Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

The 31st episode, a special edition, of EXIF and Beyond has been released (duration 13:41 min.)

This special edition of EXIF and Beyond features an interview with Lucinda Dugger, Director of Outreach and Field Initiatives for the Copyright Alliance. Discussed is the on going initiative for creatives of all type to sign a letter to the President of the United States to pursue policies that respect the rights of artists.

This letter and all gathered signatures will be delivered to the White House on November 16, 2009.

In addition to sharing information about the Letter to the President initiative Lucinda discusses general information about the Copyright Alliance and other priority projects being pursued.

Links of Note:

• Copyright Alliance web site
• Sign the Letter to the President
• Copyright Alliance Facebook page

Listen To The Podcast

EXIF and Beyond: Lucinda Dugger of the Copyright Alliance

If you enjoyed this episode please be sure to rate and comment on the EXIF and Beyond podcast on iTunes.

Technorati Tags: photography, podcast, copyright, Lucinda Dugger, Copyright Alliance, Letter to the President, EXIF and Beyond, special edition

A few weeks back I was hunting for music that I could use on a web based video and had a challenging time. As a photographer who cares about rights to my work being respected, I felt it was important to share that same respect to musicians whose work I wanted to use. Searching and gaining permission to use music for my photo video proved to be a huge challenge and got me to respect the Creative Commons initiative all the more.

While getting permission to use All Rights Reserved creative content is as simple as asking permission it can be frustrating. I’m normally a very patient person, but when I had my video ready to go and I found the music I wanted to use it seemed like an eternity to hear back from the artist. Eventually the artist wrote me back 48 hours later and gave me permission to use any of his work in the future regardless of current licensing designation. I was lucky and found a very cool artist to collaborate with.

Ultimately I burned a lot of time searching for music. It would seem that there is a huge opening for a site to be created matching artists who want to share their work in conjunction with other artists for promotional and non/pseudo-commercial purposes. To me having a directory that matches musicians and photographers to use each others work for mutual promotion seems like a win-win proposition. Until my dream of such a directory becomes a reality below are 5 copyleft resources to search for music and 5 royalty-free stock music resources.

An important note:
Music designated as “No Derivative Works license” cannot be used for photo videos as explained on this Creative Commons page Legal Music for Videos.
So even if you find music you like with this CC license you’ll still need to retain approval from the artist, so build in approval time as you plan your videos release.

“Under CC licenses, synching the music to images amounts to transforming the music, so you can’t legally use a song under a CC No Derivative Works license in your video.“

5 Copyleft Resources For Music

1. CC Mixter
2. Internet Archive
3. Jamendo
4. Proud Music
5. Film Music by Moby
   “‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
   If you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.”

5 Stock Music Resources (Pay to License)

1. StockMusic.net
2. Shockwave-Sound.com
3. Triple Scoop Music
4. MediaMusicNow.co.uk
5. MagnaTune.com

Technorati Tags: stock music, copyleft music, copyleft, royalty-free,   royalty free, music, photo video, photography

The answer…
Submit a DVD full of your photos to the Library of Congress through the U.S. Postal Service.

Today I received a letter from the United States Copyright Office that a relatively recent copyright filing could not be processed because the U.S. Postal Service irradiated my U.S. Priority Mail envelope containing a letter and DVD to the point of oblivion. 

I understand the need be security conscious after the 2001 Anthrax scare, but to irradiate mail to the point that a CD or DVD will not work!? That’s a first I’ve heard of that happening. I’ve mailed dozens of CD’s and DVD’s full of photographs in past Copyright filings with the Library of Congress since 2001, but this is the first time I’ve had a submission experience problems because of being irradiated by the USPS. Something just seems off with this. See my souvenir letter below.

Perhaps this is part of the campaign to get people to use the online submission process versus mailing in paper based filings. Apparently the increase in fees wasn’t enough of a deterrent. 

I’m really trying not to bring politics into this, but didn’t the accused Anthrax suspect die in August of 2008? Is it really necessary to keep this going to the point that the government can’t do business?  Does this mean that President Obama isn’t a Netflix subscriber?

On a serious note in case something unexpected were to happen I do burn duplicate copies of my Copyright submissions. Resubmitting the damaged DVD won’t be a problem because of this practice. I just never expected I’d have to resubmit a DVD because of being irradiated to death. What happened to the good old days when packages just vanished and resurfaced 40 years later?

Technorati Tags: Library of Congress, Copyright, Irradiate, Irradiation, 9/11, National Security, Anthrax

Adobe Lightroom has been a critically important application to my photographic workflow, but from early on watermarking functionality has been limited. The standard copyright text line provided by Adobe Lightroom is enough, but lacks the ability to be customized giving photographers using it some level of individuality. As noted in my earlier blog articles on watermarking watermarks are not only functional to avert image theft, but a key component of branding.

Enter LR2/Mogrify, a Lightrooom plug-in created by Timothy Armes, that adeptly fills the void. Mogrify provides functionality to apply borders, text and graphical watermarks. Mogrify also harnesses the power of Lightroom to batch process photographs. The combination of these functions makes for an incredibly valuable photographic solution.

Since the end of 2008 I have been a diehard LR2/Mogrify user. The cost for Mogrify is what you are willing to pay. It is donation based and receiving the activation key opens up all functionality with in the plug-in (otherwise you’re limited to watermarking 10 images per export).

