Facebook and photography

[yaterag]

I'm sure everyone here is aware of the lack of rights with any photo that is posted on facebook but aparently all photographers aren't.

I found an series of photos on there today where the photographer had gone in after the photos were posted and added a comment below each photo claiming copyright on all their photographs. Does this photog actually think that by adding a blurb below their photos about how they still claim the rights to them, that they actually do, or are they just making sure their name is out there for advertising purposes?

For the record there were no watermarks or any features on the photographs themselves claiming them as theirs. This was also a photographer that was shooting for a few different commercial music artists.

[lyncca]

It was probably just for advertising purposes. I just tag myself in photos that I have taken that my clients put up (when they purchase digital files). I don't put my copyright, just a tag with "Lyncca Harvey Photography". My clients don't mind, they generally want to help build my business.

By the way, when you own the copyright of the image you CAN limit it to not allow it to be put on any social network. For example, if I sell a print, they do not have the right to scan it and post it whereever they want. Not to say people don't, but they aren't "allowed" to by my contract.

The whole thing of lack of rights is assuming you had the right to post it in the first place. So, when I load images to my Fan Page of clients or artistic shots, I can't get ticked off if my clients then take them and post them to their page. Of course, then they have a big ol' watermark on them ;)

[peeker]

My philosophy on using Facebook for photo business is that it is a loss leader for the real portrait business you can get by word of mouth. With the number of images and clients a professional photographer has, the few events or marketing images you put online (with appropriate watermark), should positively impact your business by pure exposure.

As I am shooting pro-bono (loss leader) events and making relationships with both parents and kids, I encourage them to tag themselves so their friends can see the images, watermark and my fan page and become fans. I do get some print business from the parents who want the prints, although the bigger draw is the potential portrait, senior, wedding, family, event business for someone seeing the "loss leader" work that is on facebook.

Everyone has to decide for themselves... are you expecting to get paid for every image? Every minute you spend shooting, editing, proofing, hosting, pricing, invoicing? Or is the bigger business out there by getting your name more well known by making more and more relationships?

Social networking is here to stay and kids today don't print images... they will some day when they get married, etc.

Hopefully we can all figure out how to make money in this evolving digital age, where pictures are thought to be throw-away's.

[Cajungaltx]

I put a watermark on all photos posted on CL - and they are resized for web.

And I tag like a crazy lady... the goal is to get the photos on OTHER people's facebooks for OTHER people to see... and hire me to take beautiful photos of THEM... ;-)

[toverman]

Originally Posted by peeker

Social networking is here to stay and kids today don't print images... they will some day when they get married, etc.

Hopefully we can all figure out how to make money in this evolving digital age, where pictures are thought to be throw-away's.

I agree, except hopefully professional digital images won't necessarily be throwaways. I'm waiting for the tipping point when kids get older and miss the printed photos from their childhood that their parents had. Pixels are so easy to erase or misplace!

Kids today who get married years from now may not print their wedding images, either. Digital frames may be so advanced that they'll just purchase the multimedia slideshow and it will run whenever somebody's in the room. Or maybe it and other slideshows will be the "screensaver" for their wall-sized TV in the living room.

To survive we need to embrace the changes and remain flexible while figuring out how to sustain profitability.

[Coogie]

Didn't facebook receive a huge backlash regarding the picture ownership and made it clear that they don't own the pictures?

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Coogie

Didn't facebook receive a huge backlash regarding the picture ownership and made it clear that they don't own the pictures?

Yes, I believe this is correct.

[deep_creek]

Last time I checked Facebook's TOS on photographs (a few months ago), it was not in favor of the user.

[lyncca]

Easy enough to look up...

Sharing Your Content and Information
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
When you add an application and use Platform, your content and information is shared with the application. We require applications to respect your privacy settings, but your agreement with that application will control how the application can use the content and information you share. (To learn more about Platform, read our About Platform page.)
When you publish content or information using the "everyone" setting, it means that everyone, including people off of Facebook, will have access to that information and we may not have control over what they do with it.
We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them).

[KD5NRH]

Originally Posted by lyncca

It was probably just for advertising purposes. I just tag myself in photos that I have taken that my clients put up (when they purchase digital files). I don't put my copyright, just a tag with "Lyncca Harvey Photography". My clients don't mind, they generally want to help build my business.

Why not throw in a freebie on those discs: a "web" folder of all the same shots at, say, 800x600 with a subtle watermark of your URL? I know that most of the time when I'm posting anything that doesn't really need to be at full res, I prefer to resize way down and drop the JPG quality to about 85% rather than wait for a 2+ MB file (or several) to upload.

[Dobick]

Originally Posted by yaterag

I'm sure everyone here is aware of the lack of rights with any photo that is posted on facebook but aparently all photographers aren't.

I found an series of photos on there today where the photographer had gone in after the photos were posted and added a comment below each photo claiming copyright on all their photographs. Does this photog actually think that by adding a blurb below their photos about how they still claim the rights to them, that they actually do, or are they just making sure their name is out there for advertising purposes?

For the record there were no watermarks or any features on the photographs themselves claiming them as theirs. This was also a photographer that was shooting for a few different commercial music artists.

I may be wrong about this (but I am pretty sure I am not) You do not at any point in time when posting an image to facebook give up your copyright. You still own the copyright to that image, and you can still enforce the copyright. Just because you enter into an agreement with facebook that allows them to use the image (with all the agreements as stipulated) does not mean that Jane Doe (as a member of the facebook community) automatically now has full and unfettered access to your images. Furthermore, at no point in the agreement that I have with facebook does the transfer of copyright take place. Giving usage rights is not in anyway the same thing as giving away your copyright.

So unless a user that is not the photographer goes to facebook and gets a sublicense (in written form) to use my images, they would be in violation of my copyright were they to do anything with those images (other than use them from facebook, inside of the parameters of that web application)