for seemingly innocuous purposes.<\/p>\n

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Regular readers will likely recognize this photo of an adult Red-tailed Hawk with a deformed bill that I posted\u00a0three days ago (although it was taken on November 8, 2011)\u00a0and it sure didn’t take long for someone to steal it. Within about 24 hours of publishing it one of my vigilant blog readers tagged\u00a0me in a Facebook post of this\u00a0image\u00a0so I would see that it had been stolen. It was posted to the page of a well-known raptor conservation group by someone I’ll call “Jane”.\u00a0Besides\u00a0stealing my image Jane\u00a0also cropped tightly on the bird to eliminate my copyright watermark at lower right (even though the infringed image has now been deleted I have the screenshots of the original post\u00a0to prove it).<\/p>\n

Jane may or may not have\u00a0known that what she did was illegal, unethical and against Facebook guidelines but in this digital age I’m\u00a0betting that she\u00a0did\u00a0(I’ll say it again, ignorance is no excuse). But I suspect that she didn’t know that cropping out my watermark made the infringement significantly\u00a0more serious and\u00a0I’m almost positive that she didn’t even consider the possibility that the image might be registered with the US Copyright Office (it is)\u00a0which made her potential legal and financial culpability for image theft\u00a0a very serious matter.<\/p>\n

When I notified Jane that I had seen her infringement and wasn’t happy about it being used without permission or having my copyright watermark removed part of her\u00a0response was “I like the watermarks that are very small and close to the birds tail so they cannot be cropped out”. Like it was\u00a0somehow my fault<\/em> that I hadn’t placed the watermark in a convenient place for her, which of course is irrelevant because even if she had included the watermark that still didn’t give her the right to use my image without prior permission. It still<\/em> would have been image theft.<\/p>\n

In the end I let this infringement slide because a few hours after I notified Jane that she had been caught the image was deleted, because I support the goals of this particular raptor conservation group where the image was posted and\u00a0because the photo wasn’t being used for personal gain. I suspect Jane’s basically a good person and I hope she learned a valuable lesson.<\/p>\n

But be careful out there folks. We never have the right to steal images belonging to someone else, removing copyright watermarks\u00a0makes the infringement significantly more serious and you just never know if the image might have the additional layers of protection provided by copyright registration.<\/p>\n

Typically I don’t pursue infringements aggressively unless they’re being used for commercial gain or for political or religious purposes\u00a0but\u00a0others out there aren’t so forgiving.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – Here are\u00a0some related links that might be of interest to some readers:<\/em><\/p>\n