Meet an enemy of Stock Photographers.

[Bob Croxford]

There is a charming guy called Matthew Chan who was so incensed that  
Getty should ask him to pay for a pirated image on his website he has  
decided to attack all stock photographers. Its a bit like a guy  
caught shoplifting and starting a campaign against all shops.

http://extortionletterinfo.com/boycott.htm

The home page is worth a read too.

He also has a forum for comments. I was banned without ever wanting  
to post a message.


Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk

[Ryan McGinnis-2]

I believe the attorney on that site (Oscar) is actually representing
someone in the U.S. right now in a lawsuit that Getty has brought
against someone.

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Bob Croxford <bobcroxford@...> wrote:

> There is a charming guy called Matthew Chan who was so incensed that
> Getty should ask him to pay for a pirated image on his website he has
> decided to attack all stock photographers. Its a bit like a guy
> caught shoplifting and starting a campaign against all shops.
>
> http://extortionletterinfo.com/boycott.htm
>
> The home page is worth a read too.
>
> He also has a forum for comments. I was banned without ever wanting
> to post a message.

--
-Ryan McGinnis
The BIG Storm Picture -- http://bigstormpicture.com
Vortex-2 image licensing at http://vortex-2.com
Getty: http://www.gettyimages.com/search/search.aspx?artist=Ryan+McGinnis

[Mike Shipman/Blue Planet Photography]

Seems to me those gentlemen are mentally disturbed, especially the lawyer
who insists on being paid for his services (even if he's magnanimously
lowered his rates to defend "shoplifters").
 
Mike Shipman
Blue Planet Photography
Stock * Commercial * Editorial * Fine Art * Classes/Workshops
www.blueplanetphoto.com <http://www.blueplanetphoto.com/>
208.466.9340
 

-----Original Message-----
From: STOCKPHOTO@... [mailto:STOCKPHOTO@...] On
Behalf Of Bob Croxford
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:16 AM
To: STOCKPHOTO@...
Subject: [STOCKPHOTO] Meet an enemy of Stock Photographers.


 

There is a charming guy called Matthew Chan who was so incensed that
Getty should ask him to pay for a pirated image on his website he has
decided to attack all stock photographers. Its a bit like a guy
caught shoplifting and starting a campaign against all shops.

http://extortionlet <http://extortionletterinfo.com/boycott.htm>
terinfo.com/boycott.htm

The home page is worth a read too.

He also has a forum for comments. I was banned without ever wanting
to post a message.

Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Len Holsborg]

I always find it amazing that people will try every trick in the book, and every excuse, to rationalize, or avoid admitting, their guilt.

There almost always seems to be a common thread amongst infringers - "I didn't know my subcontractor in India who provided me the image was a crook", "I didn't know images on the internet aren't always in the public domain", "stock photographers and/or their agents are extortionists", and on and on and on.......

While I do agree that Getty's approach appears very heavy handed (if in fact the subject demand letter is Getty's first contact with the infringer) the bottom line is that an infringement has taken place and can be proved by Getty. There is no presumption of innocence at this point. Getty, I presume, knows they either own, or have the exclusive right to license the image, so there is no room for 'innocence' here, unless of course, the photographer in question broke their contract with Getty on exclusivity, which would be a whole other matter altogether.

But in Mr Chan's case, he claims to respect intellectual property rights, but refuses to take responsibility for his actions or his lack of due diligence in his business dealings with subcontractors on matters concerning ©. You can't have it both ways.

I suppose Getty did a cost analysis of trying "the nice guy" / congenial approach of sending initial letters /e-mails/ correspondence to the infringers, and determined it wasn't cost effective, and that the potential loss of alienating a potential customer was minimal. Thus they took, it appears, the 'go right for the throat' of the infringer approach, and cast congeniality and good will to the wind.

But to broad brush a whole industry based on the actions of one member (albeit the biggest member) is just plain wrong, vicious and inappropriate.

Mr. Chan is seeking financial donations to support his counter attack, claiming he does not have enough funds to fight alone. My check for $0.01 (1 cent) is in the mail, I just can't resist contributing to causes that are based on fighting evil, extortionist businesses like stock photography ;-}

I hope Mr Chan receives alot more money, he may need it, not only to pay for the image license, but to pay legal costs and damages from a potential libel and slander suit..........

regards,


Len Holsborg

http://lenholsborg.com 

images also available @
http://gettyimages.com/photonica 
http://alamy.com 
http://cgibackgrounds.com 

rights managed licensing exclusively



-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Croxford <bobcroxford@...>
To: STOCKPHOTO@...
Sent: Thu, Oct 29, 2009 12:16 pm
Subject: [STOCKPHOTO] Meet an enemy of Stock Photographers.


