Image Theft

Les McLean

Les McLean

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Name
Les
Edit My Images
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Don't know if this has been 'aired' before, but here goes.

I sell a few images via stock libraries, and normally around 75% of the requests, after I've given them a price, the image is sold.

Just recently, the last 6 requests for a price have resulted in no sale, all the prices given were within my normal selling price range.

Just prior to these last 6 requests, I changed my web host, and the new hosting, the image size is around 300k for each image (instead of the previous 150k).

It got me thinking, especially when I respond to an image request price, at the bottom of my E-mail is always my web address, have they simply gone onto my site and copied the 300k image and used that.

Has anyone else any thoughts/happened to them.

I'm in the process of watermarking my web images just to provide an additional safeguard against it happening in the future.
 
You could always check the IP address from the email header and see if it matches requests in your weblog for the image in question...
 
It is something I am always wary of even though I dont actually really sell my images. Looking on your site some images are knocking on 900pixels wide, if people are buying you images for web use then that size is normally more than enough for anyone to knick. Print wise I recon you could produce a reasonable 5x7 print from a shot that size (given decent enlarging software). If your sales are normally to people wanting lovely large prints on their walls etc though then I cant see how much use they would have from the web size shots.

I think watermarking is always worthwhile though ;) That or maybe a physical size reduction to around 500pixels on longest side or something? Neither is great for the customer but its the fine line between putting off a new customer and having a shot stolen :(

EDIT - actually quite a few of your shots will show me 1000x600 ish shots if I press the right buttons, I could probably make a 5x7 print from that without any trouble :(
 
Personally I don't bother with the watermarking - I put the images on my website for people to see & I think watermarking spoils the experience.

I do keep the shots at 600 (longest side) & normally try to keep them between 80 - 150kb.

I also have "right-click" & "google image bar" disabled - whilst it's still possible to work-around these it does require a little bit of know-how & will certainly discourage a few "passers-by"

To be honest if you have a nice shot or two, a 7 x 5 print certainly won't do it justice anyway, so I think if someone really wants a good print of it they'll spend a little bit of cash anyway.


simon
 
I'm inclined to agree. Your images look lovely on your site Les, Id like to have had mine at this size but was put off by just this issue so they are about 700 or so with right-click disabled.

I really think this may be your problem.... along with the filesize... mine are 78kb while yours are much more usable at 300kb.
 
Have to agree with the above, right click (Yes admittedly you can get around this) is disabled and mine like Janices & Simon's are low res.... In fact I watermark and copyright stamp most of my web stuff now, just to add a little bit more obvious protection.

I'm not saying it will stop it, just make it a little bit harder for them.
 
I haven't had any of my images stolen (that I'm aware of anyway), but I restrict all my shots to 700px along the longest edge @ 72DPI, which isn't the best to be getting prints from. Not saying it's impossible, and of course I'm not protected against web usage, but still....

I do put my URL at the bottom corner of all my shots, although in most it wouldn't be that hard to clone out I suppose.

I think you can only take so many steps to prevent it, before it becomes detrimental to your business/photography, and more of a hindrance to the viewer than a help. That's why I dont stamp watermarks across the middle of my shots.

I think its down to personal perception of level of risk.
 
A few years back I had images stolen from my website and movies too that I had made at car shows. Someone went around peoples websites and took the images, burnt them onto CD and then sold them on Ebay.

Ebay at the time did nothing as this guy had a rating of over 1000, doing much the same thing with several other car models. I even filled in all of ebay's copyright theft/fraud forms.

In the end it took threats of the tax man (he was a mobile DJ as well) to get him to remove the stuff. It all got very nasty

Since then I've kept my images small, exif'd with my name.
 
Steep said:
Right click works fine in Opera Janice.
Click to expand...

As we mentioned "disable right click" is far from foolproof - Opera won't allow users to disable the "context menu" & ignores any script designed to do so

The ONLY way to be 100% of avoiding image theft is not to post on the WWW in the first place !!

Simon
 
Steep said:
Right click works fine in Opera Janice.
Click to expand...

Well yes... i suppose MOST people are on IE & Firefox!

There's bound to be a few! ;)
 
Marcel said:
I do put my URL at the bottom corner of all my shots, although in most it wouldn't be that hard to clone out I suppose.
...That's why I dont stamp watermarks across the middle of my shots.
Click to expand...

:agree: That's what I do too, a URL & text to state that the image copyright belongs to you - that way if the text is removed then you can prove that someone has deliberately gone out to steal your work.

Such a shame that we have to worry about stuff like this but as has already been stated, a huge copyright watermark across the centre of your image ruins the viewers experience imo regardless of the amount of protection that it offers.
 
right click disabled doesn't stop people nicking your photo's in ie or firefox either. All you have to do is look at the source code, get the name of the file and it's yours. Or use a screen grabber
 
In FF just go to tools > page info > media tab - it lists everything and lets you save them.
 
yes... but printing from an 800x600 @ 72dpi isnt going to give them anything fantastic to hang on their wall.
 
Thanks for all the feedback folks, it really is appreciated.

It does look as though I will have to downsize my images a touch, one of the difficulties of having a 24 inch monitor is that it's hard work trying to sharpen (or see the sharpening effects) of an image at 800 pixels along the long side when running at 1900x1200, the image is so small.
I suppose I could sharpen at 1000 and then reduce the image to 800?


Also filesize, again I think I'll downsize to 200k instead of 300k, at 800 along the longside, I don't think the quality will suffer too much.

I'm in the middle of putting clear watermarks on my gallery images, as I agree with Simon, prominent water marks tend to spoil the viewing experience, hopefully the ones I'm using will not be too intrusive, and make the image thief have second thoughts (I live in hope :) )

Cheers everyone :)
 
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