Prevent Downloading of Gallery Photos?

[admin]

When we first started the galleries 8 years ago, we used to prevent downloading of photos. We had to disable this feature a few years back as it was affecting some of the other links on the gallery pages. In the past 2 weeks, as a test, we have reimplemented this feature on the Britain and Ireland Stop Press and more recently on the Scarce gallery making it difficult/impossible for most users to download photos.

We've had a few emails (some photographers) already asking to disable this. We'd like to get a poll from our readers as to what you'd want. What do you think? Good thing or bad?

Thanks for the feedback!

Admin
________
Ford Probe (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Ford_Probe)

[Joe stockwell]

i have to say that i quite like the idea, but i also dont mind people downloading my images as long as they are not going to be published and that i know they are using it

[shearwater2002]

I do not mind people downloading the pics.The majority of people who post seem to just enjoy their birding.
Maybe there could be a separate page for the 'photogs' who do not wish their pics downloaded....although this seems to undermine the overall spirit of Surfbirds.

[Colin Key]

Difficult one this, Andy.

If an image is published on the web, whether it is in a forum gallery, blog, or whatever then (provided you have the know-how) it is downloadable. There are ways of making it more difficult which I guess is what you have done.

I do occasionally find it useful to attach someone else's image to an email (for example, to ask someone I know a question about I.D.) but would never do so without stating that the image was not mine and giving the photographer's name where known. But of course there are people who are less honest. I have had photos stolen and published elsewhere but normally if you prove ownership (i.e. an original, better, copy) then a webmaster will pull the photo and take appropriate action against the poster. I don't sell photos so, to be honest, I am not all that bothered and there is of course the flattery aspect about someone thinking your photos are good enough to be worth "nicking"! There is actually an Indian guy who has constructed a very professional looking website which contains nothing but stolen photos - rumour has it that this guy doesn't even have a camera!!

Without mentioning names, someone contacted BirdGuides asking for my email address after I posted shots of the Moussier's Redstart (one of which is my avatar). BirdGuides quite correctly passed this guy's email address to me, and I responded. He wanted my permission to send the the two small (BirdGuides are very mean on file sizes of non-British birds) photos to a friend of his who owns an hotel in the Algarve. I actually sent him three large, high quality images (or at least the best I could get from those photos) with the proviso that whatever he did with them I should get credited with being the photographer. To cut a long story short, I eventually (after a "tip-off") found the hotel's website and low and behold there are my photos (with my name and copyright symbol trimmed off) attributed to another photographer and were being used to advertise "Birding Breaks" in the Algarve with the banner "The Moussier's Redstart is here and we can take you to see it". To say that the $hit hit the fan would be putting it mildly.

So, that is a long-winded way of saying that, on balance, I would prefer that image downloading was made as difficult as possible. If someone wants a copy of a photo they only have to contact me and I will send them one but I prefer to be in control of who receives what.

Colin

[Brian S]

Andy - I agree that we should ask, but as one that now only irregularly posts pictures (I can't compete with the big boys any more), I do so knowing that others can download them.

I feel that other photographers also post theirs in the knowledge that they may be downloaded, and this is the ethos of surfbirds in a way. Unless any have expressed a real concern, or indeed do so here, I would stick with the status quo.

Brian S

[PeterD]

Andy,

I have to agree with Colin. Whilst my images are no-where near his standard at the moment, I take on trust that people would use images they see in an honest way. I have no trouble with members of this forum downloading images to modify/improve them to provde me and others with advice - thats what I see as an important attribute on this forum. I suppose I have been comforted by the thought that the web images are of insufficient quality for any other purpose.
If anyone wants better quality images, the option should be available but only through the author. Requests for these, I think, should come through Surfbirds to protect the author's privacy.

All the best

PeterD

[snowfinch]

Surely in the spirit of Surfbirds the pictures are there to be shared. For publication that's another matter and amounts to theft.But for use in personal electronic notebooks.What's the problem.

[birdboybowley]

If you put your photos in the public domain then they're gonna be downloaded. I use many of the better photos as valuable reference when illustrating plates so I've found it most annoying not to be able to do this. It just means you have to save the whole webpage and drag the photos off it so it doesn't really stop it, just makes it more of a pain.

[tf1044]

(It just means you have to save the whole webpage and drag the photos off it so it doesn't really stop it, just makes it more of a pain.)

Would it not be easier just to ask the person who had taken the photos for their permission.
TF

[birdboybowley]

No, that would take 10x longer! If I had a problem with people downloading any of my photos then I wouldn't post them on a public forum, i'd leave them on my website.

[Colin Key]

An interesting thread on DPReview about stealing photos. I referred above to a guy in India who had website composed entirely of stolen photos, now another guy called 'Amit' in Singapore has done the same thing:


http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=28202379


Colin

[PeterD]

An interesting thread on DPReview about stealing photos. I referred above to a guy in India who had website composed entirely of stolen photos, now another guy called 'Amit' in Singapore has done the same thing:


http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=28202379


Colin

Thanks for that Colin. This is the sort of action which I deplore. We have all invested in expensive camera equipment, spent a lot of time learning best techniques and these guys come along and pinch our efforts.

I am all for sharing with others but these people are only interested in the pictures for themselves. They do not share the joys of discovery and appreciate nature for what it is. Shame on them.

PeterD

[tf1044]

I have to agree with Colin, I would prefer that image downloading was made as difficult as possible.

tf

[FayJ]

An interesting thread on DPReview about stealing photos. I referred above to a guy in India who had website composed entirely of stolen photos, now another guy called 'Amit' in Singapore has done the same thing:


http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=28202379


Colin

On Philippine bird photographer Romy Ocon's site (http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone/root) he highlights theft of his pics (http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone/photo_theft_051507) by some toerag passing them off as their own.
The halfwit thief even went as far as to descibe himself as having taken the photo of the Philippine-endemic Handsome Sunbird in California! Not only was the guy, someone called Subroto Mukherjee, a thief but also a complete idiot.

[Jacqueline Burrell]

I agree that use of material that infringes the copyrights of others is a major frustration and the slap in the face that Colin Key received for his generous contribution of images was utterly appalling.

At least on one occasion I was more fortunate. An in-flight magazine published independently of the airline, lifted a travel article I written and photographed on a freelance basis in it’s entirely. The Middle East tends to be a very small place and the editor who commissioned the piece from the Gulf just happened to fly on the airline and of course recognized the story. In compensation, I received ten times my original fee!

As an editor of two high quality magazines, I can only suggest that the size of an image uploaded into the Gallery is limited. When uploading pix for a thread, we are restricted in JPG to 195.3kg which is far too low a resolution for any piece of quality printing if the picture required is bigger that a postage stamp.

The larger of our two magazines is 30 x 23 centimetres and for a cover photograph we require a minimum dimension of approximately 4200 x 2800. Inside the magazine, the print area 26 x 19 centimetres and even a photograph for an eighth of a page needs to be an absolute minimum of 400kg in emergencies.

Photographers are not thick on the ground here, so I am able to sell sea/ desert/landscape photographs as well as pix for travel articles and I would never upload anything I cared about larger than 200kg on any website.
My other suggestion is self-explanatory from the image enclosed.