Scanning is Theft

BigSoy said:
I'd genuinely like to see what would happen to a photographer who flipped this issue upside it's head and used scanning/copying/fb'ing as fantastic free publicity and built their business on that basis.
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my money is on them being permanently out of pocket.

you wouldnt turn up and work and announce to your boss "you know what, have today on me. you dont have to pay me today just to see how good i am"
 
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as to the girl walking away, yes she did, I lost a tenner.

the other groups that night were more than happy- in fact, 100% of them paid.
And the girl actually ended up spending her money too, on pics of her and her other half.

As mike etc have said, its pretty much standard practice.
 
onomatopoeia said:
"Scanning is copyright infringement" is fine, because it is true.

I've had people use my (not very good, it must be said) photos without permission, so it is something I am familiar with. However since as an amateur I don't sell anything I was hardly going to pursue them for damages.

I don't like the term identity theft as that's not accurate, you aren't trying to permenantly deprive someone else of their identity because then you'd end up with their debts. "Fraud" seems better because it seems the person using the false identity is attempting to defraud another party by using the false identity, but I'm not sure it's even that in law without doing research. I'm a nerd for a living, not a lawyer.
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I agree, "Identity Theft" would be "fraud by false representation" - the point I was simply trying to make is there is a difference between the actual legal definition of something and what the general public perception is.

Often people say something, like my example before about "being robbed" others know more or less what they mean without having to go into specific legal definitions.

IMO the OP and the "Scanning is theft" is simply a tagline, an attention grabber to hopefully get people to have a look and increase their understanding of what is and isnt legal.

Thats all it is a tag line - like the sports pages on the back of a paper, England team loses because of a dodgy decision and you get the headline "WE WERE ROBBED" For me this is no different.

Neil
 
Kaouthia said:
Somebody better tell the movie industry they're wrong.
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Nah, they're right. They use the word "steal" not theft. Steal is a word you'll find in the dictionary, but not in law.

Which kind of makes my point - "scanning is stealing" and "scanning is theft" to all intents and purposes means the same thing. Its just that theft is legally defined and "stealing" isnt.

We all know what it means, just because in legal speak one thing is defined and another isnt doesnt matter does it?

Neil
 
neil_g said:
my money is on them being permanently out of pocket.

you wouldnt turn up and work and announce to your boss "you know what, have today on me. you dont have to pay me today just to see how good i am"
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Not quite the same thing though is it - not like you're not getting paid in this instance at all? (The clear rule here is that you don't have even a single copy, electronic, printed, whatever, until being paid once).

As a consultant it's not that uncommon to share thinking done on behalf of one client with another... and what normally happens if it's any good is that they say ok, that's good, but's it not quite our so can we pay you to think about this slightly different thing instead... was just wondering out loud really whether this might generalise in some sense to photography.
 
Misusing the word theft hasn't stopped the Federation Against Copyright Theft campaigning along similar lines for years.
The word has the desired effect/response to get the point across and as the Government never got around to passing a law covering dictionary misuse it is fine to continue it seems.
 
Roadkill_6mm said:
We all know what it means, just because in legal speak one thing is defined and another isnt doesnt matter does it?
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Apparently it does, as you're making such a big deal out of it. :)
 
The thing to remember is that togs are no different from shops. All shops are victims of shoplifters. There are tags, cctv and security guards but there is still shoplifting. So, they simply add the cost of this to the price of goods as an overhead, like rent or transport.

If anyone thinks it will be possible to stop photos being copied, or think they can appeal to peoples morals they need to get to the real world.

When working out prices, you take into account equipment, insurance, marketing etc... add a small amount onto each product as a 'theft' element.
 
BigSoy said:
Not quite the same thing though is it - not like you're not getting paid in this instance at all? (The clear rule here is that you don't have even a single copy, electronic, printed, whatever, until being paid once).

