I admit: I have been seduced by the dark side of the Force, and this post tries to seduce you as well.
Please do not read on if you still believe in “honestly” earning money from licencing your photographs, by working your way up on a typical photo career path.
However, please do read on if you are sick of companies and individuals using your work without proper compensation for you. Continue, if you are concerned about your future as a professional photographer, who is trying to earn a living from his hard work. Go ahead, if you think that your photography still has some commercial value.
I see you are still here. Good, good. Be prepared for a wild ride.
My previous blog post about TinEye opened my eyes: for anyone producing high-quality photographs the money is all there. All you have to do is to grab it. You do not even have to “sell” the images for Pennies through some micro-stock agency. Just make photos, and publish them. Huh? How can that be?
Step 1: Take stunning photos
This is essential. Your photos need to be jaw-dropping. A lame photo of your dog sitting in the grass of your backyard may probably not do the trick. But a stunning shot of Vancouver’s skyline may work. Or a breathtaking sunset at Grand Canyon. You have to be absolutely confident that your photo will appeal to the masses, to the end consumers, to the people. You are a photographer and know how to grab the attention of people. Now do it, and take those awesome photos that the people really want to see.
Step 2: Register the copyright for your photos through eCO
This is essential, and it has to be done prior to releasing your work into the wild, otherwise the little stunt I am describing here will not work for you. It’s easy: go to the U.S. Copyright Office and register your work using their Online Service. Cost is US$ 35 for a basic registration. One registration may cover several photographs if the collection is made up of unpublished works by the same photographer and owned by the same copyright claimant.
Step 3: Put a visible Copyright mark on your photos
Again, an essential step. Make sure to not skip this one, because our little stunt depends on it. Mark your work correctly. A good starting point is:
Copyright © {year} by {your name} – All rights reserved
And please replace {year} with the year of the registration, and {your name} with, er, your name. Then put this up on the image in one of the corners, readable and big enough to be noticed, but not obstructing the main visuals. This unmistakenly identifies this photo as your work and that you reserve all the publishing rights to it, no matter what. In other words: you are the owner; you alone determine how this image can be used.
Step 4: Publish the image on high-traffic photo sites
Now, your stunning photo, complete with copyright mark, needs to get out to the people, into the wild. Certain big photo sharing sites come to mind, and your own site might work too. But in the end, it’s more important to get the photo seen than the place where the photo will be seen. The more views, the merrier. Tag the photo with useful keywords, write a nice caption, and submit it to as many relevant discussion groups and photo forums as possible. Chances are high that you will attract the thieves as well. (Note: Always watch the TOS of the respective services to avoid giving away any rights to the uploaded content!)
Now all you have to do is – to wait. And then proceed to…
Step 5: Find illegal uses of your image
This used to be tricky. But with Google, TinEye, Attributor, PicScout, and other services, it has become surprisingly easy to find unauthorized uses of your images. Go find them, then find out the owners of the sites, and save the evidence (the infringing webpage).
Step 6: Get a good US-based IP lawyer working on a commission base
Easy. You registered your work through the U.S. Copyright Office prior to publishing, and thus you are eligble to sue for so-called statutory damages – which range from $750 to $150,000 per infringement. Ten images – ten infringements, total damages between $7,500 and $1,500,000. The beauty of it: it doesn’t matter what the “actual damage” is. You see, the lawmakers clearly intended to make a statement: if a work carries a coypright mark and has been properly registered, no one may use the image without the consent of the owner – except for the very tight provisions of fair use. The “actual damage” is not important for the amount claimed. It’s the fact that you registered the photo through the copyright office that is the problem for the infringers. At up to $150,000 per infringement this can be a huge problem for them.
If the case is as crystal clear as laid out above, the legal team will be happy to work on a percentage. This is the perfect incentive for them to go for the ultimate amount to be extracted from the infringers. Turn around the infringer, shake him, see what falls out, then grab it!
Step 7: Do not feel bad about it!
You may think that this is a nasty, bad, evil, cruel way to monetize your work. I thought so, too, for quite a while. But then I realized: it is not! Get this out of your mind! Look at it from a different angle. How about…
There is undoubtedly a strong demand for my stunning photos, and I am actually providing a valuable service to the society by allowing anyone to enjoy my photos. That’s wonderful and is a truly positive experience. But those who think that “everything has to be free on the web”, those who are not willing to licence my work but still use it for their own profit, those are not welcome. By suing them, I am just defending my legal right to determine how my work may be used (and thus my right for a proper compensation for my hard work). Since when is defending my legal right bad?
See, part of the problem happens in our minds. Get over it. We think that we act badly when defending or rights? How weird is that? Hey, we are talking about thieves here. How about this: When a corporation thinks they should save some $200 for a proper licence and rather steal an image, do I really mind whether they have to pay $150,000 in statutory damages? Mais non. Au contraîre, mon ami!
I think it’s time for a painful lesson for image thieves. The message is simple: Seek a proper licence for the photos you are going to use. Stealing images is not an option any longer.
And now, please go to step 1, and shoot, shoot, shoot! :-)
* * *
Here is some more background information:
1. The offical guide Copyright Office Basics
2. Brad Templeton’s 10 Big Myths about copyright explained
3. Carolyn E. Wright’s Registering Copyrights Using eCO
4. Wikipedia: Statutory damages for copyright infringement
5. Flickr’s Licensing Awareness Working (LAW) Group
Finally, if you have any questions concerning copyright and copyright infringement, please do not ask me! I am not a lawyer. Please consult your IP attorney. He (or she) will be able to help you. A good start may be Carolyn E. Wright who is specialized on photography.