How I Use Mogrify
Once I finalize my highest rated images per photoshoot (post-process, add metadata, etc.) I select one or all and right click to Export my photos for web display. In Lightroom I use the Mogrify plugin to Read more…

Last week I put a good amount of miles behind me driving a Hybrid Toyota Camry across the Mid & Northwest which for all intents and purposes could have also doubled as an oasis of silence, shielding me from the constant flow of information that we are all bombarded with on a constant basis through various media outlets. There is a lot to be said for tuning out, but I opted not to as I jumped from destination to destination. On my long drives, some as long as 850 miles in a single day, I passed the time enjoying extended stretches of silence to brainstorm creative ideas while intermitently listening to NPR radio and other local stations. The funny thing about having a little more time to think while traveling as I did is that subtle events and not so subtle events have a way of adding up to more clearly take form as a larger thought or issue.

Just before I left on my trip I received a comment on Flickr from Patrick Smith, a photographer here in Northern California, commenting on the merit of my watermark and how image theft is overblown. I shared my experience and moved on. After all even I would rather talk about other things than taking safeguards against image theft.  Then while on my trip news broke of a family photo sent out as a Christmas card that somehow was taken off a family blog and used in a large commercial advertisement in Europe

• NPR report – Text and Audio
  
• Dear Social Media – the photographs take on the situation
  
• A Mom Goes Viral, Attracts Haters – more photos of the store front
  

Then days later I heard DJ’s on a pop radio station in Utah discussing this, one DJ noting that “if it’s on the Internet it’s free.” Lastly to come full circle I read a blog entry titled Creativity! by Patrick Smith upon my return about how one of his photos was being used in a “Photoshop This” thread on Fark.com.

So my question to you,  “Did you get the memo that your online content is free?”

Clearly I’m a believer that my content is not free if it is placed online and I’m consistently appalled that people continue to claim others content online as being free.  For some reason I find that people who do not create content whether an article, a photograph, etc. have a tough time wrapping their head around the concept of “Intellectual Property”. It’s much easier to just assume the world is their oyster… it’s all there for the taking. One other observation I’ve made is that those who are broadcasting types (TV and Radio) do think of online content as being free far more than say writers or photographers.

I’ve written plenty on this subject and I think all of you know very well how I fall on this subject. For those of you that are new to my blog you can find my past thoughts on the following topics here: copyright infringement and photo watermarking.

What is your take on this mythical culture of free that people seem to errantly propogate in relation to your online photographs or writing?

I almost forgot… this came out on Sunday:

Use Their Work Free? Some Artists Say No to Google – NY Times

Technorati Tags: Photography, Copyright, Photo, Watermark

Technically I’m supposed to be unplugged for the next week as I travel, but I am reconnecting to relay two incredibly important things that require your attention.

First I urge you to subscribe to a new & free online resource TOSBack.org, courtesy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). This site tracks the Terms of Service of 44 Social Media web sites. Given many of my posts about the rights grab imposed by numerous sites online this organization will be an invaluable resource to creatives posting material online. TOSBack.org’s purpose as stated from their web site:

Terms-Of-Service and other website policies form the foundation of your relationship with social networking sites, online businesses, and other Internet communities. But most people become aware of these terms only when there’s a problem. TOSBack was created to help you monitor the policies for the websites you use everyday, and show how they change over time.

TOSBack is a project of The Electronic Frontier Foundation. We are a non-profit membership-funded organization. If you like TOSBack, please consider making a donation or becoming a member.

Second California State Parks have been thrust into the fray of the state’s budget crisis. The current proposal put forth by the Governor calls for the closure of over 200 state parks that is an amazing 80% of all state parks!!! As of now the proposal calls for this over the top action to take effect on July 1st. If you live in California please tell the Governor and your state legislators that you want them to keep our California parks open. (via the Sierra Club)

Curious which parks are closing? See the list after the jump
Read more…

With a better understanding of My Journey with Photography Watermarks and how the Evolution of a Watermark has factored into my online marketing, I wanted to share how these efforts have translated in my reaching new audiences and generated new client opportunities.

Effort and Reward of Watermarking

No doubt many after reading my first to articles on the topic of photo watermarking are asking, “Why put yourself through the effort?” As noted I’m a firm believer in ensuring proper attribution of a photo and notifying viewers that my photography is copyrighted. This addresses a high priority of mine to protect my photographic work from a legal perspective, in conjunction with my formal copyright filings with the U.S. Library of Congress (See Copyrights: Protecting My Photograph). In essence addressing a long term need of mine. On the flip-side the concept of using watermarks as a “calling card”, including my name and web site URL, addresses a short term need to notify others where to find my work and learn more about my services. My style of photo watermark serves this purpose well whether my photographs are found on my web sites, photo forums I contribute to, hot-linked from my server and placed on another web site or more blatantly illegally copied and distributed.

This is the part where several of you reading this post will think, Read more…

Having covered the basics of watermarks and why they’re important to use in my earlier post My Journey With Photographic Watermarks, I wanted to take you on a journey of how I’ve employed watermarks over the past 10 years. Not only do I plan on digging my old watermarks out of my archive I’ll tell you what I was thinking when I used them and why I decided to change them.

As previously discussed watermarks by definition are ugly, but a sad necessity. As I’ve dug up my old watermarked images I’ve shaken my head more than once in disgust. Disgust because 1) the intent of my photography has been to show beauty and dynamic moments not a watermark and 2) because as I go back in time I realize how horrible some of my watermarks were. Read more…