to those who copy copyright images..

[qwertyuiop]

As all the images I sell are to the magazines that the majority of equestrian people want to be it would be very handy for me to know your real name and then I'll know not to send one of you in! mind you would have to win something at an event I was at-just pm me than I can have a break when you are competing!

You will need my address too for sending the cheque for 50% of what you sell the picture for. If I could also have your home address too please as I thought I'd come and take some pictures of you, your family and your house and post them on the internet.

 

[photo_jo]

You will need my address too for sending the cheque for 50% of what you sell the picture for. If I could also have your home address too please as I thought I'd come and take some pictures of you, your family and your house and post them on the internet.

Google have beaten you to it and haven't paid me a penny!!

 

[MrFigjam]

You will need my address too for sending the cheque for 50% of what you sell the picture for. If I could also have your home address too please as I thought I'd come and take some pictures of you, your family and your house and post them on the internet.

..and as long as you did it from the street you'd be perfectly within your right as you would be IN A PUBLIC PLACE!!! Any place where the public are allowed right of way (even on private property) is counted as a public place. The subject has absolutely no rights to the photograph.

Only the photographer would ever be entitled to any money.

If you don't want your photo taken then 99% of photographers will oblige as no-one is that important or can make them any more money than the next person. They will do it out of courtesy, but they don't HAVE to.

There's a simple rule that's fair for everyone: if you think the photo is worth paying for then buy it, if not, leave it but don't steal it.
If you think that the pictures are worth less then email them and offer them less. They can only say no.

 

[SpottedCat]

4. The people who want a change in copyright law and say that that it is out of date are usually the ones that want the free images and can't be bothered paying for them.

My issue is not paying for the image. It's having to pay again/more to display it in a different way. Once I've bought the image, I'd quite like to be able to put the hard copy on my kitchen wall and a copy on FB for all the people I know abroad to be able to see. iTunes let me do this with albums (ie have multiple copies for different uses), because it's for personal use. If I got everyone I know to walk through my kitchen, the photographer would not get any more money, so why on earth is it any different when I want to post it on a site? If I put it in my lorry and get everyone at every event I go to to walk through the lorry and see it, photographer gets no more cash, so why on earth do they need to charge me more for a copy I can put on the web? I understand adverts are different, but this is sharing a photo with friends, and TBH photographers who charge more like this are to my mind outdated. I know the answer is to vote with my wallet and not buy the pics, so that's what I do....instead of buying anything, I put a link to the photographer's site up instead - perfectly legal, and cheaper for me!

 

[Kat]

Spotted Cat, approach the photographers and ask them permission to display the image on your facebook profile and see what they say. If they want to charge substantially more to supply a jpeg when you have already bought a photograph tell them that you aren't prepared to do this, they will soon get the message. You could even refer them to photographers like spidge and mrfigjam who offer terms that allow this kind of thing. You may find that they are also reasonable but haven't thought to put anything on their website yet. If not, you'll probably find they aren't moving with the times and won't last long.

I don't think it is unreasonable to make a charge of £1 or £2 extra to cover the time and effort but if you have bought a print already the photographer has made his money once and providing a cheap/free jpeg is good customer service. Obviously if you hadn't already bought a print the photographer may need to charge a little more.

The photographers that have commented on the various threads on HHO have some pretty innovative and user friendly pricing structures, there is no reason to think others won't follow suit if the demand is there.

 

[SpottedCat]

I did that with one of the big, well known photographers in my area. Having spent £15 on the print, I was told I'd have to spend another £10 to have it on CD and another £12 to have the copyright removed. No wonder people scan things in!

When I spent £90 on a CD of photos of two horses, even having them on the same disc to make life easy for the photographer, they then wanted to charge me £12 per image to use them in an advert. I said that was ridiculous as I wanted to use 4 or 5 hence buying the CD, and I'd spent nearly £100 already, and they still charged me another £12 to lift the copyright to use them in an advert.

That's just unjustifiable pricing in my eyes I'm afraid - especially when you have no idea whether or not the horse will even sell in this day and age!!

TBH I can completely understand why people who've bought a print just scan it in when faced with that kind of pricing. Or just buy a jpg image and use it regardless!

 

[Roasted Chestnuts]

I dont understand why photogrpahers are not more like Mr FJ. As he said we have alsready bought the image, paid cash for it so why cant we use it to show others??? Its been paid for its not stolen and had the water mark removed, photographer has had their money so whats the harm in it???

As I said I have yet to have a photogrpaher who i bought an image from chase me for more money after I posted it on a forum

 

[IsabelleJ]

I just thought I'd chime in with a couple of experiences from the last month.