 



There is a charming guy called Matthew Chan who was so incensed that
Getty should ask him to pay for a pirated image on his website he has
decided to attack all stock photographers. Its a bit like a guy
caught shoplifting and starting a campaign against all shops.

http://extortionletterinfo.com/boycott.htm

The home page is worth a read too.

He also has a forum for comments. I was banned without ever wanting
to post a message.

Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Allen Russell]

It is difficult for me to find many area where I agree with Getty, but  
this is one where I applaud them and I hope they continue.

This is the best form of education copyright offenders can receive.

Allen Russell
allen@...
allenrussellphoto.com




On Oct 29, 2009, at 10:16 AM, Bob Croxford wrote:

> There is a charming guy called Matthew Chan who was so incensed that
> Getty should ask him to pay for a pirated image on his website he has
> decided to attack all stock photographers. Its a bit like a guy
> caught shoplifting and starting a campaign against all shops.
>
> http://extortionletterinfo.com/boycott.htm
>
> The home page is worth a read too.
>
> He also has a forum for comments. I was banned without ever wanting
> to post a message.
>
>
> Bob Croxford
>
> www.atmosphere.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Courtesy of The STOCKPHOTO Network - http://www.stockphoto.net/
>    Reproduction of STOCKPHOTO posts require permission of author
>  Posting Rules - http://www.stockphoto.net/Subscriptions.php#rules
>    STOCKPHOTO Archives - http://www.stockphoto.net/Archives.php
>     STOCKPHOTO Bookstore - http://www.stockphoto.net/bookstore/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------Yahoo
> ! Groups Links
>
>
>

[idmurray]

Once we get lawyers seeing $$$ we will get protection.

There is good business here for enterprising lawyers who want to offer a service to photographers and agencies on a 'no win, no fee basis' and who will take on all the admin and expense of tracking misuse.

I'll go for the free service where they get 50% of any infringement they locate through the sophisticated software they use to register and enforce copyright on my behalf.

Ian Murray

[Peter Bennett-8]

Ian,

I know companies like Picscout work in conjunction with collection agencies
which do take a percentage (might be 50%), but of course the service is not
free, there are fees based on the number of images submitted to be tracked.
I beta tested Picscout a few years ago and a few infringements were located
and the collection agency did all the work and collected the fees. Worked
out quite nicely, got some nice sums for not much work.

The fact is some stock agencies consider this an additional revenue stream
and Getty has simply taken it to a new level. Frankly I think it is very
smart, especially in a time of lower fees and rising infringements.

I plan to be much more aggressive myself in pursuing infringements and
believe it is more important to enforce at this point than to overly
protect. While I of course will continue to be diligent about  embedding
meta data in all my images, registering my work with the copyright office
and applying watermarks to all images, I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential.

Why should I continue to pay that price when I can effectively enforce my
copyright by means of the different companies and technologies recently
available that can track these infringements. These tools will hopefully
allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
into our financial advantage

TinEye has recently partnered with PhotoShelter and Image Rights was
recently launched, as mentioned by Ryan McGinnis' post. Picscout does a good
job and I can bet that many more and better companies will come along
shortly, all to our benefit. This might actually be fun.


Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com





From: ian <idmurray@...>

Once we get lawyers seeing $$$ we will get protection.

There is good business here for enterprising lawyers who want to offer a
service to photographers and agencies on a 'no win, no fee basis' and who
will take on all the admin and expense of tracking misuse.

I'll go for the free service where they get 50% of any infringement they
locate through the sophisticated software they use to register and enforce
copyright on my behalf.

Ian Murray

 

[PaulSkelcher]

Peter Bennett wrote...."These tools will hopefully allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
into our financial advantage..."

Not only that, but surely some of these companies could represent the "reasonable" standard by which editors, publishers and buyers must use to try and determine the creator of an unknown work, if and when the Orphan Works bill finally gets teeth.

The burden on photographers would be to have images registered on an official image recognition site, but the consequences for a careless buyer would be the stiff penalties of deliberate infringement.

Paul

[Chris Sattlberger]

Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other distributor), collected for infringement?

