Watermark

[jann1033]

photo_chick,

You misunderstood what I mean. I am talking about people that are arrogant about their work, but have no right to be.

Kevin

ditto, it's the arrogance that frosts my potatoes

 

[photo_chick]

photo_chick,

You misunderstood what I mean. I am talking about people that are arrogant about their work, but have no right to be.

Kevin

My point was actually that photography is art, art is subjective. While there is a technicality and a craft to it, largely it is art. You can intentionally underexpose, overexpose, over process, cross process, etc. an image and that truly be the intent of the artist. But another person might not see that, they might just see that it is not technically a perfect shot and dismiss it as bad. JUst becasue one person sees it as bad, does not mean it is. It does not mean that the artist does not have the right to think that their piece of art is good. Who is to say who has the right to be arrogant and who does not? I did not miss the point I don't think. I was trying to get at the fact that it is all subjective.

 

[AndrewWG]

My point was actually that photography is art, art is subjective.

I was trying to get at the fact that it is all subjective.

I fully agree with this, but wouldn't have if I hadn't visited these boards. I used to say "Man that S**ks!" in some cases, but I have seen people say "I love this shot" or "What a great use of lighting" or "What a nicely composed picture" or things to that extent. This has led me to look at things differently. I would never personally express to the photographer my feelings if they were negative as it is his or her idea of what they like or do not like, not mine.

Personally, all my shots are masterpieces and noone should be able to see anything but a big honking watermark, but that is just my opinion!

just kidding

Andy

 

[photo_chick]

I fully agree with this, but wouldn't have if I hadn't visited these boards. I used to say "Man that S**ks!" in some cases, but I have seen people say "I love this shot" or "What a great use of lighting" or "What a nicely composed picture" or things to that extent. This has led me to look at things differently. I would never personally express to the photographer my feelings if they were negative as it is his or her idea of what they like or do not like, not mine.

Personally, all my shots are masterpieces and noone should be able to see anything but a big honking watermark, but that is just my opinion!

just kidding

Andy

Years of art classes and having my work graded taught me that I could love a piece that I worked very hard on, but an instructor can dislike it and fail me. Not that I ever had anything less than an A...

Bottom line is some people are protective of their work. Some are not. Some have ego's, some don't. It is all subjective.

 

[AndrewWG]

Yes it is. I tend to like to get low to my subject. I don't know why, but I find that being low to the ground makes a pretty cool looking photo. Of course I don't always do it but when I do, sometimes my DW likes it and sometimes she says it's junk, but I always like it, so beauty is in the eye of the photographer in most cases I suppose.

 

[Michele]

Just out of curiousity, what is about people using copies of your WDW photos for their personal use that some of you object to? If you aren't selling it (which you can't legally do anyway), what harm are they doing to you?

I understand that you have a perfectly good legal right to prevent them from doing so. I also believe that you stand on perfectly sound ethical ground. I'm not questioning anyone's right to control their intellectual property. I'm just curious about why it bothers you.

I'm not talking about cases where people represent your image as theirs, particularly on sites that you may visit. I'm not talking about people putting pictures of you or your family to some twisted use. I'm just talking about things like people printing off a copy of your castle fireworks shot to fill a hole in their scrapbook.

Noone has answered this question yet.

I am watching this thread with curiosity as I frequent the scrapbook forum and although I haven't yet used anyone else pictures for scrapbooking, I really appreciated Mark's offer of his pictures there recently. One of these days I may need to use one to fill in a shot that I missed.

 

[ukcatfan]

My point was actually that photography is art, art is subjective. While there is a technicality and a craft to it, largely it is art. You can intentionally underexpose, overexpose, over process, cross process, etc. an image and that truly be the intent of the artist. But another person might not see that, they might just see that it is not technically a perfect shot and dismiss it as bad. JUst becasue one person sees it as bad, does not mean it is. It does not mean that the artist does not have the right to think that their piece of art is good. Who is to say who has the right to be arrogant and who does not? I did not miss the point I don't think. I was trying to get at the fact that it is all subjective.

I agree that the exposure is totally up to the artist, but there are some things that are truly mistakes and make for a bad image. If it is completely blurry, then I am sorry, but that is a missed shot, not intended art. To be clear, I mean the entire thing, as sometimes blur is intentional. Another thing that gets me is bad framing. For example, a shot of the castle that has the entire castle framed, but just the very top of it is chopped off. That kind of thing just bothers me. Possibly it is intentional, but I do not like it.