The first was some photos taken of a TREC ride. My friend was riding my horse, and told me that there were some great photos up of them. I went to the site, saw the lovely photos, and wanted to buy every single one. The photographer was charging £5 for a full size digital image and £1.50 for a lower resolution Facebook sized image. She also charged £5 for a 10cm by 15cm image. I wanted to buy copies of the photo for myself and my friend - when I got in touch she told me that it was fine for me to buy one digital copy and send it to my friend also. So I bought 3 full sized digital images, one Facebook sized one (just showing myself, my friend and my horse from behind) and two prints, one for my friend and one for me. I am also going to get 2 13cm x 18cm prints of another photo, at £6.50 and would like to have the photographer out to do a private photo shoot! So a total of £29.50 for 4 photos - if there had been more I would have bought them all!

Second occasion was when my friend rode my boy in his first BD for 5 years. I have never had a pro photo of him dressaging, so couldn't wait to see the photos. Added to this he won the class and went the best that I have ever seen him go! This photographer has 18 shots of us. He charges £6 for Facebook sized images, £10 for slightly larger digital images, and £5 for small prints. I am going to buy 3 slightly larger images and one print, for a total of £35. But, my initial reaction, was that I wanted to buy all of them! If he had offered the entire set in a decent sized digital image I would have paid £70 or £80 for them. But at £10 each (not even for a full size digital image) I had to limit myself to 3 photos.

In the first case I have the photographers consent to have the images on Facebook etc (and have credited her as the photographer as I think they are gorgeous and she deserves more work!) In the second case I will ask for permission, and am pretty sure I will get it - I will also credit the photographer. But the second photographer could have made a lot more out of me I think everyone has to find their ideal price point, but I would happily pay for an entire collection of photos.

Isabelle

 

[daisycrazy]

Haven't read the whole thread, but I was thinking about how you could stop images being copied. Even those websites where you can't select the photo or click on it could still be copied with a screen print. Whilst it would be a little annoying for the viewer, would the following work: have an outline or frame showing where the photo is but no photo visible until the viewer moves the mouse on to the central section of the photo (perhaps shown as a smaller box or circle within the frame) - the mouse icon could also change shape/be made bigger as the viewer did so. This would enable the viewer to see the photo but would mean (assuming other controls also applied to prevent copying) that a screen print would be marred by the mouse icon. Whilst this could be removed, presumably, with a photoshop job, it would spoil the quality of the photo and put most people off. If the viewing trigger (where the mouse must hover to show the photo) could be moved by the photographer so it was over a crucial part of the photo (e.g. horse's head), then this would work even better. You could have two trigger points, each of them over a crucial part of the photo, such that the viewer could get a proper look at the whole photo before deciding whether to buy, but would still be unable to take a half decent copy.

Has this already been thought of/tried/discarded?

I tend to agree with comments about pricing - there should be much better bulk buy discounts if you are buying more than one or two photos.

 

[Kat]

Although I don't use it myself I'm pretty sure that could be pretty easily sorted in photoshop. My DH (for entirely legit reasons) often joins two or more sections of a detailed image together in photoshop. You can also overlay two different versions of the same image, so I think a screen capture of the image with the mouse in different places would enable someone who can use photoshop to get a pretty decent copy......

 

[Santa_Claus]

daisy in order to do that you still essentially need a large version of the image on the server which can be accessed by looking at the page source coding and then in turn the file directly once the address is established and then right click save. It was one of many options considered when we attempted to find a way to block people a few months back

 

[qwertyuiop]

..and as long as you did it from the street you'd be perfectly within your right as you would be IN A PUBLIC PLACE!!! Any place where the public are allowed right of way (even on private property) is counted as a public place. The subject has absolutely no rights to the photograph.

Only the photographer would ever be entitled to any money.

If you don't want your photo taken then 99% of photographers will oblige as no-one is that important or can make them any more money than the next person. They will do it out of courtesy, but they don't HAVE to.

There's a simple rule that's fair for everyone: if you think the photo is worth paying for then buy it, if not, leave it but don't steal it.
If you think that the pictures are worth less then email them and offer them less. They can only say no.

I can see you are missing my point here, so I will explain it again...

Under current copyright law yes, you are right. I was saying that this may be the law, but it is wrong. The photographer should have some rights to the image, but so should the subject. Why should you be able to sell my image to some third party?

What has not been tested in court yes is whether the rights of the subject over-rule those of the photographer under the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the right to privacy. At some point a celebrity will challenge the copyright under this and then the field will be wide open as European law trumps national laws. Not only will photographers find that they don't own the whole copyright, but they will be in trouble with the authorities for even taking a person's picture without their express written consent in advance. I expect that in future event entry forms will have an opt in/out box on them and woe-betide the photographer who gets it wrong...