Chris Sattlberger


--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., "PaulSkelcher" <pskelch@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Peter Bennett wrote...."These tools will hopefully allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
> into our financial advantage..."
<snip>

[Bob Croxford]

On 30 Oct 2009, at 08:35, csimaging wrote:

> Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other  
> distributor), collected for infringement?
>
> Chris Sattlberger

Dear Chris

Do you know Canadian photographer, Larry Williams, who is named in  
the UK Coles Action? Is he a member of SAA? Perhaps you could ask  
him. http://www.larrywilliams.com/main.html

Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk

[David Sanger-3]

yes Chris  I did, once - a $4500 license for a simple print/web use (about
10x normal) that I had reported thru the Getty website after finding it
through TIneye/Idee. Client had previously licensed the image for a
different use


-----
david sanger photography llc
travel ::  stock :: photography :: technology
updates at www.davidsanger.com
t   510-526-0800
m 510-526-2800


On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 1:35 AM, csimaging <csimaging@...> wrote:

>
>
> Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other
> distributor), collected for infringement?
>
> Chris Sattlberger
>
>
> --- In STOCKPHOTO@... <STOCKPHOTO%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "PaulSkelcher" <pskelch@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Peter Bennett wrote...."These tools will hopefully allow us to finally
> turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
> > into our financial advantage..."
> <snip>
>
>  
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[David Barr-2]

>Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other
>distributor), collected for infringement?
>
>Chris Sattlberger
>
>
>--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., "PaulSkelcher" <pskelch@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  Peter Bennett wrote...."These tools will hopefully allow us to
>>finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
>>  into our financial advantage..."
><snip>
>

I've been able to collect a couple of hundred dollars a couple of
times when I found unauthorized use.  More often I've had the usual
response " we didn't know,  it was the web designer it wasn't our
fault, we will remove the images immediately".  The suggestion that
they pay is always a big surprise to them.

You come away from one of these confrontations with the feeling that
you are the bad guy for complaining about the infringement.

I thought Photoshelter was starting to use Tin Eye but I see no
mention of it on the Photoshelter site.  Is this a service you have
to pay for in addition to Photoshelter or will it be included as a
feature of Photoshelter?

David
--
__________________________________________

David Barr  519 846 8827

Simplify your search at http://www.photobar.com

[Chris Sattlberger]

Bob, thanks, will contact him. I am trying to figure out if all these - btw long overdue and highly welcome! - infringement actions are just another revenue stream for the distributors or if the photogs also profit from it. Not suggesting anything sinister here, though, just curious.

Chris Sattlberger

--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., Bob Croxford <bobcroxford@...> wrote:

>
> On 30 Oct 2009, at 08:35, csimaging wrote:
>
> > Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other  
> > distributor), collected for infringement?
> >
> > Chris Sattlberger
>
> Dear Chris
>
> Do you know Canadian photographer, Larry Williams, who is named in  
> the UK Coles Action? Is he a member of SAA? Perhaps you could ask  
> him. http://www.larrywilliams.com/main.html
>
> Bob Croxford
>
> www.atmosphere.co.uk
>

[Ryan McGinnis-2]

It would be hard to tell, unless the photographer submitted it
herself.  When Getty finds an infringement via PicScout and manages to
recover money, the contributor gets the usual cut -- but it shows up
on her sales report as a sale.  The net is full of reports of people
getting Getty infringement letters, so I'd bet that lots of Getty
contributors have received money from infringements, they just have no
idea that that's where those sales on their statement came from.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 3:35 AM, csimaging <csimaging@...> wrote:
> Has anyone on here ever seen a payment from Getty (or any other distributor), collected for infringement?
>
> Chris Sattlberger

--
-Ryan McGinnis
The BIG Storm Picture -- http://bigstormpicture.com
Vortex-2 image licensing at http://vortex-2.com
Getty: http://www.gettyimages.com/search/search.aspx?artist=Ryan+McGinnis

[SuzanneP]

Are you aware of PicScout's Image IRC and ImageExchange?  You don't have to wait for infringement; every image is credited wherever it appears-- wherever--with click-through for rights. PicScout announced a few weeks ago: http://tinyurl.com/ybfu7tj... with lots of industry support:  http://www.picscout.com/news-and-events/industry-wide-support.html.  The trick here really is to get the word out to all the image buyers to download the free tool, so they can see all the images equipped for rights transaction when they're online: http://tinyurl.com/yzs238c.  Full disclosure: I'm PicScout's PR person, but I thought this was important to your discussion, and you don't need to do much at all....I would think much higher returns than tracking infringement.-- Suzanne

Peter Bennett-8 wrote:

Ian,

I know companies like Picscout work in conjunction with collection agencies
which do take a percentage (might be 50%), but of course the service is not
free, there are fees based on the number of images submitted to be tracked.
I beta tested Picscout a few years ago and a few infringements were located
and the collection agency did all the work and collected the fees. Worked
out quite nicely, got some nice sums for not much work.