Kevin

 

[MICKEY88]

any photos i wouldn't want being used i wouldn't put on a public site. (which is why my stuff online isn't open to the public and i don't put anything there unless i plan on posting it, not cause i think anyone is out to steal them but i am paranoid about some freak using photos of my granddaughter inappropriately.) but that does lead to another ? did anyone who took those watermarked filled photos that have strangers in them get permission to sell or post them from who ever they have in their photo? didn't they just take photos of those stranger's families and use them with out their permission ?permission is not needed to take the photo in a public place, a model release is ony required to sell the photos, again, watermark does not mean intent to sell, only intent to keep others from swiping the image...taking the photo in public is legal, taking someone elses phot from the web is not legal...
personally i feel an ethical dilemma ( sp?) anytime i take photos that have someone in them since they may not want their photo taken and used so usually i avoid it or ask if it's ok but you can't really do that with a crowd.( not talking legalities, just courtesy)

if you are directing the last paragraph at me, i don't see where i ever said that since i specifically said i thought Master mason's was fine so i think you are reading between some lines that don't exist if you are. if you aren't I'm being neurotic again but just for the record i never even noticed you putting watermarks so none of my comments were personally directed at you, just my random thoughts after reading the thread

my comments are not aimed at you, they are referring to those people on this board who try to tell people how they should handle their photos, one item which is sharing them with everyone...

 

[MarkBarbieri]

If someone posts a photo on this site and says nothing about how they expect it to be used, is it OK to print it and put it in your scrapbook? Obviously, it would be polite to ask, but is it necessary from a legal or ethical standpoint? Should the onus be on the poster to include use restrictions with their posting? Is their a presumption that the photo can be printed or a presumption that it cannot?

 

[MICKEY88]

photo_chick,

You misunderstood what I mean. I am talking about people that are arrogant about their work, but have no right to be.

Kevin

please define arrogant, I might have missed something but I've never seen anyone bragging that their work is superior,etc..

if using watermarks is interpreted as arrogance I disagree, watermarks simply imply the desire to maintain control or rights to a photo,

no different than adding a car alarm to my car, it doesn't mean I think my car is better than anyone elses, just that I value it and want to protect it..

 

[MICKEY88]

If someone posts a photo on this site and says nothing about how they expect it to be used, is it OK to print it and put it in your scrapbook? Obviously, it would be polite to ask, but is it necessary from a legal or ethical standpoint? Should the onus be on the poster to include use restrictions with their posting? Is their a presumption that the photo can be printed or a presumption that it cannot?

it would not be Ok to just use itlegally and ethically asking would be required, otherwise it quite bluntly is stealing..

the presumption would be that it could not be printed. copyright starts at the moment of shutter release.

 

[photo_chick]

That kind of thing just bothers me. Possibly it is intentional, but I do not like it.

Kevin

Again, back to my point that it is subjective. Just because you think it is bad does not make it bad. Take this shot.....

I posted this scan of a 35mm slide from school on another board where I participate in a critique group. Almost everyone commented on the bunny's ears, how they are cut off. How it was a mistake and I should reshoot it. The fact is I framed it exactly like this on purpose. This is the shot that I wanted. But it is not the normal framing everyone else might do. I respect their opinions. But I intended it to be this way. Again, it is all subjective.

This all goes back to the question of who is to say what image is "good enough" to be worth watermarking and whose is not?

 

[MICKEY88]

another thing that has been mentioned is proper exposure, that to a degree is also subjective I used to work in a photo lab, the manager and I never agreed on exposure when printing, I thought he printed to light, he thought I printed too dark...yet we both had customers who would ask for us to print their photos because they liked the way we printed best

 

[Master Mason]

To answer Marks question. If someone wants to use a picture of mine, all they need to do is ask. I will be happy to send them the full size version, without watermark. I do this for fun, at some point in time I might want to try and make a few bucks at it, which is why I am setting the watermark like I did. All what I am doing is to slow down the honest people. It would be very easy to remove, or crop it out if someone really wanted to, and at this time I really don't care to be honest. If I was selling them, then I would probably think differnently.

And I take a lot of my pictures at my kids games, if I did start trying to make something that is where I would be headed, and if folks are seeing my name on pictures they like already, then they won't mind paying a few bucks for a copy if/when I start on that path.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

it would not be Ok to just use itlegally and ethically asking would be required, otherwise it quite bluntly is stealing..

I'm not so sure that the law is quite that straightforward. You certainly own the copyright, but I'm not sure what impact the concept of fair use has in this situation. The law on fair use is horribly vague. The Copyright Act of 1976 gave four guidelines for assessing fair use:

(From the Wikipedia)

1) the purpose and character of the use (commercial or educational, transformative or reproductive);
The personal scrapbook use would clearly not be commercial

2) the nature of the copyrighted work (fictional or factual, the degree of creativity);
I suppose this would depend on the picture

3) the amount and substantiality of the portion of the original work used; and
I'm not really sure how this would apply

4) the effect of the use upon the market (or potential market) for the original work.
This is the most significant part of a fair use claim (from what I understand) and in this case it would favor the concept of fair use.