If you think the current laws are so wonderful by the way, send me your name and address and I will follow you for a few weeks (all on public land of course) for a few weeks, take pictures continuously and publish the photos. That is what your paparazzi brethren do and they hide behind the same public land and copyright laws!

For anyone who thinks I am talking b******s, I have predicted on several threads, for some years the banning of unapproved headwear by national bodies for dressage due to liability claims. Guess what? H&H had an article last week that the USEF had done just that. Mmm maybe I can see a little further ahead (in legal terms) than most of the people on here...

 

[MrFigjam]

I can see you are missing my point here, so I will explain it again...

Under current copyright law yes, you are right. I was saying that this may be the law, but it is wrong. The photographer should have some rights to the image, but so should the subject. Why should you be able to sell my image to some third party?

What has not been tested in court yes is whether the rights of the subject over-rule those of the photographer under the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the right to privacy. At some point a celebrity will challenge the copyright under this and then the field will be wide open as European law trumps national laws. Not only will photographers find that they don't own the whole copyright, but they will be in trouble with the authorities for even taking a person's picture without their express written consent in advance. I expect that in future event entry forms will have an opt in/out box on them and woe-betide the photographer who gets it wrong...

If you think the current laws are so wonderful by the way, send me your name and address and I will follow you for a few weeks (all on public land of course) for a few weeks, take pictures continuously and publish the photos. That is what your paparazzi brethren do and they hide behind the same public land and copyright laws!

For anyone who thinks I am talking b******s, I have predicted on several threads, for some years the banning of unapproved headwear by national bodies for dressage due to liability claims. Guess what? H&H had an article last week that the USEF had done just that. Mmm maybe I can see a little further ahead (in legal terms) than most of the people on here...

I'm not saying the laws are wonderful. I'm just saying they are the law!

It has been tested in court and almost on a daily basis by celebrities who try to get a hold of photos taken of them and try to stop things being published. They all fail.

There are no human rights being broken here. They are not effecting your life in any way and are simply capturing a slice of life.

Although 1 point I will make is if you don't want to have your photo taken then you can ask the photographer to stop as it is causing you distress. If they then procede to take photos on more than one occasion after that then it can be taken as harassment, although this again is the law, it's a pretty thin case to be honest.

Having a CD of music does not entitle you to copy it and give it out to everyone, so why is photo any different? I personally like to give people what they want and value their custom and want them to come back to me. There are many money-grabbers out there though and I can see some of the points.

p.s. If you are serious about following me around I'll give you my address and then you can follow me everywhere. It'll be fun for me, you'll soon get bored, and your horse will be at home wondering where their dinner is. (poor pony)
It won't bother me in the slightest as I also do press photography and know what it's like.

 

[Noodlejaffa]

qwertyuiop - if you think that you are paparazzi material then I'm most impressed! Indeed, I am most impressed that you think that the equestrian world is worthy of such attention from the photographic world!

I'm afraid that just because you think that you have every right to an image because you're in it does not make it some amazingly profit-making image. Perhaps you should do some research into how much a photographer actually makes if their image is published. And, as has been said before in the post by professional photographers, only those people who are actually winning decent classes are getting their images published in magazines. And for hardly profitable amounts! I, for one, am always delighted to see a pic of me and one of my horses in a national and would not kick up a fuss about someone gaining some (meagre) profit from doing so. It is publicity, after all.

If you're that bothered about having your pic taken at a competition because you think photographers are making an amazing amount of money invading your privacy either approach the photographer in question and ask them to exclude you from shots they're taking when you're competing, or ask, post-event, for the photographer to delete/remove images of you. Or if you're that bothered, perhaps competing isn't for you?

Photographic/copyright laws don't just cover the great and good of the equestrian world, but cover images across the board. It's about time people actually thought out of the box and considered the fact that there is a big, bad world out there and the equestrian side of it is but a mere (somewhat insignificant) blip in the ocean.

 

[qwertyuiop]

Irrelevant. Laws are not made or changed on the basis of whether someone can make a living, or the size of the equestrian industry. Laws are made on points of principle in 1 area and then applied to other related areas until challenged. Paparazzi photographers' behaviour will drive a decision in the courts and that decision will be then applied to all other areas of photography.

Did I ever say I did (or did not) compete? I don't think I did.

 

[qwertyuiop]

I'm not saying the laws are wonderful. I'm just saying they are the law!

It has been tested in court and almost on a daily basis by celebrities who try to get a hold of photos taken of them and try to stop things being published. They all fail.

There are no human rights being broken here. They are not effecting your life in any way and are simply capturing a slice of life.