The fact is some stock agencies consider this an additional revenue stream
and Getty has simply taken it to a new level. Frankly I think it is very
smart, especially in a time of lower fees and rising infringements.

I plan to be much more aggressive myself in pursuing infringements and
believe it is more important to enforce at this point than to overly
protect. While I of course will continue to be diligent about  embedding
meta data in all my images, registering my work with the copyright office
and applying watermarks to all images, I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential.

Why should I continue to pay that price when I can effectively enforce my
copyright by means of the different companies and technologies recently
available that can track these infringements. These tools will hopefully
allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
into our financial advantage

TinEye has recently partnered with PhotoShelter and Image Rights was
recently launched, as mentioned by Ryan McGinnis' post. Picscout does a good
job and I can bet that many more and better companies will come along
shortly, all to our benefit. This might actually be fun.


Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com





From: ian <[e-mail]>

Once we get lawyers seeing $$$ we will get protection.

There is good business here for enterprising lawyers who want to offer a
service to photographers and agencies on a 'no win, no fee basis' and who
will take on all the admin and expense of tracking misuse.

I'll go for the free service where they get 50% of any infringement they
locate through the sophisticated software they use to register and enforce
copyright on my behalf.

Ian Murray

 

[SuzanneP]

Are you aware of PicScout's Image IRC and ImageExchange?  You don't have to wait for infringement; every image is credited wherever it appears-- wherever--with click-through for rights. PicScout announced a few weeks ago: http://tinyurl.com/ybfu7tj... with lots of industry support:  http://www.picscout.com/news-and-events/industry-wide-support.html.  The trick here really is to get the word out to all the image buyers to download the free tool, so they can see all the images equipped for rights transaction when they're online: http://tinyurl.com/yzs238c.  Full disclosure: I'm PicScout's PR person, but I thought this was important to your discussion, and you don't need to do much at all....I would think much higher returns than tracking infringement.-- Suzanne

Peter Bennett-8 wrote:

Ian,

I know companies like Picscout work in conjunction with collection agencies
which do take a percentage (might be 50%), but of course the service is not
free, there are fees based on the number of images submitted to be tracked.
I beta tested Picscout a few years ago and a few infringements were located
and the collection agency did all the work and collected the fees. Worked
out quite nicely, got some nice sums for not much work.

The fact is some stock agencies consider this an additional revenue stream
and Getty has simply taken it to a new level. Frankly I think it is very
smart, especially in a time of lower fees and rising infringements.

I plan to be much more aggressive myself in pursuing infringements and
believe it is more important to enforce at this point than to overly
protect. While I of course will continue to be diligent about  embedding
meta data in all my images, registering my work with the copyright office
and applying watermarks to all images, I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential.

Why should I continue to pay that price when I can effectively enforce my
copyright by means of the different companies and technologies recently
available that can track these infringements. These tools will hopefully
allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
into our financial advantage

TinEye has recently partnered with PhotoShelter and Image Rights was
recently launched, as mentioned by Ryan McGinnis' post. Picscout does a good
job and I can bet that many more and better companies will come along
shortly, all to our benefit. This might actually be fun.


Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com





From: ian <[e-mail]>

Once we get lawyers seeing $$$ we will get protection.

There is good business here for enterprising lawyers who want to offer a
service to photographers and agencies on a 'no win, no fee basis' and who
will take on all the admin and expense of tracking misuse.

I'll go for the free service where they get 50% of any infringement they
locate through the sophisticated software they use to register and enforce
copyright on my behalf.

Ian Murray

 

[Bob Croxford]

On 30 Oct 2009, at 12:56, Ryan McGinnis wrote:

> It would be hard to tell, unless the photographer submitted it
> herself. When Getty finds an infringement via PicScout and manages to
> recover money, the contributor gets the usual cut -- but it shows up
> on her sales report as a sale. The net is full of reports of people
> getting Getty infringement letters, so I'd bet that lots of Getty
> contributors have received money from infringements, they just have no
> idea that that's where those sales on their statement came from.