That is actually a great idea in theory. I wonder though if there really is any money to be made off of the average infringer because you always read about the high-profile instances with corporations that have money but I would think those cases comprise the minority.
Richard – the whole point is that you go after commercial infringers. If the average kid hotlinks an image to their blog with 10 hits a day, I probably don’t care. It could be even considered “promotion”. However, if an adult in a marketing department knowingly grabs your image free of charge to drive profit, let’s go after him.
I understand that you are running your own fine-art print business, so you are selling your images as tangible goods, which depends on you having the high-resolution files. So I guess you have to give out files that can not be used to do fine-art prints. Then again, if you hand out images sized, say, 1500×1000 pixels, then many folks will have a hard time doing stunning prints from this, but the thieves might still be attracted to your work and tempted to use it without a proper licence. :-)
And frankly, I don’t mind making the majority of income with the minority of “clients”.
You cannot simply brush away your conscience because the law or another somebody else says something is right, even if you are wronged (in terms of legality or otherwise).
There are dividing lines between reparation, punishment, exaggerated lawyer fees and destruction of (financial/social) existence.
Would you want your own existence / financial situation to be ruined for something you would yourself (! — not me, I don’t judge you) consider a not-so-big fault, but which the law allows to be used to wring much much more out of you, or to make an example of you?
Do to others what you want to be done to.
After all, it’s as simple as that. And do that honestly, sincerely.
You will not have a clean conscience if you don’t behave according to that line.
Peer – when was the last time I stole something? Ages ago. Probably when I was a kid (unconsciously), and I got punished for this by my parents.
You see, when I drive to the petrol station and fill up my car, I do pay my bill. When I enter a restaurant and order a menu and a tasty glass of wine, I do pay my bill. When I stay at a hotel for a night on a business trip, I do pay my bill.
When someone grabs an image and consciously uses that image to drive profit, I do expect this person or company to pay the bill. What’s wrong with that? When they consciously remove the copyright information (a clear hint that it may be wrong using that specific image) and still decide to use that image, I do not have any problems seeing that misbehaviour corrected. Just because we are talking about “digital goods” and “distribution cost close to zero”, it does not mean that images are free.
Creative folks seem to be the losers in the digital revolution, because things can be stolen so easily these days (just have a look at Youtube or Scribd); I fail to see why that implies that they should work for free.
I am sick of this notion of “everything on the web is free”. That’s bull, really. A camera – costs money. A lens – costs money. A memory chip – costs money. Lightroom – costs money. The PC running Lightroom – costs money. The flight, the rental car, the hotel – all costs money. The time to shoot, to develop, and to publish an image – that’s where I start earning money. This helps to pay the mortgage. Why does anyone think I should work for free? Why? Why? Why?
Where did I say that these products should necessarily be free? I didn’t.
I just wanted to say, be careful not to destroy other people (financially or otherwise), or use other big means at them, if you would not want to be treated that way. Ask yourself that question! That’s a basic and fundamental requirement for having a clean conscience. Your inner, honest answer to that question, and your own behavior, will be the judge of yourself.
Please also note that I didn’t say don’t do it. It might be justified in certain situations. What you do is your responsibility and depends on the whole situation. But don’t forget that these people are human beings like you, like me, with families, with dreams, with ideals, maybe with little means in the global crisis, like everybody else.
Maybe some will accept a deal, or pull the content from the web, etc. (and see below).
Nobody is perfect, and a necessary correction, if overdone, becomes an injustice in itself. Two wrongs don’t make a right, remember?
I do understand that the I-copy-for-me-everything-for-free mentality (which is egoistic) creates losses for content producers who might deserve some compensation. And digicams everywhere are difficult for photographers, and internet is difficult for print media, etc. But who really want’s to go back to the non-digital age?
My vision in all this is that people should respect (indeed, love) each other and respect their own engagements.
So in my opinion, if somebody asks for compensation, you either pay (or negotiate), or you don’t use the product. That’s a question of respect and compensation where it’s due. And of course, people should not lie. Stripping a copyright notice from a picture and giving it away “for free” is a lie to me.
Every human is a creator, so everybody can produce one’s own content. And many people do consciously and willfully give away content (and also things) for free. You wrote about that already. So there should be no shortage of free content. (Even if it might be difficult to decide if it *really* was given freely — that’s one reason to be careful with punishments, because the culprit might be another person who stripped away the copyright notice, and your attacked person might have acted in good faith — how will you disprove that? Would you want to be attacked for having acted in good faith? The law, when a shortcut, can be totally unjust. In such a case, you could heap injustice on yourself. So there are several good reasons to be careful.)
Of course all that is not easy. But who said that life should always be easy? The path to the Light, e.g. to a better world, is narrow. And there also is a compensation for not letting yourself fall into wrongdoings yourself, especially when tempted. That’s totally priceless.
TinEye works very well. The problem is if you have to check hundreds of pics.
I love your simple plan… works for me! Your example of paying for your gas, food or hotel bill to an accommodating business is just that … business. If I, for example, drove off with my gas without paying the bill would I not fear being chased down by the police and prosecuted for theft anywhere in the world. Of course I would. If you could get away with it would you? I believe most people would but knowing the risk you takes and the consequences should be ample deterrent. Its not a crime until you get caught. Then you are S.O.L. Good article!!!