Copyright for Photographers: How to Protect your Images
The photographic industry thrives on being able to share our creations with the world – both to promote ourselves and to generate an income. However, when it comes to posting your photographs online, you could get more than just good exposure. Intellectual property (IP) theft is a major problem for photographers, and it’s becoming an increasingly common issue.
When our intellectual property is put at risk, so is our livelihood. The single click of a button can destroy a lifetime of work.
So, what can you do to protect your images–your work–from internet no-gooders?
How to protect your online images
1.Place a copyright notice on your website
This will need to state that written permission must be obtained from you, the image owner, before being saved or redistributed.
Common courtesy dictates that site visitors are aware that anything on your site remains your property. Unfortunately, people tend to ignore this and will claim ignorance – so you need to reinforce it in case an issue arises. Simply placing a notice on each page, such as a Copyright © 2020 The School of Photography will drive home the point.
2. Use watermarks
Watermarks are easy to add in editing software like Photoshop and Lightroom. These marks create an-almost translucent logo that you can place strategically across your photographs. This makes it difficult for people to pass your images off as their own work.
The image should still be visible, the watermark is merely to deter people from reusing your image without permission. It also clearly identifies the photo as belonging to you, and can be hard to crop out.
To learn how to easily add watermarks to your photography for free, click here.
Copyright using signature
Copyright using company logo
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3. Add Copyright details to your Terms
At the bottom of most websites you will see a link to ‘Terms’. Make sure you have one on your website and add your copyright terms to it. For your convenience below is the copyright information we add in ours. Feel free to change and adapt this for your own use.
“Copyright © The School of Photography All rights reserved. No part of this site or our courses may be copied, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission from The School of Photography. You can not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of this site our services or courses, or access to the service or any contact on the website through which the service is provided, without express written permission by us.”
4. Upload low res images
Regardless of the platform, stick to uploading low res images with a low compression as they’re harder to resize and reuse. For most websites and platforms, a Jpeg image with 2000 pixels along its longest edge and a compression of 60-80% will be fine. Then, if a reputable source needs a high-resolution image, they’ll need to contact you directly.
Another perk of low-res images is faster webpage loading speeds 😊
To learn how to easily compress and resize your photography, click here.
Photoshop resizing
Lightroom export settings
5. Terms and conditions on other platforms cannot be ignored
Wherever you may be in the digital world, be sure to find out what protection various platforms and sites offer users. How are they protecting your content from theft, and who is liable if the worst should happen? This will differ from platform to platform, so be sure to read the Ts & Cs before committing.
It’s also important to read the fine print of the platforms you use to ensure your content remains your intellectual property and not that of the platform. Some sites automatically take ownership of images when you post them.
6. Turn off right-click functionality
A simple yet effective option, turning off right-click functionality on your website stops people from being able to download your images.
While this doesn't completely hinder potential copying, it adds extra frustration to the process. Often, a hindrance is enough to deter someone looking for a quick and easy copy job.
NB. This option may not be available on some website providers.
7. Update the image information
The exchangeable image file data (EXIF Data) of your digital photographs contains all the image specifics – from the camera used to the settings and the name of the owner.
You can edit this information to include your contact details, as well as a copyright notice. This information is then stored into the image file giving anyone who tries to use a clear understanding that the picture is copyrighted and who owns it.
To find the EXIF data on an image, right click on it and chose ‘Properties’ on a PC or ‘Get Info’ on a Mac.
This needs to be done properly and is easy to do if you know how. By far the best program to use to do this is Adobe Lightroom. To learn how to add copyright information in Lightroom, click here.
Exif data showing copyright for the photographer
8. Do something about it
When it comes to IP theft, the sooner you take action the better.
The first step would be to contact the person or site at fault and ask them to delete your content and remove it from any of their websites or social media profiles. Be sure to let them know that you can pursue legal action should they not comply.
If they ignore you or don't respond, you can contact their domain host to remove the content. To find out their domain host, go to any ‘whois’ look up service and type in their domain name.
The last resort would be to make use of a professional service to track down the individual and obtain the stolen content. A copyright certificate will come in handy at this point, as will any other measures you’ve taken to mark the image as yours.
Surviving in a Digital World
As much as a digital world makes it easy to promote your work and create an online portfolio, the risk of cybercrime is a threat we cannot afford to ignore. We need to protect ourselves as the digital way of communicating and doing business takes over. Yes, it comes with many benefits, but in the same breath, it also comes with some serious risks.
There's no way to prevent IP theft completely. But by going a step further and protecting ourselves and our content, we’ll be able to mitigate the risks somewhat. With the rise of new technologies, we should be able to access greater security precautions. It’s up to us to do our due diligence and ensure we're always one step ahead.
A quote by Clay Shirky explains this quite effectively: “It used to be expensive to make things public and cheap to make them private. Now it’s expensive to make things private and cheap to make them public,”.
It sounds somewhat dire, but the bottom line is that we need to be proactive. We must safeguard our livelihoods if we are to succeed. There’s no longer an option of letting it go when people steal your work. You need to put yourself and the needs of your business first, using the tools available.
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