Apogee Photo Magazine

ImageSnatchers.Com

Internet Thievery

Will It Extend To Stock Photos?

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ADVANCE NOTES: The big debate of the hour is about “image snatching” on the Internet. Is it real? Or just an unfounded fear that isn’t worth the worry? This article opens up the debate, examines the threat and invites your comments.

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The Year is 2005. You have received a confidential report. Three dozen of your images have been snatched by an infamous cyber-outlaw who penetrates firewalls, de-codes passwords and hurdles even the toughest of encryption. The report says that your photos were stolen at midnight and sold before dawn through the DarkNet at Shanghai.com, which has distributed them to discount buyers worldwide. You are devastated and can do nothing about it.

Well, this makes for a good Hollywood scenario, but don’t waste energy worrying that it might happen.

Sure, somewhere, sometime, someone will steal a photo from you. But the alternative to copyright protection techniques can be awkward, negative, and turn off potential buyers.

“STOLEN PHOTOS...” That expression conjures up copyright infringement and neglect of a photographer’s rights.

Periodically, I get phone calls and @letters from photographers who are dismayed that I suggest that Web sites such as AltaVista, Ditto.com and others, should be allowed to display-for-view images that they find on the World Wide Web.

A PROMOTIONAL ADVANTAGE

On first examination, this thought seems almost sacrilegious to stock photographers. When I point out there is a promotional advantage to having your photos displayed (with your credit line) to Internet viewers (i.e. the public-- which includes potential photobuyers), not too many photographers are convinced.

From my minority position, which is squarely between photo editors who are looking for photos, and photographers who are looking to sell their photos, I don't see this situation as a disadvantage for stock photographers.

In fact, if the practice of displaying photos in this manner were stopped, I would view it as an affront to both your pocketbook and your First Amendment rights. Without the free flow of information, we all lose. (Photos are information.)

Here’s an example: if you receive our Email newsletter, PhotoAIM, or view our Web site you know that we include a very popular section called, “Photography In The News." Very often we show pictures taken by top photojournalists from Time, Newsweek, and other major and minor news organizations, magazines and newspapers, under titles such as “How The Pros Photograph An Iowa Caucus,” – or “How to Photograph a Seattle Demonstration," or, “Views of the Lunar Eclipse –In Case You Missed It.”

If I were to carry this “image thievery” theme to its ultimate conclusion, you would not be allowed to view those photos.

Even though I am not selling these images, just pointing to where they can be viewed, the infringement police might take me to task. So I'd stop linking to this kind of photo display. I would not want to risk displaying a photo for you that was breaking a proposed new Copyright\Internet "forbidden to show" law. Besides, it would not be worth it to find the author and seek permission to display it.

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“Worry is as useless as a handle on a snowball...”

--Mitzi Chandler

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We have all heard of cases of "innocent infringers," from church or community groups to local clubs, who have become "image snatchers" and lifted photos to use for their Web sites. More serious cases have now and then come up-- usually in the adult sites area Playboy magazine, etc. No doubt the publicity these cases receive will serve to accelerate the copyright message we all need to get out to the public.

But should we hesitate to display our photos on the Web for fear of thievery?

Therein lies the dilemma. In the age of the Internet, is it smart business to hold back your photos (and credit line) from the viewing public?

It really is an “either/or” situation.

Which do you elect: free flow of information, or placing handcuffs on potential picture buyers by hiding images, not allowing them to be seen in public unless there is a guarantee of payment?

I have a neighbor who builds bird houses. To advertise he displays three of them on a tall pole near his rural mailbox. "It's the only advertising I do," says Russ.

"But don't you lose any to thieves?" I asked.

"I've lost two," he said, "in the last five years. But I could've lost a lot of sales if I didn't display my bird houses."

Internet thievery also extends to college term papers. Students can cheat by pointing and clicking their way through technical journals, corporate white papers, and work that students throughout the world have posted on the Web, seamlessly cutting and pasting what they need into a term paper, if not copying an entire piece.

As Web thievery grows, so do methods of preventing it. In the case of term paper plagiarism, college professors now use a Web site: http://plagiarism.org, that has the ability to run term papers and excerpts through a process that scans millions of Internet papers to test for plagiarism.

The music world has long had the problem of copyright to deal with. Most of us will accept that the glory days of copyright protection are long gone in the music world. However, some major music companies still insist that they can prevent copyright thievery by, yes, making it harder for the customer to play the tunes. A case in point is The Music Clip (Sony) where you have to stand on your head to download the (OpenMG) software instead of the standard software format, MP3. It becomes a nuisance to the customer. Enough to discourage sales.

In the case of photo display, stock photographers find themselves in a dilemma. If they display with “safeguards” they can lose, not by unchecked theft but by the hurdles and road bumps that customers have to go past (encryption, watermarks, stealth software, unfriendly warnings, etc). If photographers don't display, they can lose by restricting their exposure and availability to potential buyers.

It’s your choice, -put the customer first, or the copyright protection first. Stronger federal copyright laws to protect image makers could solve the problem. The current copyright laws give little protection to stock photographers.

If this predicament does spark a new interpretation of the Copyright Law and what is defined as “Fair Use,” photographers should insist that the new law includes a requirement that credit lines accompany all displayed photos, along with contact information.

CAN PASSING LAWS BE THE ANSWER?

What will cybertheft be like in the year 2010? Tom Clancy, novelist, presents a world where computers are the super powers, spawning sinister cyberthieves who are the targets of FBI agents charged with enforcing "Net Laws" that Congress has created. Clancy's new novel, “Net Force” (http://www.photosourcefolio.com/bookstore.htm#0425161722), is fiction, but reminds us of the monumental impact hackers and thieves could have if we do not update our fraud statutes to protect consumers.

Arizona's Attorney General, Janet Napolitano, has proposed a comprehensive answer in her Computer Crime Act of 2000. It will attack business-related cybercrime on several fronts.

All this has to work within a sensitive framework. Most laws, in a free enterprise society, attempt to protect individual rights. Without a balance between information protection and information dissemination-- we can do a disservice to our own personal rights.

We will keep you posted. –RE

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, Osceola, WI 54020 USA Email: info@photosource.com. Fax: 1 715 248-7394. Web site: www.photosource.com

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Email: info@photosource.com. Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: www.photosource.com