As a consultant it's not that uncommon to share thinking done on behalf of one client with another... and what normally happens if it's any good is that they say ok, that's good, but's it not quite our so can we pay you to think about this slightly different thing instead... was just wondering out loud really whether this might generalise in some sense to photography.
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i believe SK617 also then goes on to say:

"the girl actually ended up spending her money too, on pics of her and her other half."

so if youd given them free images earlier in the night would they have come back and spent money?
 
cambsno said:
The thing to remember is that togs are no different from shops. All shops are victims of shoplifters. There are tags, cctv and security guards but there is still shoplifting. So, they simply add the cost of this to the price of goods as an overhead, like rent or transport.

If anyone thinks it will be possible to stop photos being copied, or think they can appeal to peoples morals they need to get to the real world.

When working out prices, you take into account equipment, insurance, marketing etc... add a small amount onto each product as a 'theft' element.
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Just bumping up the price to match the losses from people breaching copyright isn't going to work on a practical level. Let me try to explain why. Forgive me if I don't explain too well or go off in a direction that seems irrelevant.

One major factor in a good pricing strategy is considering the availability of substitutes. If I want a new t-shirt I go to a store and pick one I like at a price that suits my pocket. If I can't afford a new t-shirt at the prices available or consider the prices that are being charged to be too great I've no choice but to go without. If I want a high quality photo of myself taken I'll look at prices and shop at a price point I can afford, if that price point exists to suit my pocket. What separates buying something like clothing and buying a photo is how readily someone with a little knowledge and a camera can take photographs that are close to the standard of the professional and do so at very little cost to them. Most people can't sew or knit their own clothing when the price is perceived to be too high so they've no option but to purchase these goods but when people perceive the price of a photograph to be too high a lot of people can take a sharp, correctly exposed photograph thanks to how effective the auto settings on cameras are. Cheap or free substitutes of photographs are too readily available to just put a price as high as you like.

The market for photographs might be as big as ever but the supply of good images has sky rocketed in recent years. The result is an excess of supply over demand so simple economics would lead us to believe prices must fall. It's not a case of the photographer deciding what price supports his career, it's a case of the market deciding what price they're willing to pay for the product/service. If they can get a slightly lesser product at a significantly lower price why wouldn't they? It's my opinion that it's only going to get harder for professional photographers to make a living when substitute images are so broadly available and significantly lower prices. The very best photographers will have a market to operate a business in just fine but the slightly lower end of the scale in terms of price and quality are, and will continue to see, increasing competition from joe public and it's unlikely that that end of the market will continue in the same way it has previously.

This is very off topic :rules: :bonk:
 
That was a pretty convoluted explanation having read it back so in short:

If prices get raised beyond what the consumer sees as justifiable they will look for substitutes and alternatives. Photography is easily accessible so they have lots of easy alternatives. Photographers should then reassess whether the prices they're charging will result in sufficient income to support their lifestyle. My feeling is that the market for photography at these types of price points is in decline and most consumers will seek the cheaper alternatives, just look at how magazines are relying heavily on amateur contributions instead of paying higher prices to professionals - there was a thread about this relating to an equine magazine not so long ago.

This is all my opinion of course and I could well be proved completely wrong.
 
TriggerHappy said:
That was a pretty convoluted explanation having read it back so in short:

If prices get raised beyond what the consumer sees as justifiable they will look for substitutes and alternatives. Photography is easily accessible so they have lots of easy alternatives. Photographers should then reassess whether the prices they're charging will result in sufficient income to support their lifestyle. My feeling is that the market for photography at these types of price points is in decline and most consumers will seek the cheaper alternatives, just look at how magazines are relying heavily on amateur contributions instead of paying higher prices to professionals - there was a thread about this relating to an equine magazine not so long ago.

This is all my opinion of course and I could well be proved completely wrong.
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I think you're completely right Jamie. Best post on the thread and one of the few that gets to the heart of the matter instead of useless circular arguments about what's legal and what's not.

Copyright theft is happening, it always has and always will (and we're all guilty of it). The music and movie industries can't stop it, so what hope has anyone else? You've got to change the business model and the basis of most commercial photography has always been founded on charging for prints.