Although 1 point I will make is if you don't want to have your photo taken then you can ask the photographer to stop as it is causing you distress. If they then procede to take photos on more than one occasion after that then it can be taken as harassment, although this again is the law, it's a pretty thin case to be honest.

Having a CD of music does not entitle you to copy it and give it out to everyone, so why is photo any different? I personally like to give people what they want and value their custom and want them to come back to me. There are many money-grabbers out there though and I can see some of the points.

p.s. If you are serious about following me around I'll give you my address and then you can follow me everywhere. It'll be fun for me, you'll soon get bored, and your horse will be at home wondering where their dinner is. (poor pony)
It won't bother me in the slightest as I also do press photography and know what it's like.

Music is clearly different as it is composed and performed by people. Photography of an "unowned" object (e.g. a cloud) equates to music. Photography of an "owned" subject does not as the owner should own the rights to their own image. In a sense, you are "stealing" their image by photographing it, much the same as copying music.

 

[Bella3puff]

This may of already been mentioned so sorry if it has.

My OH does PT photography and I asked him the other day about this thread and of things mentioned on facebook and he said there is solicitors out there offering no win no fee type terms to photographer to fight copyright stuff and there racking in the money.

So maybe there is some truth in it?

 

[Kat]

The courts have already considered the issue of paparazzi photos and the right to privacy. I believe Princess Diana challenged some photos taken of her. Generally the courts support the view that photos taken in public are fine, the ones they have a problem with normally involve circumstances here the subject could not easily be seen. In the Diana case the pictures which weren't allowed were taken with a long lens through a skylight, photos taken normally from the pavement were fine.

 

[applecart14]

7. I can't be bothered with this whole argument on stealing images any more and there's no way you are going to stop the tight people from stealing images so if people ask me nicely I generally give away a small image (about 400pix) with "courtesy of......." at the bottom on the condition they don't cut it off.

If you can't beat them....join them!

I have even spent £10-£15 on an event photo and asked the photographer if I can have the little tiny 2" x 2" square photo on display on the board in the tent (to put in my own key ring holder) and they have refused!! That's what annoyed me the most about photographers. That and the ridiculous prices they charge.

At least you have the decency to give people a little snippet of their day for nothing, very rare in this day and age.

 

[MrFigjam]

you are "stealing" their image by photographing it,

That's hilarious!

Music is not as different as you think, it is still a product produced by someone.
When people compose a photograph they are seeing their version of events and therefore their view and interpretation of what's in front of them. Granted, some people do this a lot better than others, but in essence it is THEIR view and they are the owner of that view and picture.
The "owner" of an item owns only that.... the item. They do not own people's thoughts or viewpoint on this item or the way that people see it, Otherwise theoretically you could charge people for looking at you! :s

Here's an equally ridiculous argument if you want to go down that route:
If you "own" yourself (trying to get my head around this) and under your argument theoretically you own the image because you are in it, then everyone who has ever taken a photo of you has the right to charge you for keeping your property on their server almost like rent or pay-and-display parking.

We could go on forever on this argument so I'll let you have your say and then I think I'll leave it there and agree to disagree.

@applecart14 - There's some people out there who are out to make money on everything they can. In every business there are people like that.

Can I ask you one thing though... If you had the choice of going to that photographer for a picture or going to someone else who had a similar picture, would you give them your custom again?
There are a lot of the "Old guard" who are determined not to move with the times. If they don't start embracing the changes to the market then they are going to start losing business.

 

[George Michie]

the other extension to that argument MrF is that when someone enters a show, they should obviously get 50% of the entry fee back as if it wasn't for them there would be no show.

Here's something else I'm thinking of doing though and would appreciate some feedback from riders. Let's say I took a shot of you this year and you bought an A4 print. That would entitle you to all shots I had of you from last year, high res, no watermark, for a nominal fee of anything between £30 and £50. Bear in mind that that might include 5 or 6 local shows with 10-20 images per show. At the same time if you only attended one show there might only be a handful of images.

Just a thought at this stage but any views?

 

[Batgirl]

I really like the idea, it can give a good picture of a dressage test when a photographer is snapping away and I would buy it.

 

[applecart14]

the other extension to that argument MrF is that when someone enters a show, they should obviously get 50% of the entry fee back as if it wasn't for them there would be no show.

Here's something else I'm thinking of doing though and would appreciate some feedback from riders. Let's say I took a shot of you this year and you bought an A4 print. That would entitle you to all shots I had of you from last year, high res, no watermark, for a nominal fee of anything between £30 and £50. Bear in mind that that might include 5 or 6 local shows with 10-20 images per show. At the same time if you only attended one show there might only be a handful of images.

Just a thought at this stage but any views?

Yes that would seem fair to me if I had a spare £50 to hand. That's what I call value for money.