Shaking my fist at Facebook

[n8]

I just noticed that to the left of my photos that I have uploaded on my facebook account is an option to download. Ok, fine. What is not present is an option to disable this. This is utter bs in my opinion, and just thought I would share just in case anyone else is leery about their stuff being downloaded...especially if you use the hi-res option.

[Franglais]

Once you put anything on a Internet it's gone. You have no control over it. Even if you think that you have protected a still picture or a video then someone with the right tools can always copy it.

I don't trust Facebook or my "friends" (in fact a vague network of people especially models who may one day be useful to me). I am very careful about the content I post (nothing personal) and I never go beyond 600x600. Even here on PR my maximum is 800x800. The only place I put high-res images is on Picasa where I specifically invite other people to come and pick up stuff

Facebook is very useful. It's made me think - at the end of a long winter with nothing to photograph - that as I know all these models who are obviously short of photos judging by what they post then I should get on and organise some more model shoots myself. Now that's a big change.

[jetrim]

It may be iritating, but it's not really any different from the old system where they could simply "right click/save as" I do the same as Charles, nothing on the 'net is bigger than 800 pixels, and everything on facebook is watermarked. Matter of fact I had to resort to posting a big obnoxious PROOF stamp on my private galleries (on my own website) because models would snag them and plaster the unretouched shots all over facebook and model mayhem, then list me as the photog. Even now I see shots of mine with the big yellow PROOF overlay floating around facebook. You ain't gonna stop it. Don't ever use the high-res option, send the big files out as a zip file using usendit or similar file transfer service if too big for regular email (I just upload the .zip to my site and send them a link).

[n8]

Being a pure hobbyist, it's not quite the issue it could be for you pros, but I certainly find the lack of the option to be pretty negligent.

[WesternGuy]

n8, you have just run in to one of the realities of posting stuff on the Internet. It really does not matter what you put on the images when you post them, e.g., copyrights or "proof" or whatever, somebody who is not as scrupulous as you or I and others here, will take them and may even try and claim them as their own. Now that CS5 and even Elements have a version of "Content-aware fill" as part of their functionality, any evidence of copyright or anything else can be removed by anyone with a little knowledge of Photoshop and the ability to follow directions, and, of course, a lot of us put our Copyright info down in the corner of an image - this can be cropped off very easily. I do not put anything on the web, in my case it is flickr, not Facebook, that I would not knowingly share with someone else. You post at your own peril - really.

WesternGuy

[megan]

I keep everything low res and put a copyright on it. As everyone said above, "not that it matters," but if someone wants to steal it, they at least have to work for it. FB, BTW, also strips the file of any copyright info you might put in "File Info" as well.

[Greg McCary]

I use Facebook to get a little exposure, no pun intended. But like Charles I try not to post anything to personal and never anything about my job/work. I will never get rich selling prints and to be honest why would one buy somthing they can clip and use as a desktop picture.
I read Garry Winogrand sold prints for $10.00 each. It ain't about the money.