Watch out for your photos!

[David Buskell]

We all post photos of our work on various social media and sometimes forget we own the copyright of the photo.
Here in the UK, we now have new laws which remove our rights and allow 3rd parties to use our photos without consent or payment if "diligent" efforts have been made to find out who took them.
You might think that the metadata on your photo file is adequate but certain social media sites strip this out and so you are not identified as the owner. Your work is then free to be hijacked!
The UK is the first country to make exploiting unidentified work legal but do watch out for similar legislation in your territory.
For more info on this check out Metro Tuesday 30th April page 5 "Twitter users stripped of rights to own snaps"

[Les Symonds]

Thanks for alerting us to that, David. I read something about this early this morning on Facebook, from a friend who is a photographer and who now over-prints a watermark onto all images that he posts on the internet. Doesn't it just beggar belief that in this age of austerity, our government can even find the time to indulge in legislation of this nature....what on earth is in  it for anybody?
Les

[Bryan Milham]

I like this!

The whole Music & Film indsutry are up in arms about copyright theft and here is the UK Gov't giving away personal copyright. I'd like to see them support that in a court of law!

[arcos]

Working in cyberspace I find this very interesting and slightly disturbing.

I have a lot of copyright images on the internet and have ALWAYS protected, what I consider, valuable.

The changes in the law will not affect any of my previous work as it will remain my copyright. However, try enforcing your copyright on images in cyberspace! It is full of frustration and extortionate costs. Unless your material is being used to generate SIGNIFICANT income for someone without your permission then its just not worth the hassle BELIEVE ME!

In the US they have a great law... Cease and Disist... Simple, straight forward and easily applied to anyone using copyright material without permission. I don't believe that this law is applicable in the UK unfortunately.

[David Buskell]

Hi Everyone,
As far as I understand it your images are still your copyright under your local copyright protection. (Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988 in the UK).

The issue is with the metadata you supply that identifies you as the owner of the image. It is alleged that Facebook, Twitter and Flickr routinely strip this off so you are not identified. In these cases, your work can be used as you cannot be reasonably traced or identified as the owner.

HMG's view is "The powers are intended to remove unnecessary barriers to the legitimate use of works, whilst preserving the interests of rights holders". Not sure how they square that one up with a photographer having the copyright in his images. George Osborne has already received a letter of complaint about the new legislation from David Bailey

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act is the name of the new legislation if you want to write to your MP.It was enacted on 25th April and details of its contents are:

"Summary of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013

A Bill to make provision about the UK Green Investment Bank; to make provision about employment law; to establish and make provision about the Competition and Markets Authority and to abolish the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading; to amend the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002; to make provision for the reduction of legislative burdens; to make provision about copyright and rights in performances; to make provision about payments to company directors; and for connected purposes"

[Andy Coates]

If you're concerned about this then go and sign this:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49422