But bits of paper have a very low intrinsic value, and an electronic image has none at all. The real value is in the creation of the image. That is what photographers have got to charge for, that is where the fundamental value is, and bleating about copyright is not only futile, it actually misses the point. In a nutshell, professionals have got to charge for the picture taking process, not the print making.

And here's the rub - technology has made it increasingly easy for anyone to create a 'good enough' image, very cheaply, and to copy it perfectly a million times. Professional photographers must produce images that are tangibly better than anything else, that are worth paying extra for. If you can't do that, you will go under.

Unfortunately, technology has dealt a double blow. It has pulled the rug from underneath the foundations of most commercial photography and completely devalued the thing that people have always paid for - the prints. At the same time, it has provided unskilled people with the ability to do a passable job of the image creation bit.

That leaves professional photography in a very difficult position and the mainstream GP businesses will inevitably decline severely, with only specialist niches remaining profitable - those areas where picture taking skills are valued, and not pieces of printed paper. There's nothing new in this, lots of areas of photography have always operated in this way (press, advertising, editorial etc).

The copyright argument is a red herring.
 
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mike weeks said:
When photographers demonstrate this level of naivety then it shows how deep the problem goes - that is a copyright infringement and when it deprives a photographer of income I am one of those that considers it to be theft.

Mike
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I'm with you on this Mike.

The sooner people understand this matter the better
 
Scanning is not Theft. Your campagin is almost as irritating as those adverts they used to play before a movie at the cinema 'You wouldn't steal a car' etc. Taking a sensationalist aproach and labelling everyone a criminal does will not win they day as the music and movie industry are finally comming to realise.
 
My take on this is that while copyright is an important subject for photographers, it actually has little meaning with the wider public - who by and large never actually "create" anything.

If you are in the habit of producing images either professionally or for "a warm fuzzy feeling" (I do hate that phrase by the way!) then you know the effort that's gone into it and the value of it (either in ££ or otherwise).

Certainly it's incredibly difficult to explain the whole concept of copyright to someone whose knowledge of photography is that "it's like pressing a button" - particulary when the method of dulplicating it is so easy.

I also think that the non creative populous see images, music, print and even software as disposable commodiites to which have little value. I'm not even sure they have any concept of depriving the creator of income or control (and even if they do why would they care? They're getting it for free).

I think the OP is right in a lot of respects in that he's equating copyright violation with theft - IMO it's probably the only way to make a connection in the scanner/copiers mind who actually has no conception of copyright violation. Techinically it might not be the right use of the term, but in this case does it matter?
 
Ask 100 people what a copyright infringement is and most would probably get it wrong and when you then explained the idea that scanning photos from somebody else fell into this area then it would raise little interest.

Ask the same 100 people what theft is and at least 99 will tell you it is taking something without paying.

Strangely shoplifting involves no actual lifting of shops :-)

The term may not be 100% accurate in law but the understanding of the message will be close to 100% understood - that is the important bit.

Mike
 
mike weeks said:
The term may not be 100% accurate in law but the understanding of the message will be close to 100% understood - that is the important bit.
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Just because a few photographers do not understand what theft is does not mean that the misunderstanding should be deliberately perpetuated.

I would have thought that in an industry where copyright is important there would be great concern that laws surrounding copyright were fully understood by everyone, not a desire that they are completely misunderstood for sensationalist purposes.

For the record I'm very much an amateur tog but I do make my living creating copyright work in a completely different field and protection of certain types of intellectual property against being copied is in fact the mainstay of my business (nothing to do with photography though).
 
Words evolve Mark. Look at the use of the word "HDR" on images that is incorrect. The moment it's brought down to an 8Bit JPG image, it ceases to be HDR, but that's what people call it. The resultant JPG is actually a Tonemapped image generated from a composited HDR image made up of several exposures. Proper HDR is more commonly used in 3D software, and the HDR files are truly HDR (again, composited from multiple exposures) and often used in skydomes and such in order to provide realistic reflections and light casts in objects.

The legal definition of "Theft" hasn't been updated since 1996, before Intellectual Property really became such a huge area (outside of music and movies, which everybody knows is illegal, but they do it anyway).

