Thinking things through..

Members have quite rightly raised the issue that images can be ‘stolen’ from the club website and what steps will be taken to prevent this? Ok – I hold my hands up and pled guilty with regards to copyright notice and I will ensure that suitable copyright information appears both on the landing page and where practical on the various gallery pages.

Realistically there is nothing we can do prevent images copied from the website. All the various download restrictions can be circumnavigated by simply ‘screen grabbing’ so anything that can be seen can be copied. Realistically the only options to reduce the attractiveness of an image to a potential image thief are:

The inclusion of a watermark within the actual image.

I’m not really a great fan of this approach. If you place a discreet notice in the corner, you risk it being removed with a simple crop. If you place a prominent notice across the main subject, you render the picture fairly unattractive.

Restricting the overall size of the image.

It’s fairly simple to make the picture too small to print at meaningful size. (The club standard projected image size of 1400 by 1050 will only print postcard size at 250 ppi). Clearly if it’s big enough to look right on our webpage then it’s big enough to look Ok on other webpages so we can deter steeling to print this way but not stealing to use on other webpages.

Copyright holder clearly stated in the EXIF data.

We get into a right minefield here… Technically you can sue anybody who alters or removes EXIF copyright data. Clearly if they are going to nick images then altering the EXIF won’t deter them but the very act of using an image with a copyright notice or removing the notice leaves them open to possible legal action.

As a holding action I propose the following club website policy until review at the next Hinckley & District Photographic Society AGM (Spring 2020)

1. All images submitted for competitions will by default be considered for display on the club website. Members submitting images for competitions they do not wish displayed on the website should name their image in the following manner “(Not For Web Use) Title by Author.jpg”

2. Members may request that any of their images are removed from display on the website by informing the Competition Sec. in writing.

3. The author is responsible for adding suitable copyright information to EXIF data area prior to submission. For images submitted for the 2019-20 season only and with with an empty EXIF copyright notice will amended retrospectively to show “Copyright image - Contact HDPS for copyright holder’s details”

4. Suitable copyright notices will be displayed were required on the webpage.

5. The longest side on any image displayed will not exceed 1400 pixels.

I will leave the comment section open for this post.

I encourage club members to add their thoughts and opinions on this issue.