Watermark, copyright. . .help!

[gahspidy]

I am just trying to understand the whole process of protecting my photos( the ones I feel are worth protecting) but am not sure as to how to go about it. I am thinking that a watermark and copyright are not at all the same. If I were to embed a personal watermark on a photo, it would not mean anything unless I had it copyrighted first? The company"Digimarc" offers the use of watermark services for a subscription fee, but this only allows you to track your photos if they are used on the web, but won't neccessarily protect them?? Is that it? So if copyrighting is the first step to it all, how do I go about getting that started. Thanks

[Pose]

http://www.copyright.gov/

Good place to start, maybe.

[Asylum Steve]

Yeah, protecting your work is crazy business, isn't it?

The thing you should realize going in, especially if you plan on publishing your work on the WWW, is that there is NO WAY to absolutely guarantee that your images are completely safe from illegal use.

What I mean is, you're only as protected as your funds (and your willingness) to defend your legal rights will allow. IOW, you have to be willing to pursue legal action against anyone whom uses your images without permission.

Things like copyright and watermarks are simply tools to discourage illegal use, and then give you much needed leverage if you decide to take things to the next level...

Understand, your copyright to a creative work is automatically applied by law the moment you take your photo, or write down your music, novel, or idea. This in turn gives you very specific rights should you find the need to protect the work from illegal use, whether your register the copyright or not.

What's important is that you place the copyright symbol, as well as the date you created an image and, of course, your name in an area on or right next to the image whenever you publish it.

You should also print a seperate legal disclaimer on a personal web site clearly explaining that all your work is copyrighted and emphasize that images cannot be used without permission.

The advantage to REGISTERING a copyright is that it gives you MUCH GREATER legal leverage should you need to take a matter to court.

If you do decide to register the copyrights to some of your photos, keep in mind you can create a PROOF SHEET of multiple images (thumbnails) and register it as a SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH. In that case EVERY image on the sheet is protected. It's much cheaper this way.

As for the watermarking, this is a highly debated issue. Many feel this doesn't really protect you much, and I believe the technology does degrade the quality of your web image (I won't swear by this, but you can probably find out). Still, it could well help you document illegal use of a photo, and that information would prove valuable in court.

BTW, I do not mean for this to be construed as LEGAL ADVICE. I am not a copyright attorney, but simply have what I think is a fair understanding of the law, at least in regard to my own work. I strongly suggest you check out the government copyright web site, or one of the many good books on the subject...

I am just trying to understand the whole process of protecting my photos( the ones I feel are worth protecting) but am not sure as to how to go about it. I am thinking that a watermark and copyright are not at all the same. If I were to embed a personal watermark on a photo, it would not mean anything unless I had it copyrighted first? The company"Digimarc" offers the use of watermark services for a subscription fee, but this only allows you to track your photos if they are used on the web, but won't neccessarily protect them?? Is that it? So if copyrighting is the first step to it all, how do I go about getting that started. Thanks

[gahspidy]

Thanks for your time to help clear things up for me. Yes, this is what I thought. I just feel like putting one's name and date etc. was merely show for they could be easily cloned out by anyone looking to use an image for their own use. I thought the watermark was a method that could not be removed, but never thought it had any degradation to the quality of the pic. Supposedly it also allows you to track a photo or image on the web which would help to know if it had been "hijacked" in the first place. I'm thinking the best way to discourage unauthorized usage might be to only post as small and minimum quality of the pic as you feel you could present so that it could not be enlarged or altered without losing it's workable quality. By the way how does one get the copyright symbol into there pic. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I do not have this symbol on my keyboard . . . . Thanks

[JimK]

You can access the copright symbol using the numlock (ON) and the keypad. Hold down the ALT key and enter 0169 on the keypad. You MUST use the keypad, the numbers across the top of the keyboard will not work.

BTW - as someone who has had his photos stolen on the internet, notifying the offenders ISP and / or the webmaster of the site the stolen pics are on usually solves the problem. The best prevention though is as you say, never post a full resolution picture on the net.

[gahspidy]

You can access the copright symbol using the numlock (ON) and the keypad. Hold down the ALT key and enter 0169 on the keypad. You MUST use the keypad, the numbers across the top of the keyboard will not work.

BTW - as someone who has had his photos stolen on the internet, notifying the offenders ISP and / or the webmaster of the site the stolen pics are on usually solves the problem. The best prevention though is as you say, never post a full resolution picture on the net.

Thanks for your info. . . .how did you happen to find out your pics were being used. Seems to me like a longshot of ever running across them. Thats why I thought the watermark tracking setup seemed like a good idea