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Copyright of pictures on the web

The issue was raised in Photoblog, and I can not say nothing on it, since it concerns me.

The internet is a dangerous place for copyright. Many musicians will curse it, since Napster, the selling of music fell down.
Why do the effort of going to the mall and buy a very expensive cd, when you can find it free?
The same thing for the expensive software.

Yet I truly believe that there are alternatives. In USA people tend to pay for Shareware, and the Apple Itunes shop, selling music turned to be a huge success.
As for the software I truly believe that lower prices would make a larger market. If a program like Photoshop would cost only 250 dollars instead of a 1000, wouldnt you have the intention to buy it more easily? I would...
Developments in the world make the need for new markets, new solutions.
Recordcompanies dont work anymore? Well, excuse me, they made a lot of money since the invention of the cd. Prices for making it, dropped through the years, the prices of the CD stayed. If they would have been busy with a solution like Itunes, maybe the damage wouldnt have been so big. And look at solutions such as Kristin Hershes mp3 releases through the web: fans do pay.

Jumping to the photography now...
Can people copy images?
No. But what can we do against it?
This is what I mean by saying everybody steals
Of course I dont encourage such a thing, but I can not offer a solution. I will not be able to stop them.

For this reason, the creative common license (see it on this site) is a good invention. At least somewhere in your site you are mentioning that your work is under copyright. And which rules you give it.

To me it is useless to have people pay for low resolution on a site.
It would have been nice though, but face it. Most of the time it is just a nice advertisement.
So the only thing you can do, is make sure that people give you credits, and ask for it.
This site: Ausias.net, used a picture of mine, without ever asking for it.
I send them a mail asking whether they could make a link to my site.
I know they wont give me money. They had the opportunity to contact me, they didnt.

Anyhow, according to the Belgian Copyright law, people can use an image for free if it refers to an exhibition, in an article or whatsoever. Referring to another website would implement this. And justify.
Radio 1 recently used one, on my own proposal. I didnt think of asking money. They made the nicest advertisement I could wish for...
(Towards printing I have another opinion. Printing has nothing to do with public relations. Printing should be paid (unless it is referring to an exhibition))

Copyright and the web have still a long way to go... And I truley believe that in the near future it has to be taken in consideration. More and more artists are putting work online and want credits for that. Although < a href="http://creativecommons.org/ ">Creative Commons is a good idea, it is not the solution.
There should be something in an image that marks it, and a softwareprogram (a kind of google for these images) that tracks it. I am sure such a thing exists, but tell me, who uses it? And the iptc of an image can always be erased...

The question if an image can be owned by someone, has a simple answer to me: yes.
Because I took it and not you. And my eye see things differently than yours.
Next to that my hands work with the camera, decide which aperture I use, or which diafragm.
I can perfectly design how something would look like before I take the picture. (Well most of the time)
I frame it, I make it.
Thus I own.

This discussion is a filosophical, but many filosophers will agree.
We dont expect a James Nachtwey to say: well this picture only exists because of what happened, not because of me...
The difficulties he had to go through are different from others that didnt take the picture, and for that reason only, he has to get that respect of copyright.
And the same thing counts for any photographer.

Or any artist in general.

For more on copyright and others opinion I refer to:
Copyright Basics for the web
Copyright Issues for webpublishers
Copyright in berkeley Univ

Posted on March 30, 2004
in Limit of my knowledge

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