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July 30, 2011
Blake Edwards has an interesting post about the unauthorized use of images on the internet: ie., copyright infringement. The image below of mine, which was published in my Flickr stream, has a life of its own on Tumblr blogs, but they weren't commercially profiting from the reposting. It highlighted to me how much the internet is a network of circulating images.
Gary Sauer-Thompson Struthers Lane, Christchurch, New Zealand
At a recent discussion on blogs and websites hosted by Atkin's Technicolour a number of commercial photographers matter of factually said that they watermark all their public photos. Their desire was to manage use of their images online, as these images were what they depended on for their income.
The conversation was one sided, however, because Fair use in the public domain ----that is, the limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders (eg., commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship), was not even mentioned. There was no consideration of images in the public domain helping to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public. Photography was a commercial enterprise.
Amy Stein says that Blake's call to the blogosphere to help remove all unauthorized uses of the photograph in question, does seem a bit like spitting into the social wind, adding:
Don't get me wrong, I fully support the proper attribution of images and have done so on my blog since day one. In the age of Google Image Search, there is absolutely no excuse for not crediting an artist. But, I'm also a realist and long ago I fully embraced the idea that my images will travel and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's mostly a very good thing. If someone is moved to share my work or inspired to use it to create something new, that's kind of cool. I know the free flow of my images has certainly helped my career and I often tell my students to swim with the current and make their work as shareable as possible.
Like Stein, I am happy with fair use but I'm strong on the proper attribution of the work when it is reposted or reused online.
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In our experience, the popular newspapers have set the bar for ignoring photographic authors. Whilst they are in decline, they damage they caused happened over decades. The attitude that 'the artist should be grateful for the exposure' was held but often attribution was missing. I think most photographers would be proud to see their work travel, but the universal experience is they are rarely credited. Hence the watermarking.