Best Business Practices for Photographers [155]
Don't Steal My Work, Period
With the position I've described, I've found myself in several situations in which my work has been infringed. Stolen is a better word, but infringed is the technical term. To that end, use the term in dialogues when you're infringed. To that point, your work will be infringed. If you're displaying it, sharing it, or otherwise distributing it, I can practically guarantee that you will be infringed upon. If I told you that I could provide the same guarantee that you would have someone break into your house, would you buy an alarm? How about a guarantee that you'd have an auto accident at some point in your life—would you get insurance? I suppose the answer is the same in both cases. Trust me—you will have your work infringed. To that end, protect yourself.
That said, if you're unhappy about Adobe's requiring you to activate your software, thank the thieves. In an April 2005 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen said that one third of their revenue is lost to software thieves. I encourage you to learn more about piracy in general at sites such as www.bsa.org/usa/antipiracy, because piracy of software has similar arguments and issues as infringement in photography.
The software fotoQuote, which was the precursor to fotoBiz, was almost put out of business because photographers were stealing the software. Photographers steal Photoshop. They steal FTP software—even software that costs less than $40 is being infringed. I could not see my way clear to demand one cent from someone else who has stolen my work if I were infringing upon others' creative endeavors, whether software, movies, music, or the like. Further, if I can't afford something so absolutely integral to my business as Photoshop, then there are significant problems with my revenue totals—so much so that I can't afford an initial $600 and upgrades of $200 or so every 18 months for something I use for extended periods of time almost every day. Further, it is important to note that Adobe, as a normal part of their file-handling process, generates a unique document ID for every image it handles for you. This generated ID is unique to you—or more specifically, your registered version of Photoshop—because it integrates the serial number of the program into the ID. And, as any program evolves, you can expect this handling of your files and the legality (or lack thereof) of your installed version of Photoshop (as well as other applications) to be a growing issue as all software companies seek to combat piracy, just as you would like as many tools as possible to protect you from people stealing your photography.
Copyright: What Is It, When Is It in Effect, and Whose Is It?
Copyright is exactly that—the "right to copy." And, it includes the converse—"the right to preclude a copy." Copyright is also, as noted earlier, the right to display (that is, present—or not—in a gallery, on a website, and so on); the right to perform and the converse (prevent a performance of), which is not as prevalent an issue for photographs; the right to distribute or opt not to allow distribution; and a variation of the right to copy—that is, make a derivative (or, again, to preclude someone else from doing so). For photographers, producing work now causes your work to be copyrighted the moment the shutter closes and the image is fixed in a flash card chip (or on film if you're still so inclined). Were someone to steal that card and publish your work, you are protected—not as well as if you'd registered the work, but you're protected because you've been infringed. All you'd have to do is secure the file, compare the metadata that includes the camera's serial number in it, and then sue not just for infringement in federal court, but also for theft of physical property (the flash card) in civil court.
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NOTE
In this instance, if the infringing publication did so within 90 days and you did not have the CF card, you could actually register the image within that 90 days and still sue for statutory