Who owns the image?

One of the topics for our regular “techie Tuesday” session today was learning how to prepare a CD of images for a friend. The technical part isn’t too difficult: just select the images and choose the menu selection to write them to a CD. However, that wasn’t what kept us at it for a lot longer than either of us had intended.

We sell some of the pictures we take. If we “give away” a selection of pictures, we may be limited in our ability to sell one or more of them to illustrate an article later on. Why? Editors are—or should be—careful about the images they choose, and online tools make it easy to check images. Imagine if an editor did a search and found one of my images online being used to illustrate our friend’s web site:

• If there was proper attribution, the editor might infer that I had given permission—but then might choose not to use the image because it was already in use.
• If there was no attribution, a more troubling outcome might be that she would question whether the image was in fact mine.

Either way, my image wouldn’t get used and I would be out whatever fee would normally be paid.

What did we do?

We decided to add our copyright information to the files (using Windows), then use Picasa to export the images while reducing the dimensions and adding a watermark. The exported files were smaller—yet still quite suitable for web use—and each had a copyright notice in the lower right corner. The file information also contains the copyright details.

Finally, Katharine prepared a text file identifying her as the owner of the images, and provided her email address as the contact to obtain permissions and the original non-watermarked version if someone wanted to use an image for commercial purposes. The CD was then cut with the images and the text file.

But…

File information can be changed and images can be cropped.

Close-up view of a delphinium floret in our garden (showing a watermarked copyright)

The above image includes my copyright both in the file information and as a watermark. But what if someone were to crop the file and save it without the embedded file information?

A cropped view of the same delphinium floret without any watermarked copyright

They might do this quite innocently—maybe for their web site or for a community brochure—but a dishonest person could do it deliberately to avoid paying for the picture.

Either way, now there isn’t anything to show that I took the shot and own the rights. If the cropped version of my image was used in a publication, I wouldn’t know—and wouldn’t be paid for it.

Bottom line?

Digital images are creative content—no different than an artist’s painting or a musician’s song—and the creator has invested time and money into getting to the point where the images have value.

If you want to use someone else’s creative content for any purpose, ask permission first. You may not be asked to pay for the use, but the creator will want to know where and how their work is being used.