I have two DMCA notices with Google now, because someone stole my text and photograph from my blog and republished my blog entry in its entirety on two blogspot blogs. It looks to be a scraper site, one that is designed to pluck similarly related content and rebroadcast. Then it draws users to its site and hope they click on the plethora of advertisements. Not nice.
It's interesting watching how things are changing.
seems to work i think. think i remember a customer briefly mentioning the online images being watermarked and wanting to order a print.
another favorite of mine is from the FBI website (and it says you can use the following statement without their permission.) :
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
its a bit too long to watermark.
personally i think the hard sounding watermarks drives it home so they think..oh im breaking federal law...not oh its something they just ask of me.
Clearly this isn't cutting it. I used to put a large watermark across the center of the image, as was suggested. However, even running this as a PS action slowed down the process of making the photos quickly available after a show. That process was also not particularly effective either. While at a party once, a young lady was showing off her photos when she flipped to a couple grainy, B&W, low rez, pics....with my watermark across the middle of them.
As mentioned earlier; The only way to do something about this problem is to get paid up front.
Like the wedding guys do.
Or shoot on spec, and simply don't post on the web.
__________________ You can only fish for so long before ya gotta throw a stick of dynamite in the water.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
We've got our web galleries pretty heavily watermarked also. I had an email from a photographer friend who thought the images looked awful with that across them. I agree, but I'm not removing it.
Our web policy is still undergoing some changes. Portraits and weddings are not posted unless requested and never until the initial order is placed and paid in full, no exceptions. Then, the gallery is up for a limited time only, a few weeks is normal. All images are watermarked. If they steal those, there is nothing I can do and I guess everyone will see our name so I try to think of it as advertising.
I understand Will's problem with events. We've been to a few now where people don't want to order until the end and that's the same time everyone, including us, wants to get out of there as fast as possible. Our solution so far is to not put those events on the web gallery at all. You buy now or never. I'm not sure which model is more profitable.
If I was shooting horse events (& I'd like to talk to Will about this sometime) I might consider an action to put a logo on the middle of the horse that is covering up most of the body. It might be worth it to hire a kid to do this while you shoot. I'm thinking of something that looks like a vehicle wrap on a bus or van, but in bold yellow or red. "Gee, I don't remember my horse having your ad on nailed to it's side!"
The best model is still to charge for your creative talents up front and print orders are gravy. This works for weddings, but not for portraits for me. I cannot get a $500. sitting fee for a family. My answer so far is to have a minimum order of $XX., half paid at sitting, half at ordering. It has eliminated many portrait customers but the ones that are left are the ones I really want to work for.
It is challenging for customers to understand how they can buy a pack of school or soccer photos for $35. and yet I want ten times that for the same thing on a family portrait. Answer is this: if I could do a great family portrait in 30 seconds and have 100 families lined up like Walmart and I only need to take 1 or 2 photos, then I would charge the cheap price and I'd make a lot more profit than I do on family portraits now.
Doug
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I just quit a software contracting job with a startup company in which the CTO is a young punk who thinks it's okay to lift whatever he wants from anywhere on the web. My decision to leave turned on a conversation where he was showing off his latest "scraper" software, which plain and simple steals services from Google. I don't want to be anywhere near that place when it implodes under the weight of the mighty funding the Google lawyers will have.
I know this: If *my* kid steals software or whatever online I'm gonna kick his butt. He already knows the "everyone else does it" excuse doesn't fly with me, and he's found me willing to actually BUY him the things he really wants.
I just quit a software contracting job with a startup company in which the CTO is a young punk who thinks it's okay to lift whatever he wants from anywhere on the web. My decision to leave turned on a conversation where he was showing off his latest "scraper" software, which plain and simple steals services from Google. I don't want to be anywhere near that place when it implodes under the weight of the mighty funding the Google lawyers will have.
Not exactly a winning formula for the CTO for either longevity or prosperity.
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