So, perhaps it's simply time for an update to the law & legal definition?
 
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Wow so much debate on something most would ignore. The OP is right in terms of copyright breaches but fighting an impossible battle. Trouble is there is little we can do about it unless we witness it happening and prosecute
 
One suggestion is that if you see one of your images being used on Facebook is that you send Facebook an invoice for say £75. They won't pay but if everyone did it, and they were inundated with invoices from disgruntled photographers, they may at least police their own website better.

Prosecution of individuals will probably not happen, but if we band together we can at least try to educate!
 
'Copyright theft' is just not a concept that people understand or even see as stealing. That's because it doesn't actually deprive the originator of anything material; what it does is remove the ability for them to take something from you, ie money for the work. That kind of 'inverse stealing' is not something that people generally relate to in a moral way, even when it is explained to them.

Traditionally this intellectual value has been locked into the delivery mechanism, ie the print. That's what people pay for. In the same way that music has been locked into the buying of CDs - what you pay for is primarily the CD, not the music on it. Now that we don't need CDs anymore to acquire music, the industry is in turmoil.

To their credit, many musicians have turned to live performance to generate income, which is a unique experience that people are prepared to pay for and cannot be duplicated. In terms of commercial photography, the equivalent of a live performance is the actual picture taking process - you need to be paid for the original creation of the work, not it's subsequent printing and duplicating.
 
The Noir Dude said:
One suggestion is that if you see one of your images being used on Facebook is that you send Facebook an invoice for say £75. They won't pay but if everyone did it, and they were inundated with invoices from disgruntled photographers, they may at least police their own website better.

Prosecution of individuals will probably not happen, but if we band together we can at least try to educate!
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Pointless excercise. It's not a question of education because people don't see copyright theft as stealing anyway, even when it's explained to them. As I pointed out above.

And secondly, once an image exists in digital form it is impossible to police it.

The reality of the argument is rather less one of copyright theft, but more one of "digital technology has run a coach and horses through my business model". It is better to change your business model than protest - it is a hopeless cause.

The difficulty is that technology has also de-skilled photography to the extent that most general commercial photography can be done to an acceptable level by pretty much anyone.

The message that scanning is theft is technically incorrect, nobody understands it, nobody cares anyway, and it's a futile irrelevance. Why not address the fundamental problem?
 
Greenninja said:
Certainly it's incredibly difficult to explain the whole concept of copyright to someone whose knowledge of photography is that "it's like pressing a button" - particulary when the method of dulplicating it is so easy.
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Quite alot of the professional photography that people complain about being stolen is just a simple matter of pressing a button, I've witnessed hours of formal shots at Univeristy balls and sat through countless shoots when at school and really there was very little if anything going on beyond pressing a button.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Quite alot of the professional photography that people complain about being stolen is just a simple matter of pressing a button, I've witnessed hours of formal shots at Univeristy balls and sat through countless shoots when at school and really there was very little if anything going on beyond pressing a button.
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The answer is there, but I think you missed the real point. Ultimately all photography is about pressing a button.

But in that case the photographer is providing a skilled service that has a value and is worth paying for. He's there, in position at the right time and place, and has used his skill and equipment to do a job. He should charge for doing that, and not try and lock that value into the supply of prints which, intrinsically, have very little value.
 
Right, I really don't wan't to get into all of this but...

The Noir Dude made the a point about:
I'm also annoyed without the processing companies in the high street or on-line that will scan my images then print them out and charge for it
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I work for one of these processing companies, and the best way around this is to print your copyright information on the back of the photo. Then the onus is on us not to copy it and we won't; there's no way we're going to get involved in a copyright dispute for a few quid.
I personally hate to think that I may have printed a copy of a professionals work. But if there is no copyright on the photo then there's no way we can know whether it's been taken by a professional or whether they have a licence to print copies or if they're just a really good amateur etc etc...

I have no idea how to solve the other problems, facebook/the internet/public opinion. Pretty big things to tackle IMO, so I'll leave that up to you guys :).

