Copyright or right to copy?

Scenario 1: Your neighbor has a fabulous garden. They keep it weeded, sprayed, and generally perfect. The fruits of their labors are easily seen through the fence. You enjoy it every day! The flowers reach above your fence. You need flowers for a bouquet to give to your mom. So, you reach across and take your pick. Scenario 2: Would you stand in a store and steal something? "oh, look... this is so neat - I have to have it" You can afford it. You are generally a very honest person. But, the item ends up in your pocket anyway. (Kleptomania is not the discussion here.) Ten or so years ago I started doing business graphics for corporate America. The internet was really coming into its own, and the graphics/photographs were there for the taking. Just to give you a time frame: this was around the time of the P2P music sharing. We were an ASCAP shop and so my department knew music was a no-no and had a library full of Royalty free music, but not so much with photographs/graphics. Especially because the research for an appropriate graphic was so cumbersome. One either had to flip through a printed book or browse a CD in a difficult search program. And Google with the internet beckoned with its vast content. If anything, the difficulty has not changed. Researching for an appropriate image is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. This is one reason why I became a corporate photographer. It was sometimes easier to shoot the item, than it was to find it shot exactly the way I needed it. Of the graphics library we owned, I think we only used 10% of the shots because of the quality and appropriateness. And then, my clients became weary of the same images over and over. As I educated myself on the use of images from the internet, I became more and more of a "stealth" Copyright evangelist. The turning point in my career came when I was asked by the CEO (of the day) to get an image of a famous Americana artist's painting to use as a 'Happy Thanksgiving' background -- "... get it off the internet" were his words. I didn't. It was wrong and I knew it. I pushed back. I did contact the artist's estate to see what the procedure would be. I found out then, that it would be less than 1000.00 to use the image in that manner. A great lesson in intellectual property. You just have to ask & sometimes there is a cost! (The other lesson: don't say no to the CEO. I didn't use the image because they didn't want to pay for it; they were syncing it with CR'd music to boot and I never did a presentation for the CEO again. Don't worry - I transitioned to a better position - I hated that position anyway! ) After that, I read as much as I could find, and followed the P2P legal shenanigans that were followed in the media. I didn't agree with the large fines, but then I also didn't agree with what the P2P communities were doing. Over the years, I trained colleagues in the fine art of seeing and designing - photographs and graphics. One of my greatest disappointments came a few years ago when I realized that a person I trained to take over my position was pulling (stealing) photos off the internet to use in internal publications. I had a talk with that person, but I cannot say that person is 100% compliant to this day. Last year, I did a fund raiser photo shoot for PPA's Charities: Operation Smile. Portraits of my church family. All proceeds went to fix cleft palettes in 3rd world countries. I educated the church office in the fair use of the images I provided; but I am seeing on the Social Media sites more and more of these portraits show up! The people who bought a package are scanning them to use on Facebook and the like. To be honest, I'm a bit flattered. But I'd like to be asked. Not so I can charge them more money (although that is another revenue stream) but so I can better understand where my images (my intellectual property) appears & I can control what I create. Taking a photo of a photo or scanning a photo isn't as good as cropping the actual file for a specific use. Taking a scan of a portrait and having it reprinted either on your printer or a commercial printer can provide terrible results - these files can be and are saved to be printed in a specific way... and frankly, some credit wouldn't be bad either. I ask you, gentle readers, to do two things for me: 1. If you've had a great portrait made recently that you must use on Facebook or one of the other sites, ask the photographer who made that portrait for you for permission to use it in that manner. They would appreciate it! 2. And educate yourself! Some lite reading: http://www.copyright.gov/ http://creativecommons.org/ http://www.csusa.org/face/stilim/index.htm And here on my site is my take for the benefits of my clients: http://www.snowprophoto.com/FAQs.html Sincerely, a frustrated portraitist! (BTW: The CEOs presentation was finished by someone else who didn't have a problem picking "the flowers across the fence.")