Image protection

[Howard Jones]

In a different forum, I was advised not to make a full size image accessible without a watermark or some other form of copyright protection. Does the simple act of placing a copyright notice on the image as show here accomplish that goal?

Any comments on the pros and cons of the various forms of protection will be appreciated. What's the story with the "Digimark" tool that's available? What does it accomplish that a simple copyright notice does not?

Thanks.

 

[Michael Fontana]

Howard

in your example, a quick retouche will delete your©annotation, as its surrounded by black.
I see the point that you didn't wanted to destroy the image's character, so this might be a other solution, harder to clone and stamp:

 

[Charles Lupica]

To fully uinderstand copyright you need to be a copyright lawyer; and even that's is mostly country specific. I am not a lawyer and anything I saw should be verified by you as I may be wrong (covering my butt).

In the US you should go read the US government page about copyright. The short of it is a copyright must be in a specific form or it means nearly nothing. It must appear as:

© 2008, name of copyright holer. All rights reserved.

Anything else is not a legal copyright. The digimark is a gadget and will not help much in any event. You could prove it's your image (maybe) but it is not an acceptable legal form as I understand it. The copyright must be visible or else it has no teeth. The point of the visible copyright is that someone must remove it to use the image. By removing the copyright or watermark they are demonstrating a wanton act of thief and can then be sued for up $30'000 for each infraction. If there is no visible copyright, the damages are using less than $100, as the image is treated as stock and the defendent is given the benefit of the doubt as having used the image thinking it was an orphan work. (Read about orphan works if you want something to worry about)

Even if the watermark/copyright notice appears on the image you still cannot collect resonable damages unless the "work" has been registered with US copyright office. This costs money per submission and is a confusing process.

The best protection is too keep your images on your harddrive. After that, small images set to 72 dpi, with only medium jpg compression are you best protection online. Generally speaking, it is best to limit the size of your images to no more than 800 pixels on a side (panorama possible 1200 pixels), saved as jpeg quality 8 (medium / medium-high). While it mostly doesn't matter, set the print resolution to 72 dpi; which is the resolution of a computer monitor. And add the watermark / copyright notice. I add both.

At this point the image could be usable but why bother when there are so many other images that are easy picking?

I picked this from Dan Heller's website. He has pages and pages about copyright and it make a good read.

While it is beyond the scope of this book to get into the process of registering works with the US government for copyright or trademark protection (though, it's easy—just go to www.copyright.gov, and apply to register your pictures online, or use the one-page form), it's important to know the ramifications of registration.

While both a trademark and a copyright can exist without having to formally register a work, registration provides extended rights from federal courts, such as eligibility for statutory damages, which can range from $750 to $30,000 per infringement. Damage claims can be as high as $150,000 if the infringement was willful or intentional. Here, willfulness can be proven by the removal of a visible watermark that had your name and/or copyright notice in the image. (Sound effect of Vegas-style slot machine bells going off.) The courts usually also grant reimbursement of legal fees as well.

Hope that helps.