Dear Ryan

Except that if Getty were to proceed to court they would need to get  
the photographer to prove ownership and perhaps copyright  
registration in the States.

There are also lots of rumours on business forums that the images in  
question are not exclusive. Faced with a bill for $20,000, and more,  
I would have thought that some of those web designers and businesses  
would have attempted to contact the photographers.

Bob Croxford

www.atmosphere.co.uk

[Ryan McGinnis-2]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 3:37 AM, Bob Croxford <bobcroxford@...> wrote:

> On 30 Oct 2009, at 12:56, Ryan McGinnis wrote:
>
>> It would be hard to tell, unless the photographer submitted it
>> herself. When Getty finds an infringement via PicScout and manages to
>> recover money, the contributor gets the usual cut -- but it shows up
>> on her sales report as a sale. The net is full of reports of people
>> getting Getty infringement letters, so I'd bet that lots of Getty
>> contributors have received money from infringements, they just have no
>> idea that that's where those sales on their statement came from.
>
> Dear Ryan
>
> Except that if Getty were to proceed to court they would need to get
> the photographer to prove ownership and perhaps copyright
> registration in the States.
>
> There are also lots of rumours on business forums that the images in
> question are not exclusive. Faced with a bill for $20,000, and more,
> I would have thought that some of those web designers and businesses
> would have attempted to contact the photographers.

This is true; however, the number of cases that Getty takes to court
versus the number of cases that Getty resolves via settlement or via a
collections agency is quite small.


--
-Ryan McGinnis
The BIG Storm Picture -- http://bigstormpicture.com
Vortex-2 image licensing at http://vortex-2.com
Getty: http://www.gettyimages.com/search/search.aspx?artist=Ryan+McGinnis

[Len Holsborg]

Hi Peter, you wrote, in part:


>>>> "....I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential." <<<<<


 
I'm curious as to in what ways you have experienced less marketing potential from protecting your work. Is this the case even for low resolution images you have on the web, or do you feel low res is not worth the effort, quality wise ?
 
In my opinion, the potential benefits of the exposure of having a web site (with low res, watermarked images, of course) far outweigh the risks of someone stealing those same low res, watermarked images.
 
As an added layer of protection,(for what it's worth) I also include a brief, basic discussion of © issues and a friendly reminder of why stealing is not only wrong, but will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. I also state that the website images are low res jpegs, and that the actual files for license are hi res tif's and will be of a much higher quality than the website versions, for larger uses/applications, if required.
 
Thanks in advance for any personal experiences (or maybe those of others) where you have seen your marketing potential limited.
 
regards,


Len Holsborg

http://lenholsborg.com 

images also available @
http://gettyimages.com/photonica 
http://alamy.com 
http://cgibackgrounds.com 

rights managed licensing exclusively



-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Bennett <pb@...>
To: STOCKPHOTO@...
Sent: Thu, Oct 29, 2009 6:03 pm
Subject: Re: [STOCKPHOTO] Re: Meet an enemy of Stock Photographers.


 



Ian,

I know companies like Picscout work in conjunction with collection agencies
which do take a percentage (might be 50%), but of course the service is not
free, there are fees based on the number of images submitted to be tracked.
I beta tested Picscout a few years ago and a few infringements were located
and the collection agency did all the work and collected the fees. Worked
out quite nicely, got some nice sums for not much work.

The fact is some stock agencies consider this an additional revenue stream
and Getty has simply taken it to a new level. Frankly I think it is very
smart, especially in a time of lower fees and rising infringements.

I plan to be much more aggressive myself in pursuing infringements and
believe it is more important to enforce at this point than to overly
protect. While I of course will continue to be diligent about embedding
meta data in all my images, registering my work with the copyright office
and applying watermarks to all images, I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential.

Why should I continue to pay that price when I can effectively enforce my
copyright by means of the different companies and technologies recently
available that can track these infringements. These tools will hopefully
allow us to finally turn the tables on these thieves and in effect turn it
into our financial advantage

TinEye has recently partnered with PhotoShelter and Image Rights was
recently launched, as mentioned by Ryan McGinnis' post. Picscout does a good
job and I can bet that many more and better companies will come along
shortly, all to our benefit. This might actually be fun.

Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com

From: ian <idmurray@...>

Once we get lawyers seeing $$$ we will get protection.

There is good business here for enterprising lawyers who want to offer a
service to photographers and agencies on a 'no win, no fee basis' and who
will take on all the admin and expense of tracking misuse.

I'll go for the free service where they get 50% of any infringement they
locate through the sophisticated software they use to register and enforce
copyright on my behalf.

Ian Murray







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Peter Bennett-8]

Hi Len,

I wasn't referring to my websites, I was speaking more about distribution of
my images on other sites and the webs in general. My feeling until recently
was that I should limit the exposure of my images to only my websites, and
other agency's sites I distributor them through. The idea of putting them on
sites like Flickr or any other "unprofessional" sites seemed risky.

About a year and a half ago I was working with a group or environmentalists
who were building a raft made out of plastic bottles that they planned to
sail from LA to Hawaii to bring attention to the plastic soup in North
Pacific Gyre. They needed publicity and I thought it would be a unique story
opportunity. I ended up following the raft for number of days out to sea and
got some great shots. I told them that they could use them on their blog and
also give them to any other websites that wanted them, free of charge. All
requests for print usage however would be referred to me for licensing.
Those images were distributed on websites around the world and were seen by
a lot of people. In the last year and a half, the images from that story
have become my all time best selling stock photos, the requests poured in
for months and even just last week I licensed two of them to two different
clients.

The question was, is this an isolated situation based on the uniqueness of
the photos, or was there something to be learned by the controlled
distribution of the images to all those websites.

About 6 months ago, I decided to put all my environmental images and some
travel images on Flickr to see what would happen. They all contained the
meta data and a watermark with my credit line along the bottom and were all
LoRes files of course. Within a week or so I made my first sale from someone
who found me on Flickr, and I have made a couple of dozen more since, mostly
for print publication. I have also gotten several requests for free usage on
websites, which, if they are doing it for a good cause or love of their
subject, I will give them to them for free, provided they link back to my
website. They are like little ads for me.

I consider this viral  marketing or whatever you want to call it, but it
does seem to work. What's more, Flickr does an amazing job of SEO and the
hits my Flickr site gets from searches on Google and other search engines is
far greater than anything I have been able to achieve on my own. Yesterday
for instance I received 119 hits from Yahoo and Yahoo Images and 65 hits
from Google and Google images. The fees I get are not high, but they are not
low either and, the truth is, it is a numbers game to some degree and I am
not about to sniff my nose at these sales.

This is when I started to realize that by limiting the exposure my images
could get on the web, I was losing opportunities for sales. It would be like
being afraid to use my images in an ad for myself for fear of them being
scanned and unlawfully used. I also realized there is risk involved and that
this might not be the best approach for everyone.

I am in the process of back registering every image that has not been
previously registered with the copyright office and then aggressively
pursuing all commercial infringements I can with the help of Picscout or
another of the image search technology companies out there. I believe the
cost of the service will be worth the gain. The technology allows me to
focus on enforcing my copyright as opposed to overly protecting it, I
honestly feel more empowered about things than I have for quite a while.

Thanks.

Peter Bennett
Ambient Images Inc.
P: 310-312-6640

Specializing in New York and California images
http://www.californiastockphoto.com
http://www.newyorkstockphoto.com
http://www.greenstockphotos.com


From: Len Holsborg <lenswork1@...>


Hi Peter, you wrote, in part:

>>>> "....I have seen that by overly protecting
my work and limiting web exposure I have actually hurt my marketing
potential." <<<<<

I'm curious as to in what ways you have experienced less marketing potential
from protecting your work. Is this the case even for low resolution images
you have on the web, or do you feel low res is not worth the effort, quality
wise ?
 
In my opinion, the potential benefits of the exposure of having a web site
(with low res, watermarked images, of course) far outweigh the risks of
someone stealing those same low res, watermarked images.
 
As an added layer of protection,(for what it's worth) I also include a
brief, basic discussion of © issues and a friendly reminder of why stealing
is not only wrong, but will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. I
also state that the website images are low res jpegs, and that the actual
files for license are hi res tif's and will be of a much higher quality than
the website versions, for larger uses/applications, if required.
 
Thanks in advance for any personal experiences (or maybe those of others)
where you have seen your marketing potential limited.
 
regards,

Len Holsborg

http://lenholsborg.com