Flickr + _Rebekka + Availability of High Resolution Images = Nightmare

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A huge storm has hit Flickr as of late and sadly most of it is a predictable story. The components of this story comprise of…

- a very open system with many protection options
- a talented but naive photographer
- availability of high resolution images for download (to be confirmed)

The surprises…

- Flickr making a bad situation worse by deleting the story of the effected artist
- A publisher duped by an intermediary

The story in short… a photographer discovers her Flickr hosted images being sold without permission by a business in another country.

The writing has been on the wall with prospective problems that could hit unsuspecting photographers on Flickr. In all honesty photographers shouldn’t have to be paranoid, but sadly to avoid such problems we have to. I’m a huge fan of _Rebekka and it pains me to see that she is dealing with this, but the reality is that a little knowledge will go a long way. Taking the necessary steps to protect ones work is critical. Protecting ones images can be done by restricting availability of high resolution images, clearly watermarking images and most importantly copyrighting your photography.

As the details emerge it would seem that high resolutions images had to be made available for this to get as far as it has. In addition Rebekka with limited resources I fear is suffering from mounting legal costs, something a little easier handled if her work were copyrighted. I’m not sure how the law works in Iceland or the EU, but I know how it works in the U.S. and if you are putting photographs online you most definitely should be filing copyrights with the Library of Congress. A copyright statement on your images alone does not cut it. Protection afforded to photographers copyrighting their work enables hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties per infraction and can address incurred legal costs.

What has proved to be surprising is that when _Rebekka found out about the abuse she told her story on Flickr… Flickr then removed her entry after hundreds of fans offered their support. See a screen capture of her entry.

Deleting Rebekka’s post was the worst move possible on Flickr’s part. Some might claim “censorship” as Thomas Hawk has, but in reality Flickr has shown their “corporate” irresponsibility” on the matter. I don’t buy the “censorship” argument. Flickr makes photographers agree to a “Terms of Use” in creating a user account. The idea of “Freedom of Speech” and “Censorship” get thrown out the window with the employment of a “Terms of Use”. Flickr is a business and Yahoo uses this document to protect their interests not the subscriber/photographer. What Flickr lacks are business of photography education resources and an attitude matching the fervor of their subscribers that would rally the wagons around a wronged photographer using their service. Instead of working to aid one of their most popular subscribers they shut her down. What kind of message does that send?

Most importantly what people are missing here is that Flickr needs to improve their service to offer every protection available to their subscribers. With out their passionate community they indeed would not be where they are. Flickr missed a golden opportunity to reinforce their position with their photographic community. They could have offered up a game plan for new protections or educational resources. Instead they shot themselves in the foot losing credibility by attacking their customer who already had a huge movement of sympathy behind her.

So what of OnlyDreemin.com, the company accused of selling her work with out permission? As it turns out they were duped themselves.

Jumping to Conclusions – rustylime.com

In most cases liability resides with the buyer when licensing work and using images with in the correct parameters or terms. This is not always the case though and licensing responsibility can be a confusing thing (see Dan Heller’s articles for great examples). This can impact buyers and photographers so do your homework and check out the following resources:
- Photography Business Topics by Dan Heller
- Photography, Trademarks and Copyrights by Dan Heller
- Model Release Primer by Dan Heller
- Editorial Photographers Copyright Resource page
- Copyright Office Basics – US Government

A little knowledge will go a long way.

Technorati Tags: Flickr, Rebekka, censorship, copyright, photograph, photographer, Onlydreemin, controversy

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Posted by Jim on 05.15.2007 at 10:57 pm
Tagged: Copyright, Flickr, Links & Articles, News & Current Events, Photography

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Nils

Here's a discussion on Flickr with a similar point. In short, a political magazine in Norway published a German user's copyrighted Flickr picture (as its cover!) depicting her sister. The photographer's right to copyright was infringed, as was the sister's right to her own image.

http://flickr.com/groups/copyright/discuss/7215...

In the end, they were compensated by the magazine, but it helped that the photographer was a freelancer and knew how to pursue her rights.

Richard

Mattias: Here is a link to the U.S. copyright office, a quick answer to your question is in the first paragraph of this PDF. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf

Mattias Wirf

"if you have no filed with the U.S. Copyright office"

Just a question about this, is that international protection? In that case maybe theres something similar in Iceland.
Here in Sweden pictures are protected without the need for you to do anything special.

Richard

Raoul, to sum it up quickly, you do own the copyright since you took the photo but it is a legal hassle to try and get damages from the courts if you have no filed with the U.S. Copyright office. I think it is the Library of Congress which handles that. With that said, if something does happen and you havne't already done this, you should apply for the copyright status immediately following the infringement.

jim

Raoul thanks for excellent the suggestion. I tend to wear this information close to the vest just because I've been doing it for a while and take it for granted. I'll be sure that in my next post I detail what I do to protect my work. Unfortunately works keeps me from doing it sooner. Stay tuned.

Raoul

Jim, can you perhaps blog about this additional copyrighting step you mention? I thought my content (photos, writings) were copyrighted simply because I created them, and I didn't think I'd have to apply for an additional copyright. Some clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

jim

Rebekka thanks for the clarification on whether or not the images were high resolution or not. The fact that they were not truly low resolution, but not high resolution shows the complexity of it all. The saying "where there is a will there is a way" seems to hold true in this case.

If and when you can could you clarify about the copyright status of your images? In the US work is considered copyrighted once the shutter is tripped, but full protection is not provided unless additional paperwork is filed with the U.S. government. Is there a similar process in Iceland? I'd be curious what you learned regarding the copyright process for your country out of all of this.

Keep me and your other blog readers posted about OnlyDreemin.com and the validity of their claims. I'm curious to see how that develops.

Keep on fighting and best of luck!

rebekka

Thanks for blogging about this. Just want to point out a few things.

regarding this line here: "As the details emerge it would seem that high resolutions images had to be made available for this to get as far as it has"

this was not the case. I was posting images at 72dpi, size 1200x800. My mistake was thinking that since they were low-rez, nobody in their right mind would think of trying to make large prints. However, software exists that enables people to blow up small jpg's to large tiff files. This is something i hadnt realized.

so while i did post them a little too big to be safe (tho at the time i thought they were small enough), they weren't posted at high resolution.

you also say: "something a little easier handled if her work were copyrighted"

my work IS copyrighted. There was never any question of that. the problem was the difficulty of pursuing a case in the UK from iceland, and me not being able to afford a good UK lawyer.

lastly, the post on Rusty lime, where only-dreemin's side of the story is told..

They used that excuse from the very start. I heard first back in february that a mysterious 3rd party sold them the images. The could, however, not produce ANY evidence to support that claim. And even if they WERE duped (which they weren't, and in a few days this will become clear, of this im certain) they would still be liable, selling and profitting from stolen work is not legal, and if they've already admitted to having done that, it stands to reason that they own up to that mistake and offer me compensation.

(i'm too exhausted to even get started on the issue of how flickr handled this.)