Well, not the cheeriest of poems I’ve ever written, but fitting…it must fit the subject of the photograph. 

Is my poetry any good?  What a question to ask yourself.  I don’t know if these lines fit any formula of poetry, and I don’t really want to occupy my mind with formulas.

When I ‘visualize’ what “Trapped ” is, these are the thoughts, the visual words I see in my mind’s eye.

I want to thank Brittney for finding my Iritis Eyeball photograph at my blog.  She contacted me and asked if she could do one of her “Dark Art” pieces using my eyeball photograph.  After some emailing, it was agreed upon and she applied her skills, her genre (Dark Art) to my photograph, and the “Trapped” photograph (above) is the result.

I do appreciate that Brittney wrote to me to ask permission to do this collaborative work.  I commend her on that.  The results of this ended up well.

It is a sad note that both of us have had people use our images/artwork without asking permission.  It is difficult to tell if these ‘violators of copyright images‘ know that they are not supposed to use images made by other people.  However, if you see a © symbol, then the work is clearly unusable to anyone but the artist/photographer/author of the work.

However, if an image is in the public domain, or an image has an ‘open’ copyright that allows its use for specific purposes without asking permission, then that’s a different story.  This sort of usage freedom is what the Creative Commons copyright notice is for – to allow some freedom of usage of intellectual works.  BUT, THESE WORKS ARE ALSO CLEARLY MARKED WITH SPECIFIC COPYRIGHT SYMBOLS:

• Attribution (CC-BY)
• Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA)
• Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND)
• Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
• Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)
• Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)

Go Here to find out more about the CC!However, often times, we artists/we photographers find our work being used without our permission, even though it is copy written, and has the usual © symbol attached to it:  That is not right – it is a violation of our intellectual property and our copyright.

• So, what can you do, what should you do, what realistically can be done?

Pursuing such violations under whatever means available is often fruitless.  I don’t want to sound negative about this, but you must look at the economics of your work and its true market value.

If your original work isn’t valued beyond belief (i.e., Thousands of Dollars), then the legal costs of pursuing copyright violations would be enormous to the point of business breaking for most photographers.

This is not to say don’t pursue violations of your copyright, but in this day-and-age of royalty-free images going for a few cents per download, and a worldwide economy that has taken a major hit, a photographer would have to weigh the common sense and economics of pursuing copyright violations against them.  The easy to get MULTITUDES of digital images off the Internet has devalued the work of everyone out there who depends on sales for their living.

If it makes economic sense in your world, then have at it – go for the legal course of action.

If it is not feasible for you to take legal action, then try to reason with violators.  Perhaps they will remove illegal work if you send them an email notice.  If that doesn’t work, then perhaps a lawyer’s letter will have more bite to it.

To me, this is another form of “Being Trapped” – when there isn’t much you can do about something, even though you wish you could, and you know you are in the right!

You may be trapped between wanting to take some action to correct a wrong and set it right; and, not being able to take action because it would not be economically feasible.

After all, where will you end up if you choose poorly.  You could end up spending (or owing) several 10’s of thousand’s of dollars in legal fees (and how much time wasted) to save your photograph that may only have a shelf life worth $100.00 (maybe more, but probably less if the work was meant for a royalty-free micro-stock site)?

Enough joy about photography copyright violations.

————–

Again…

Please have a look at Brittney’s other work – she is talented.  Just click on her link under her name (above).