Look at me! I'm going to pull one over on the copyright people!

[pbmods]

This is not by any means a new topic for me. I deal with copyright images fairly regularly, and I imagine that as the holiday orders start to flood in, I'm gonna be up to my elbows in copyright SCs.

But something about this guy really struck me as amusing. There was this hint of satisfaction that I could hear in his voice as he announced that he'd just go down the street. Somehow I heard him saying (in my mind), "Ha HA. You can't stop ME! I'm going to defeat you by moving... a hundred yards down the street! They'll never catch on!"

It was actually rather amusing, if a trifle pathetic.

Of course, it wouldn't have been a problem, except the Saturday guy who initially tried to take the order hadn't been trained in copyright law, so I think that was what set off the SC in this guy.

[repsac]

In my videos, (those I do for contracts and some of my shorts) I imbed this rather neat little watermark. It's actually spliced between one or two frames in such a way that it looks like nothing more than an editing mistake or just a frame skip. The idea was, that people don't generally notice it, so if someone downloaded my material and reupped it without my permission I'd be able to track it down.

The best I've gotten back yet was some guy who threatend to Denial of Service attack my ISP if I didn't take back the letter and proof I had given his ISP that he'd stolen some copyrighted material and put on his site. I rather conveniently sent a copy of that letter to his ISP also and haven't heard a word.

What's sad, I mean really sad, is with my videos, if someone asks; nine times out of ten I'll let them use it for free. Even after I find them, if they appologize and make amends? I'll still let them use them.

All he had to do, was ask.

[Jester]

What's sad, I mean really sad, is with my videos, if someone asks; nine times out of ten I'll let them use it for free. Even after I find them, if they appologize and make amends? I'll still let them use them.

All he had to do, was ask.

That's funny that you say that.

It relates to this copywright lawsuit by Key West musician/legend Michael McCloud against country superstar Toby Keith over the rather striking similarities between McCloud's song "Tourist Town Bar" and Keith's hit song "I Love This Bar."

"McCloud says if Keith had asked him, he would have sold him the song for $500."

And that is true. Not only have I heard McCloud say this daily on stage at the Schooner Wharf Bar where he performs, but having talked to him on numerous occasions, I know that that is the kind of guy he is.

(For those who don't want to bother reading the article, very quick summary: McCloud's song has been around since at least 1988 (longer according to his comments onstage), and copywrighted since 1996, long before Keith wrote, produced, or released his song. Also, in a twist that many see as a bit too coincidental, Keith was in Key West a few years ago, recording at Jimmy Buffett's Shrimp Boat Sound Studio...which is right next to Schooner Wharf Bar. And yes, Keith was in Schooner Wharf Bar on several occasions. Talk to any employee that worked there at the time. Heck, I had a beer with him myself one time. Didn't even know who he was, though, till someone told me. See, I hate country music. Anyway, draw your own conclusions.)

[Reyneth]

There was a lady in yesterday with a CD from her child's wedding, wanting to use a photo for her Holiday cards. I asked her if she also had the copyright release - she said no, but the CD was part of the contract, blah blah blah.

When she puts the CD in her computer, all she can see is a slideshow. Our system would not/could not open her images. They were supposedly high quality images, yet only about 1/6th of the CD show anything burned (FTR when I did photos for family firends this summer, it took an entire DVD for the edited photos).

Apparently she was pissed.
Apparently she also had no idea what "copyright release" vs "CD of images" means and I'm sure couldn't be bothered to listen to the photographer when it was explained to her (or her child). She reportedly left swearing she'd never use that photographer again.
Good luck finding one that will sell you the copyright for anything less than a slightly astronomical amount. The price for showing up is just that - for all of the work put in the day of the wedding and for all of the post-production work. Photographers essentially make all their money on selling the actual photos, they aren't going to give that up cheap.

Customers will *never* learn that just because they have the actual photo, they don't have the rights to do with that photo as they wish.

[Quicksilver]

Customers will *never* learn that just because they have the actual photo, they don't have the rights to do with that photo as they wish.


Well, they don't have the right to do anything with the photo they they wish, that is a fact, but the truth is, if these people would ask around, I am sure they'd have a friend or family member or something that would have a scanner or a high quality photo printer. I am not condoning that behavior, I am just pointing that out. In any event, enough awareness has been brought to this issue that people shouldn't be mad when they are denied printing out a copy of something.

[Reyneth]

Oh, I know that it happens.
Do I care? A little. About > < much.
Do I care if they do it at my store and I/we get in trouble? You bet your airborne rodent's posterior I do!

[gijoecam]

snip.... Good luck finding one that will sell you the copyright for anything less than a slightly astronomical amount. The price for showing up is just that - for all of the work put in the day of the wedding and for all of the post-production work. Photographers essentially make all their money on selling the actual photos, they aren't going to give that up cheap.

That was one of the important things we looked for from a photographer. Yes, they cost us a bit more, but I wanted my wedding photos and all the rights to them, dammit! For as much as I'm paying for wedding photos, I want the ability to do whatever I see fit with them. Paying 4 grand for the privilige to look at a bunch of pictures of myself on a web site (for a limited time only??), and then I still need to BUY the images if I want an album??? I don't think so!!

We found a great studio... they do all the post shoot work, compile a video, then send it all to us on a DVD with a release letter. They're ours to keep, and they keep a backup copy as well, just in cease we ever lose ours.

-Joe

[SongsOfDragons]

I remember the days this kind of high-quality copying just didn't exist. When I was about nine months old mum had photos taken of me in 3 poses by a professional, and she had to buy a crapload of copies in different sizes so my family could have a piccy of sweet baby moi.

[Geek King]

When I was in college, I found some unusually (for the time) high quality scans of some anime art. Being a poor little computrer geek, I went to a local print shop to have them printed from a disk (3.5 floppy...I think I'm getting old) and blown up into mini posters for my dorm room. Of course, the clerk asked if it was copyright material. I knew it likely was, and said so, but asked for a waiver to sign stating I only wanted one copy, for personal use only. Lo and behold, he had just such a waiver handy. He got my money, and I went home with my poster, everyone's happy. Is this still an available alternative in the print industry? Admittedly, this was in a college town, and such things always seem to work a bit differently in such places.

<<goes rummaging for his Appleseed posters>>

[Enjis]

I recently got married, and our photographer and our videographer both work for the same company. They do not make copies beyond the one they give the customer...the wedding album and the wedding video.
They have told us we can make as many copies of all of it as we want to. They do not sell prints or DVDs...we have paid extra to have ALL rights to every image. We really like that feature. (they gave us ALL 965 images in a high quality DVD...we can make prints at Walgreen's, post them or whatever)

We can also make as many copies of the video as we like..and we have a friend who is going to make a nice case for them too.
These days, with digital photography, and copying technology, it is just not worth it for photographers to try to charge you for every print. Most people are gonna cheat, and can do so pretty easily. It is much more simple to just charge a bit more for all the rights, and save yourself the hassle of making prints for the customer.