Blog / Best Practices

Please Don’t Take My Images

Dear bloggers, writers, designers, illustrators, anyone that wants my photography on their website:

Here’s the deal. If you want to talk me up or talk up my client, I don’t mind if you use my photography in a bloggy editorial kind of way. I just want a heads up. If you take my photography to promote yourself (even if by bringing traffic to your website where you sell products or services), then we have an issue. These photos are my intellectual property and are protected by US copyright law. All rights reserved means I decide how and who uses the images.

If I just took your car (or your horse) to run some errands without asking you, you’d probably be upset. Sure, no harm was done to your car (or horse), but it’s your property and you would like to know where it is. You’d probably want me to pay some gas money or feed it, too.

I feel the same about my photography. People, innocently or not, just lift my images all the time to promote themselves. In some cases, this is could be a very bad thing. For example, say someone said negative things about my best client and used my photography to prove their point. This puts me in hot water with the client and could even be interpreted that I provided the images to them to slander my own client. Thus, the reason I want a heads up before you use my images.

Hope you understand where I’m coming from. I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just am trying to look after my business. After all, I do this for a living and I can’t eat a photo credit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 11:40 am and is filed under Best Practices and tagged with Best Practices, copyright, photo credit, photography business, stealing images. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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6 Responses to “Please Don’t Take My Images”

1. Brian Lee says:

   12/10/2009 at 12:17 pm

   Said another way “you can’t eat your ego for breakfast”.

   You didn’t mention that people who steal images might find themselves served for a lawsuit. Also an unpleasant repercussion.

   Reply
2. spokejunky says:

   12/10/2009 at 12:42 pm

   Just a tip, webmasters can prevent right click save on images. It doesn’t stop the persistent type, but does add a bit of frustration. Some examples of code:

   http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex9/noright2.htm

   http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1321/css-prevent-right-click-save-as-on-your-webpage-images-with-transparent-layers/

   Once again, anyone saavy in HTML can get around this, but sometimes the frustration factor helps out.

   Reply
3. Katie says:

   12/10/2009 at 12:46 pm

   Could not agree more. This is a message to so many who know so little about art, design and your rights. Will retweet.

   Reply
4. How to properly credit photos from Flickr users | i am indisposed says:

   12/11/2009 at 7:54 am

   [...] Photographer Lincoln Barbour: Here’s the deal. If you want to talk me up or talk up my client, I don’t mind if you use my photography in a bloggy editorial kind of way. I just want a heads up. If you take my photography to promote yourself (even if by bringing [...]

   Reply
5. Katherine says:

   12/14/2009 at 9:28 am

   Hi Lincoln,

   OK, I will confess!

   I blogged about one of your images (spring: http://ides-of-may.com/index.php?showimage=374) because I thought it was beautiful and wanted to share it.

   http://kathall.co.uk/blog/2009/08/spring/

   It’s fully credited and linked. If you want me to take it down, I will. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know before.

   Kat

   Reply
   • Lincoln Barbour says:

     12/14/2009 at 9:40 am

     Hi Kat,

     Thanks for letting me know and sourcing the image back to me. As I said, I don’t mind as long I know about the usage and that the image is used in a non commercial way. Your blog doesn’t strike me as a money making venture.

     Best,

     Lincoln

     Reply