From what I could gather looking at sites on fair use, it would almost certainly be OK to use a non-commercial photograph in a non-commercail education presentation without permission. However, every school made it clear that a good faith effort should be made to secure permission and provide some attribution.

The concept gets even more confusing if we switch from a physical scrapbook to a virtual one. What if in stead of printing the photo the user simply embedded it in the page via a link? The effect is the almost the same. Does that affect the situation? What if instead of putting the photo in an <IMG> tag, they just used an <HREF> and required you to jump to it?

What if the person got permission from Werner Technologies (our gracious hosts)? When we post photos here, how much control over how they are used to do we give to Werner Technologies?

Personally, I like the idea of asking permission. Still, I think saying that someone that prints a photo from the web is stealing is quite excessive. I remember cutting pictures from magazines and glueing them into stories when I was a kid. I harbor no feelings of guilt.

 

[MICKEY88]

I'm not so sure that the law is quite that straightforward. You certainly own the copyright, but I'm not sure what impact the concept of fair use has in this situation. The law on fair use is horribly vague. The Copyright Act of 1976 gave four guidelines for assessing fair use:
the copyright act of 1976 has been altered greatly especially the coverage of photos.. are you referencing the section on photos or on printed literary works, the factual or fictional leadss me to belief it's written works not photos...
(From the Wikipedia)

1) the purpose and character of the use (commercial or educational, transformative or reproductive);
The personal scrapbook use would clearly not be commercial

2) the nature of the copyrighted work (fictional or factual, the degree of creativity);
I suppose this would depend on the picture

3) the amount and substantiality of the portion of the original work used; and
I'm not really sure how this would apply

4) the effect of the use upon the market (or potential market) for the original work.
This is the most significant part of a fair use claim (from what I understand) and in this case it would favor the concept of fair use.

From what I could gather looking at sites on fair use, it would almost certainly be OK to use a non-commercial photograph in a non-commercail education presentation without permission. However, every school made it clear that a good faith effort should be made to secure permission and provide some attribution.there is a big difference between an educational setting and a message board...

The concept gets even more confusing if we switch from a physical scrapbook to a virtual one. What if in stead of printing the photo the user simply embedded it in the page via a link? The effect is the almost the same. Does that affect the situation? What if instead of putting the photo in an <IMG> tag, they just used an <HREF> and required you to jump to it?
people have already been prosecuted for the use of copyrighted photos on the internet...

What if the person got permission from Werner Technologies (our gracious hosts)? When we post photos here, how much control over how they are used to do we give to Werner Technologies?that isn't really part of the discussion, if we give werner full usage rights, that doesn't give any usage rights to members of the boards...

Personally, I like the idea of asking permission. Still, I think saying that someone that prints a photo from the web is stealing is quite excessive. the law fairly defines stealing as the taking of someone elses property without their permission, so no matter how someone chooses to sugarcoat it, it is in fact stealing I remember cutting pictures from magazines and glueing them into stories when I was a kid. I harbor no feelings of guilt.

whether you harbor guilt or not, does not determine whether something was right or not...

 

[photo_chick]

Along these lines, my photos are not technically posted on this site. They are posted on photobucket, then linked to from this site.

I just talked with DH (former web guru, now game guru) and he said that works are protected the instant they are created, by the artist who created them first. Meaning it is not legal for anyone to use it without that artists express permission for any reason regardless of where it is posted or if it has a visible copyright mark. I asked him because he deals with a lot of online copyright related stuff in his work.

 

[MICKEY88]

taken from a website dealing with photography copyright....

By the way, putting photos on the Internet may make them publicly available but does not (in the legal sense) put them in the public domain.



Note that "fair use" is an "affirmative defense", where the infringer has the burden of proof to show that the use was indeed fair.

 

[MICKEY88]

http://www.photolaw.net/faq.html

 

[ukcatfan]

I personally feel that this has gone too far. Is anyone else with me? How about we agree to disagree and have that be an end to it.

For example, I was questioned about defining arrogance. I am not saying that anyone posts their picture saying how great they are, but some people give a general vibe of knowing everything but do not deliver on the goods. We are about to cross into the territory of pointing fingers to actual people and then we would be no better than some of the other photog boards. This is not a team sport and sometimes it shows its ugly face.

I will even point the finger at myself. I know a decent amount of the theory stuff, like having a general idea of what settings are likely the best for a situation, etc. Given that, I have not had one of my images make it to the final round of the weekly contest.

Kevin