First, let me just say that no matter what steps you take in order to protect your photography online, if someone wants your image badly enough, they are going to find a way to get it. The goal of this post is to simply provide some methods that you may have not considered before.
Add a copyright tagline
Make sure that you add a copyright statement on each and every image that you post on your photoblog. Typically, I use the following format ©YYYY domainname I know exactly what you’re thinking – that can easily be removed, and you’re completely right. The point here is to have a online copy on your site with this copyright designation being clearly visible. Here’s a couple of tips regarding adding copyright information to your photography,
- Get creative, and make sure you add the copyright information in an important area of the image so it becomes more difficult to remove.
- make one visible and hide another (or a few) so that if someone does remove the copyright information it will be present in the image somewhere
Register your work with the copyright office
To be honest, I don’t do this as it can become quite time consuming and sometimes the costs can add up quickly. But if you want to be serious about copyright protection you should take the time to register your work. One thing to keep in mind is that just because you’ve registered your work doesn’t mean that you’re 100% protected, but it does give you another method of proving ownership of your work.
For more information regarding copyright, check out these links,
United Stated Copyright Office
Canadian Copyright Office
Encourage sharing of your work
Here me out: Your work is going to end up out there, so my theory is that if your foster relationships with other websites where your work appears (with the proper reference to the original author, and a copyright line) that this gives you some layer of protection as well. You’ll have some other folks on your side if (and when) there is a dispute regarding who owns the work. Just make sure that you trust these people and ask them to link the image back to your site. Maybe it will help drive some traffic!
Commercial Solutions
There are a number of commercial solutions available which allow you to embed copyright information into your images before publishing them on the Internet but this can become quite costly for a non-professional. The service that I am most familiar with is Digimarc. Although I have never used their service, it does look to be very complete.
Image Search
Finally, check out TinEye and search for your images online in unauthorized sources. TinEye is still in beta but I have a few invites so let me know if you’re interested in checking the service out.
If I’ve missed anything obvious, please let me know by commenting on this post.
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1 response so far ↓
Regarding “Encourage sharing of your work” … that’s where the Creative Commons licenses could come into play. I keep toying with these licenses, but haven’t totally committed to the idea, which is strange … I’m all for open source software, self-publishing, but opening up the doors to the Creative Commons licenses … I need more explanation. I keep hoping Common Craft would do a “Creative Commons in Plain English” video.