‘Free’ Photography
As many people will have seen my comments on Facebook over the last few days, I felt I should put a blog post together to explain the situation. Okay, the internet is a great thing for people in the visual arts and other type industries as it is a great way to have your work seen. The downside is that people can easily copy your ideas (a huge problem of mine over many years) and in some cases steal the actual imagery. When I post images on here or on Facebook, I put my name or logo on the images, partly so that if people use them elsewhere at least everyone knows who created the image. In particular after weddings I tend to upload images and tag some of the people in them. This is pretty much a licence to use the images on their own page. The couple have paid for the photography, and I am happy to give them the right to use these web sized images on their pages, and in return I get my name out there beneath the images.
When it becomes a problem is when someone who hasn’t paid for your photography, or even asked permission, not only uses the images, but crops the name off. This is quite simply theft. There is no other word for taking something which you haven’t paid for, or had permission to use. Photography these days has been devalued in some peoples eyes as they see the digital medium as ‘free’. The images I shoot are the result of tens of thousands of pounds of equipment, training and a hell of a lot of hard work. For that reason I charge for my photography and rarely donate it for free.
I wouldn’t dream of walking into an artists studio, photographing one of his paintings and then printing it out and framing it for my own wall. I doubt any of the people who steal photography would do this either, but that is exactly what is going on. I should say that it is a very small number of people who have done this with my images.
I will continue to post images, complete with watermarks, and customers can use them wherever they want. All I ask is that the name/watermark is left intact, and if you haven’t paid for the work, or had permission to use it, please have the decency to ask as I rarely would say no.