-Barry.
 
the copyright issue seems to have gone the same way as the privicy law. so complicated that nobody truely understands it.

if scanning is theft , if you scan a family photograph of an ancestor taken before you were born , Would that be theft.

or if you scan photographic image and restore it is that is cracked and damages, is that theft.

Cheers Steve
 
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I have conducted a small poll at an event recently and 90% of people asked assumed that because they bought the print they had the right to do what they wanted to with it. When the reality was explained to them they were very surprised.

So yes education is a big part of it. It won't completely eradicate it, but it may make a difference.
 
steve_lyt said:
if you scan a family photograph of an ancestor taken before you were born , Would that be theft.

or if you scan photographic image and restore it is that is cracked and damages, is that theft.
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If they were taken by a photographer who is still alive, and without the photographers permission then by the letter of the law it is an illegal act!! I'm not stupid, of course it happens. Like a good many I have copied my CD's to listen on my ipod, that is not illegal. If I were to give a copy to a mate, or sell it on, or post it on a website then that is illegal!
 
The Noir Dude said:
A temporary page until the website goes live.

Please feel free to download an image and use it on your website or Facebook etc if you think it will help.

Scanning is Theft
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.... Can I scan the image, and send it to foreign relatives?

Sorry Paul, I had to do it! In all seriousness, I think whilst your campaign is noble, it wont change the average opinion of a facebook user. When the majority of people nowadays who are active on the internet download music from torrent sites, stream movies online, and edit their facebook photos on a cracked copy of photoshop, scanning a photograph is going to be at the bottom of their moral pile.
 
The Noir Dude said:
I have conducted a small poll at an event recently and 90% of people asked assumed that because they bought the print they had the right to do what they wanted to with it. When the reality was explained to them they were very surprised.

So yes education is a big part of it. It won't completely eradicate it, but it may make a difference.
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Thanks for you calm and measured responses Paul ;) It's quite refreshing in these copyright debates!

But I would suggest your poll was incomplete. The real question to ask is whether, when people are in possession of the legal understanding, will it stop them and others from copying a print and sticking it on Facebook, or will they come back to you and order a digital copy and pay for a license to put it on line? I think you know the answer to that one.

And on the question raised by BarryH about labs scaning copyright images, while the Barry personally may be concerned about photographer's rights, that is not the reason why labs are cautious. They are trying to protect themselves from possible legal repercussions and couldn't give a stuff about the copyright holder.
 
It's copyright free!! Just don't make any alterations :D

That is why we are also aiming to target Facebook themselves. They should police their site better.

Without trying, how do we know? It's a very British thing to just leave well alone. Lets at least try!
 
An example.

There is an equestrian photographer who has an image scanned and put on Facebook. An equestrian magazine then took that picture and used it for a publication, free of charge. How can that be right? And that comes from an innocent scan and publish on Facebook.
 
The Noir Dude said:
It's copyright free!! Just don't make any alterations :D

That is why we are also aiming to target Facebook themselves. They should police their site better.

Without trying, how do we know? It's a very British thing to just leave well alone. Lets at least try!
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You shouldn't try, because it's a waste of time. Leaving aside the moral issue (and there are also two ways of looking at that) it doesn't makes sense from a practical or business point of view.

On the moral issue, our moral code is set by public perception and practise of right and wrong, and not by laws. Those standards change over time, and the law is always way behind it. In due course copyright laws will change to reflect what is actually happening and, in a democracy, they will represent the majority view. That is already happening.

It's time for photographers to change their business models, not the way people bahave. Look at it this way, if you go to France and nobody understands what you are saying, you can either get them all to speak English, or you can learn French.

The Noir Dude said:
An example.

There is an equestrian photographer who has an image scanned and put on Facebook. An equestrian magazine then took that picture and used it for a publication, free of charge. How can that be right? And that comes from an innocent scan and publish on Facebook.
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The photrograph was probably put on Facebook by the person in it. They would argue, with some moral justification if not a legal one, that they have some rights over their own image. What is certainly true is that the picture would not exist if the photographer had not 'exploited' the subject in the first place, for commercial gain and probably without their permission! This moral business cuts both ways.
 
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