Sharing vs. Stealing

Taking images from websites to re-post elsewhere has become a common thing.  It is so common, most people don't even think twice about it.  And most of the time, it isn't a big deal.  I mean why put a photo on the internet unless you wanted to share it with the world?  That was the point right?  If my sphere of "influence" is 100 people, shouldn't I be pleased if one of those 100 people loved my photo so much, they posted it elsewhere and shared it with their friends, etc., etc.  The end result is just more people enjoying an image that I wanted to share in the first place.

And that doesn't bother me one bit....  as long as I'm not trying to sell that image (and as long as someone isn't trying to profit from my images).

The pictures that I post on this blog are for the most part, pictures I've taken for myself.  They are pictures that I took because I wanted to, not because someone asked me to, or because I was hoping to earn some money with them.  So if they can go off and make other people smile that I don't even know, that's great!

But the images that I take in an effort to earn some money, are a whole other story.  There is nothing more frustrating than putting in hours and hours of work only to have someone steal those pictures.  I didn't take those photos for personal satisfaction, I actually took them for the person who in turn, stole the images from me.  Isn't that a slap in the face?

This is nothing new.  Every photographer has the same problem, and that is why the watermark was created.  But you know what?  I hate watermarks.  Hate, hate, hate them.  Even small, cute watermarks detract from the image.  But if you want your watermark to be effective, you can't use a cute little one that can be easily cropped out, you need to plaster a giant thing right across the centre of the image and how fun is that to look at?  Besides, you've probably noticed that even having a giant company logo right in the middle doesn't stop some people.  I know I've seen a tonne of images on facebook that have logos right across the middle that have obviously been stolen off of some poor photographer's website.

So instead of continuing to whine about it, I've come up with a simple watermark I'm going to use from now on.  ;)