The Obsidian Stock Blog

So you have a little portfolio of your images on Flickr. Whether or not you are a professional photographer, this latest blip below should make you think twice about displaying any of your images on the Net without a watermark - and working with a stock agency like iStockphoto whose anonymous mass of contributors can turn out to be image thieves …

“According to a news report on Webware.com (a CNET web-site,) Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, a professional photographer from Iceland and a user of the Flickr photo-sharing site, has discovered several of her images were posted on iStockphoto by a third party using the screen name “vulcanacar.” iStock has shut down vulcanacar’s portfolio and removed his or her account from the site.

As a warning to other users about the risk of posting images on Flickr, Ms. Guðleifsdóttir posted on the Flickr blog a screen shot of one of her images as it appeared on iStock under the imposter’s name.

She points out that of the thirty-one images in vulcanacar’s portfolio on iStock, twenty-five were hers. iStock EVP Kelly Thompson says it will be difficult to pursue damages from the user in question because he’s in a country where it would be very difficult to do too much to him.

Obsidian Stock prides itself in knowing each and every single photographer in its portfolio, having met most of them face-to-face, and paying extreme attention to usage and copyright issues.

Coming up tomorrow - How To Watermark Your Images for Flickr and the Web.

Most people (photographers and their clients alike) seem at times a little fuzzy on what copyright really means, and how to deal with it.

In today’s Washington Post, Dave Johnson sums up what copyright is, details out the various levels of copyright protection for your images, and the actions you can take if a violation occurs.The article, “Your Photos, Your Rights, and the Law” is a good read if you want to start clearing out those cobwebs in terms of what is legal. Recommended for Obsidian Stock photographers and clients alike.

This is an update of a topic touched on in an earlier Obsidian Stock blog entry: Congress To Consider Softer Version of Orphan Works Bill

After months of debate and negotiation, a bill on orphan works has been introduced in Congress. Photography groups continue to oppose the bill, but say it is not as bad as they feared.

The Orphan Works Act of 2006 (H.R. 5439) is based on a recommendation from the U.S. Copyright Office, which photography groups decried as a dangerous erosion of copyright law. But the bill also makes some concessions to rights owners, including delaying the effective date of the law until 2008 and ordering the Copyright Office to put more information online to help people find copyright holders.

The bill was introduced Tuesday by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and will be reviewed Wednesday at a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, which Smith chairs.

The bill (the text of which was posted on the web site of the American Society of Media Photographers) gives no special consideration to visual works. It does, however, direct the Copyright Office spend a year studying copyright small claims and report back to Congress. Photo groups have been pushing for an easier and less expensive way of settling small copyright disputes, which now are handled by federal district courts.

Full Story here.

The Copyright Office has suggested legislation that, in its current form, could have a devastating impact on professional photographers.

The proposal would limit, or in some cases eliminate, the damages available against an infringer of an orphan work.

What is an orphan work? It is a work or image, presumed to have copyright protection, but whose owner cannot be located even after a reasonably diligent search conducted in good faith.

Full Story.

At the same time, the American Society of Media Photographers has met with representatives of the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress and with industry partners to discuss the online registration of photographs from within existing and future digital asset management programs.

“With on-line registration on the near horizon, this feature will make it much easier to actually register your copyright and more fully protect your images,” says Richard Anderson, chair of ASMP’s Digital Standards Committee.

Full Story.