How Much Can You Protect Your Photographs on the Internet?

Two things have gotten me thinking about what protections are and aren't available when presenting photography on the web and about the lack of information (or misinformation) that many people have on the subject. First there was post on Lifehacker last week that referenced a post on parent hacks where a father described printing images he found on Flickr and decorating his son's room with them. The problem is that the images he chose to use were copyrighted with "All Rights Reserved." This means the photographers didn't want their images taken from Flickr and used in any other capacity. It's very possible the photographers would have given permission to the father or offered to sell him a print but the father didn't ask. In fact when questioned about the copyright issue the father said I thought of the fact that the photographers allowed users to download the Original sizes for their images (I do understand that you can restrict what people can download to low-res images only, which these Flickr users did not choose to do), which to me is tacit permission to print them and hang them on your wall.

Basically he's saying that even though the photographs' listed copyright indicated not to take it, print it or do anything with it other than view it on Flickr he felt it was ok to do so because he knew that a large version existed.

The second event that got me thinking was at the seminar I attended Saturday when talk of web portfolios and presenting photographs online came up. One of the questions asked (and echoed by nearly everyone in the room) was "how can I protect my photographs?" The instructor for this particular seminar does not present her photographs on the web so she didn't have a lot of information. Another student chimed in with some false information that, as a bit of a web geek, I had to correct. She basically said that by using "expensive software" you can make sure that people can't "right click and save as" therefore completely protecting your work. I'll say now, what I said then "That's absolutely not true."

You can use JavaScript to disable right clicking but that doesn't mean your photographs are forever "protected" from others. It only takes a little bit of (not very advanced) knowledge to get around the disabled right click to access images. As the fine folks at Flickr say "it's important to remember that if people see your photo, they can copy it and/or blog it." So if your image is available publicly on the internet (meaning not part of a password protected site or listed as private on Flickr or another photo service) it can be taken.

I don't know of anything that will absolutely guarantee that no one will ever be able to take your image from the internet. There are some sites and some software programs that claim to give you complete protection but I don't believe them. People can get around disabled right clicks, they can take screenshots, they can view the source, they can do a hundred different things.

If you're terribly concerned about your images being stolen don't put them on the internet. It's really that simple. Beyond that my philosophy is to help people and give them the opportunity to do the right thing and most often they will. On my photography website I list a copyright notice on every page stating that all the work on the site is mine. This reminds people that a real person created all the content on the site and if they take it they're taking it from a real person. Beyond that though I offer the opportunity to buy prints and licenses of my work. I make contact information easy to find and encourage people to contact me with questions or comments about my work. I encourage them to do the right thing. At this point in time I'm not terribly pro-active in "protecting" my images on the internet because I think treating people like criminals who are out to steal your content has the effect of actually encouraging people to act like criminals and steal your content. This doesn't mean that I want people to print copies of my images and sell them or license them or do anything commercial with them. But if you want to email one of my flower pictures to your Grandma for her desktop wallpaper, be my guest.

If you feel it's necessary to be pro-active in keeping images you post on the internet from being copied, shared or otherwise used without your express knowledge and permission here are a few easy road blocks you can throw up to interfere with any potential taking. Again, these are most definitely not guaranteed to protect your image but they'll probably interfere with all but the most determined person looking to take your images for their own purposes.

1. Digital Watermark and Signatures Digitally signing and noting copyright or adding watermarks directly on your images guarantees that everyone knows the image belongs to you. It makes your image ugly but that's the tradeoff. Remember that signatures and watermarks in corners and solid color sections of your images are easily cropped or cloned out.

2. Join a Photo Sharing Site like Flickr but make your images private Many photo sharing sites allow you to limit who can and cannot see your images. By making your images private only the people you allow to see the images will be able to see them. If they can't be seen they probably can't be taken.

3. Use small, low resolution images Low res images can't produce good quality prints and they can't be blown up without serious loss of quality. Some, like the decorating dad, assume that large, high resolution images are there for the taking.

4. Use a Creative Commons license Creative Commons licenses allow you to determine exactly what permissions you want to give regarding use of your images, if at all. With variations like allowing derivative works, allowing use with proper attribution and allowing use only for non-commercial purposes you can find a Creative Commons license for just about any rights scenario. The Creative Commons has a great wizard for easily creating licenses for your site and image galleries.

5. List your copyright on every page of content While this doesn't hinder taking through any technical means it's a subtle reminder that a real person exists behind the images or words.

Disabling right clicking isn't on this list because I think that's just rude and a bad idea. As a Firefox user I right click to open links in new tabs dozens of times each day. Anytime I come across a site that has disabled right clicking I get very irritated and visit that site again only if I absolutely have to. You've interfered with the way I browse the internet because you're so certain I'm out to steal your content. Well I'm not but your content just became a lot less attractive to me. Long live right clicking.

Back To Top