NorthEastFoto.com

[convergent]

Originally Posted by silksatsunrise

You can save all the IPTC data in your photo and it will do you no good. It can be removed in 5 keystrokes and the new image will have absolutly no imbedded information at all.

Dennis

Security of intellectual capital is really no different from security of other things like your house. You need to determine the right level of reasonable things to do that you can manage, and that aren't going to make it impossible for your customers to access your images. You could surround your house with a concrete wall and barbed wire, with automatic firing machine gun turrets and mines all around it. No one would get in to steal anything, but then no one could get in to visit you either. Same with your images.

If you add a reasonable watermark, down-rez your web images, add copyright info in IPTC, block download button, post copyright notices, etc... then you have done all you can reasonably do.... if you do more then you'll probably make it hard for people to view the images. If that isn't acceptable or the images have tremendous value, then you'd probably not want to have them on the internet at all. The IPTC data being there is something that even though its easy to edit, its very possible that someone would overlook when illegally posting the image on their site. Thieves are often sloppy.

I saw a well documented blatant case posted on one of the forums that shows just how sloppy people can be. This particular photographer was shooting action pictures of I believe BMX racing in a particular area. One of the promoters stole one of his best images and used it to create banners, T-Shirts, etc. They had edited the image, but inadvertently left the corner of the visible logo on the image. The photographer found a big booth at an event with hundreds of products using his image and no credit or license to use it. I don't recall the outcome, but the promoter was refusing to pay for the image even though it was clear that it was stolen, and obviously worth a lot in this case. The problem the photographer faced was the promoter was influential in the market and had the potential of blocking his credentials to the events that were the core of his business.