Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

Illumination II

Sometimes the fastest way to illumination is to look back to see what you may have missed on your journey. In that light for your holiday weekend reading I thought I’d repost links to my most popular articles on Copyright. Since I originally posted these articles to my blog, my readership has grown quite a bit. To those who are new to my blog I hope this information is enlightening and for those who have been long time readers I hope these articles provide you a refresher to stay on top of your game.

1. Copyrights: Protecting My Photography

2. How The Rights To Your Photo Are Being Hijacked Through Photo Contests & Social Media

3. Bill of Rights for Photographers Proposed for Photo Contests

4. Watermarks: My Journey With Photographic Watermarks

5. Watermarks: Evolution of a Watermark

6. Watermarking with Lightroom & Mogrify

7. 5 Reasons Why MetaData Should be Part of Your Workflow

Note the articles below are dated. Some issues discussed have never been resolved while others have been. Their listing here is to give you background as to why you must always be diligent in protecting your photography and to pay attention to Terms of Use for each site you post your photography to.

8. How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

9. Facebook’s Rights Grab: How Far Does It Go?

10. Facebook’s Terms of Use: From Bad to Beyond Worse

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Bonus:
11. EXIF and Beyond: Nick Dunmur of Pro-Imaging.org (podcast)

Technorati Tags: photography, copyright, articles

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

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

After attending the getMETAsmart event in San Francisco last week I became curious how photographers who read my blog and/or follow me on Twitter use it. To be honest I’d be even more curious how photo buyers or stock agents actually use metadata on a daily basis, but that will have to wait for another post. Metadata as many of you know is often discussed but rarely so in the context of how real people use it. While hearing about best practices is helpful everyone has a slightly different take on the subject and many address metadata differently in their workflow. Let’s first address the “why”. Why should metadata play a role in your workflow? To answer that I’ve combined my understanding of metadata with feedback received from my Twitter followers. Read on to learn more.
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…

For those that took an interest in my earlier post regarding Facebook’s revised Terms of Use “Facebook’s Terms of Use: From Bad to Beyond Worse“, news is just now coming out that Facebook has reverted to an older version of their Terms of Use dated September 23, 2008. Another notable development is that Facebook has created a Facebook Bill of Rights group to solicit feedback to future changes to their Terms of Use. Given the escalating buzz online about the Terms of Use change on blogs, social news sites like Digg.com and a pending Federal complaint someone at Facebook got the message.

While this news is a step in the right direction the older Terms of Use is still not ideal. Given that a newly created forum to discuss the Terms of Use has now been opened it would appear they’re making efforts to move things in a positive direction. Time will tell.

For more see Facebook Launches Facebook Bill of Rights, Reverts to Previous Terms of Use – RWW

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Terms of Use, Social Media, Copyright