Photo Piracy

We are probably all aware of the piracy issues surrounding movies, software etc. but it seems when it comes to photographs many people have no clue they may be actually breaking the law when they copy that photo from flickr or google images.

As a photographer when you create an image you hold the copyright of that photograph and as a result you hold the right to make money from that photograph and to some degree control the usage of that image.
The main difference is that unlike the movie or software industries where there are major international organisations which enforce copyright no such body exists for photographers.

The reason I write about this was that when visiting the Royal Adelaide Hospital recently some of their promotional material displayed in public places clearly contained images which had been stolen. Its hard enough for photographers to make a living and it makes it even harder when our government bodies are either uneducated or couldn't care less.

Here's the image which you can quite clearly see the copyright warning from a company called Inmagine. Other images on the notices I would suspect were also lifted from the internet without payment as an easy give away is that the image has been blown up behind its resolution and becomes blocky. Our government departments should know better!!!!

Now this photographer deserves payment for their work, there is the potential that significant costs were incurred in the creation of this image. It could be a paid model, a makeup artist may have been needed, the cost of travel to this location etc.

I would encourage you to report these instances if you see them around, if there is a watermark or copyright notice on the image it has been stolen. Simply take a photo and send it to the company indicated in the watermark.

Unfortunately because there is no body protecting us we as individuals have to take action when we see things like this.