How to Prevent People from Stealing Your Photos Online | Ask David Bergman

[@fpershoot]

8:20 At least someone raised a plea to Instagram! Thank you sir!

[@steve_bourdeau]

Good info here. Side note, I’m hearing a steady static in the video. It makes it hard to focus on what you’re saying.

[@rogermanning4353]

Great idea to push for a photo credit field in Instagram.

[@mjphotographyhk8778]

IG don’t care, reported multi violations and our photos are still being used by FAKE accounts !!!

[@joseotoya2102]

Great info! Thank you David for the answer and John for the question.

[@jimgam730]

Thanks for sharing this info. You answered some questions that I had to protect images uploaded online.

[@markkempton4579]

Hear hear! Great approach on a difficult topic for some. You summarized it well at the end. If you don't want it stolen, don't post it anywhere. Love the sentiment at 2:50! I've been following block chain for years. Looking forward to seeing what is in store. Thanks for bringing that up!

[@looseshoulderssumali7311]

Your comment about Instagram is excellent! There are photo thieves out there - they crop the photo and repost them as their own. Or worse, they remove the copyright watermarks in the middle of the photos and repost them as their own.

[@thebendu33]

Happened to me. Some dude that i know was copying sime of my photos from Facebook and posting them as his own on Instagram. Had no protection, but was able to get him retract my pictures. Now every time he post stuff, i always doubt they are really his.

[@NikCan66]

Always educational and practical advice

[@brad_in_yyc]

I love that photo credit section. I'd love to see it on as many platforms as possible b

[@lancesay]

TY!

[@keithspangler4814]

David love your idea to Instagram ~ keep us posted

[@kevincorbett7559]

Good video on an important topic. My wife owns a food blogging business. She pays photographers good money to own the images. For her, it makes sense for others to post her images. I think there’s something much, much, worse. AI. AI has the images uploaded by so many people. It won’t be long before anyone can buy an image that they’ve “created” by prompting AI for “An image as if taken from the middle of Seventh Ave at 7pm in mid-Summer, no traffic except for - here insert product….and on and on.” And the generated image will be based on images an AI company didn’t pay a photographer for.”

[@kennethnielsen3864]

Thanks for sharing.

[@SpotBentley]

I have had only 1 photo used commercially without my permission that I'm aware of. It was a photo of an artist at her concert where there was no restriction on cameras. The artist's webmaster put the photo on the artist's website. When I found out, I asked the artist to credit me or remove the photo. It was removed.

[@andrewh2341]

What are your thoughts on the new C2PA technology? Will this help us prevent copyright infringement or just track if an image has been altered?

[@dangilmore9724]

I've had image theft in terms of photos being used as memes, etc., for non commercial purposes. My attitude is that if they leave my signature in tact and/or credit me, then I send them a thankyou note fir the free advertising. However, I have had stolen images show up in commercial advertising and even on billboards. In that instance, I go after them hammer and tong and get payment for the usage - most large companies/brands will quietly pay up rather than get sued or smeared on the internet. Remember, never share your original RAW files as they are absolute proof of ownership.

[@caringfamily8132]

10:38 Good idea! Another method of protection can be to email yourself images before making them available for licensing and/or viewable by public. Photo details, specs, authorship, attachments, etc. would be logged/dated by email host's servers; hard for bad guys to claim ownership when it's (almost) impossible to beat real author's recorded bonafides. Also, emailing yourself is (usually) free! ✌👏

[@guidlines]

@2:29 🤣 I actually sped it up 1.50 times to save time

[@Augnos]

“That’s the neat part, you don’t.”

[@ashwanibhola3766]

What is the process of registering a photo with the copyright office like? Is it overly cumbersome where it's only worth it to do a few "winner" images, or can it handle batch registering of hundreds of images from a shoot at once?

[@bamsemh1]

You should try the book of face, and see how many people steal photos online 😉

[@pattymattes7124]

The companies I use for websites prevent rick clicking my images. The only thing is taking screen shots but it's my experience doing screen shots is not as high quality. I understand about upscaling but I don't think it will work for that very well. I also embed my metadata with my copyright information. Yes, I had an image stolen from me. A local news publication stole my image for the animal shelter, used it for their news story and on top of that wrote lies about the shelter. I called the publisher and threatened a lawsuit, told them my copyright is embedded in my images and the animal shelter personnel, the police department, were also witnesses to me photographing the animal. They took the images down from their website etc. I will say registering images to US Copyright Office is a good thing and you can submit multiple images.

[@Bluegirlbookz]

So my hand drawn coloring book images I have vectorized. Will making it low res still protect it?

[@smooth111012]

What about adding a watermark in the camera, does that embed your name somehow in or on the image

[@mohamadjavadbozorgmehr6686]

Nice

[@JustOneKnight]

And given copyright can't you have them prosecuted for the theft? After all you have the photos on a hard drive?

[@L.Spencer]

So instagram strips the metadata? I had no idea. Great! On another note, I was at the local fair a few weeks ago, and they wouldn't allow me to take pictures (with phone) of the photos entered, saying it was due to copyright laws. But wouldn't the violation be if I were to post those photos? I was taking photos to be able to look up the photographers and see their website or social media, having the photo helps me remember why I wanted to look them up. It seems people are allowed to take photos in museums, but why not the fair?

[@bikalpa1234]

What about we write copy right information in the camera.

[@barneylaurance1865]

On the metadata point: I know why it it is but I think it's a shame that popular photo viewing apps (and websites) don't display any of the metadata for photos. They do display it for MP3s. It would be nice if anyone downloading an image and then double clicking to open it in a typical way would see the photographer's name and maybe a few other fields, e.g. photo title, somewhere next to the image.

[@jeffreyblakeadams]

Years ago a fauxtographer in Oklahoma cloned my website and went through every photo and smudged over the watermarks on every image and replaced them with his own. I was based in Atlanta at the time, and a local agency model saw the site and contacted me, I sued, I won, he filed bankruptcy and fled to Canada

[@JustOneKnight]

How can you tell if your photos have been stolen from online?

[@tj2375]

I think social media strips metadata so that GPS information can't be used to find the people that took the picture, since most content in social media are selfies and similar.

[@DavidBergmanPhoto]

Would seem easy enough to strip location info without removing caption / credit.

[@barneylaurance1865]

Yes. I think social media should really either strip metadata as many do now, or automatically display the metadata on the page so that everyone knows that its there. Keeping it in but hiding it so you need to download the image and use specific software to view it makes it too easy for users to unknowingly share more information than they want to.

[@000CloudStrife]

One other one you forgot to mention is screenshot protection.

[@DavidBergmanPhoto]

Not too much you can do about that, unfortunately.

[@000CloudStrife]

@@DavidBergmanPhoto there is screenshot protection though is what I’m saying. The only type of protection there isn’t is taking a picture of the screen itself.

[@charlesmallo]

You can do whatever possible to prevend stealing of your images, but if your client doesn't disable right click on their websites.......

[@Official_Dadoo]

I do youth & hs sports mostly. It would have been nice if you could address people screen shotting from galleries I post. I feel like a large watermark is the solution, but obviously not perfect bc it can also ruin images. I find myself trying to balance protecting my work vs presenting my best work. These are $5/image. Not going to have any legal repercussions unless it’s a big scammer, but it’s mostly players/parents just screen grabbing.

[@charliereed9925]

If Instagram can protect music @, they can do the same for photographers and other artists.

[@tommynikon2283]

IG looking out for photographers?; holy shit- what a concept! Adobe looking out for photographers? What a concept!

[@josebrivera1716]

I keep most of my photos offline. Your suggestions do not prevent theft.

[@bingbong4848]

That was his final conclusion...

[@markkempton4579]

He says that at the end. You have to mitigate the risk. You cannot prevent while still sharing.

[@jilliebean343]

It doesn't give the right to still your personal photos

[@greenrobot5]

Some watermarks look good and give your pictures a bit of a bump in professionalism

[@blkscorpion01]

I try to only post images online hat have already been paid for in some manner.

[@David0Perez0]

So basically the moment you upload to instagram you lose the rights on your photo. I guess publishing in your own website is the safest way?

[@BGTuyau]

Fine. Avoid theft by not posting work online -but, in these times, where else does one showcase one's work?

[@VoidShepherd]

If you don't want your photos stolen don't put them online it's as simple as that. If someone wants to steal it bad enough they will.

[@jilliebean343]

They put their Watermark on a photo of me! I didn't want an ugly watermark on my photo of me. So what gives them the right for Google Play to put Watermarks on my photos. It pisses me off!

[@cameraprepper7938]

Facebook delete EXIF files and copyright from photos !

[@esnevip]

No, because my photo's aren't worthy of piracy.

[@barneylaurance1865]

The blockchain thing makes no sense to me. It can't be a completely reliable source on the current legal ownership of any asset since that's controlled by the courts, and the courts may not be able to get the blockchain record updated.

[@jilliebean343]

Watermarks look ugly! My Problem Is Other People Put Their Watermark Photos. That is Theft

[@n5sdm]

Screen shot....removes all metadata. Good luck getting someone to stop using your photo, esp if they are overseas. This video is pointless. If someone wants your photo....they will find it very simple to take, no matter what. I have had several photos stolen and are being used despite letters sent, lawyers, and overseas (cant do a thing). It is frustrating to see someone else claim your work as thier own and make.more.mony off of it than you can.

[@kevinthomas2693]

Hey David I have to unsubscribe because of the lack of common sense with adorama always liked your videos but I have to start watching godox and b&h thanks for your tips.