Protecting your photos

[Debbwl]

In light of some recent photo threfts thought I would post some things you should know.

1) The boring legal stuff in a nut shell
2) Where Scripps stands on watermarking
3) How to watermark a photo and some helpful tips about watermarking

*I am no expert and do not claim to know it all but here is some info that I think will answer a lot of your questions.

**Remember you are your own best advocate and reaching out with an e-mail has in the past proven to be a very effective tool.



Legal

I will start with the dry legal part that you can find in its artery at Scripps Networks Terms of Use

The LINK to the full Terms of Service act:

http://www.scrippsnetworks.com/terms.aspx

SUMMARY OF ARTICLE 6:

1. You retain full copyright in your photographs and your text (introduction and directions) in your recipes. (There is no copyright in the list of ingredients).

2. You warrant/guarantee that any photograph that you submit is your own, and not that of any other person.

3. You retain your rights in your User Content, but it is your responsibility to monitor and protect your intellectual property rights.

(But from here on the Scripps' legal article is not as easy to interpret, so we quote from their Paragraph (A):

"... and we do not accept responsibility for same, but you grant us the right to protect and enforce our and our licensees' licensed rights to your User Content ... by bringing and controlling actions in your name and on your behalf ... ")

If in any doubt here, please use the link above and read Article 6.

4. On request of Scripps you will have to supply proof of your claim to be the copyright holder.



Scripps thoughts on Water Marking

In the past Scripps frowned on water marks but with the increase in photo thrifts here are what two of the elves have said.

Elf #1) “I program the Recipe of the Day on the homepage and I've been known to feature a recipe/photo or two that has a watermark on it when it's very small and non-intrusive. They generally don't show in the smaller size. And we will approve photos in the queue that have very small watermarks on them and aren't spamming (like "Photo from XXX.com" or some such -- if they have your chef name or real name, that's cool).

It's when they're front and center that it keeps us from using them or rejecting them. And if there's a clear watermark on them we can't feature them as the lead image in our editorial content (like Holidays: http://www.food.com/holiday-entertaining/home/package) or our slideshows (like here: http://www.food.com/slideshow/25-tips-for-an-easy-holiday-50). But in those cases, we always try to ID the photog by name for credit purposes.

I've decided to start adding a small embedded photo credit on all your great pictures that I use in Facebook posts too -- just to be sure you're given proper thumbs up ON the image. I used to just do it in captions.

I think it sucks that people are so lame to steal your photos. We do the best we can do send cease and desist letters but since the dawn of the internet, people have been stealing stuff. We get notes from other third parties when they find out their photos end up featured here -- either on recipes or in forum threads. We do our best to police that and take them down when asked.

Please don't stop taking photos! If you can find something that makes you comfortable for id'ing them/watermarking them, we'd rather have that than nothing at all!”

Elf #2) "Hey guys, I think I told you...i reached out to that last troll who stole photos and she nipped it (and the blogger that hosted her as well) in the bud.

If there are others, reach out to me directly with links/examples and I can reach out again and squash it. You guys do a pretty good job of shutting peeps down yourselves, but if you want me to step in, i most certainly will.

I deal with the larger imgs on the HP and yes, if there is a big watermark on it, I simply won't use it. Fyi. tx!"

Ok got it! Teeny watermarks are cool - obtrusive ones...Not!



How to Watermark a Photo

Watermarking a photo will make most think twice about trying to use your photo without your permission.
A watermarking is basically adding text to your photo.

Here is a link http://support.photobucket.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/54/kw/watermarks that will help you get started on a site that is free of charge.

Ok now you know how to watermark your photo you may want to know how to add a © mark to your photo, well there are a two ways to do this.

1) Hold down the Alt and type 0169 then release the Alt.
(be sure the NumLock key is activated. While holding down the ALT key and pressing 0176 on the number keypad or you'll get ° instead of ©.)

2) Copy and paste the © by highlighting the © on this text, press CTRL C to copy (or right click and copy) .. then press CTRL V to paste (or right click and paste)it into your text.

* Fun tip is you can use the the Windows Character Map to copy and paste lot's of cool characters.

Just go to Start>click on all programs>click on accesories>click on system tools>click on character map.

Yes watermarks can be removed quite easliy if the mark is in a location that is mostly one color or texture. It took Annacia about 3 mins to edit out Zuri's mark. Annacia "I'm very inexperienced at doing this (I removed one of my own once to see how hard it was to do) but if I had spent more time and/or had more practice no one would know that it had ever been marked."





Excellent example of what was being said before. Annacia spent 20 seconds, removing the portion of the mark on the clear background. "Had I wanted to take more time I could have smoothed the wall color. Point is that you can now see how much more intricate (and time consuming) it would be to remove the rest on the mark with the muiticolor's beneath. It could certainly be done but someone would have to want that photo more than I ever would,lol."



Now as this is new to most of us I though I would post a few photos that are watermarked just to help you get a feel for how others are doing it as there are many different styles.









A Big Thank you to all who take the time photograph and post to the photo forum


*A special thanks to Zurie and Annacia for all their help with the content of this thread.

[Zurie]

Thank you for posting this, as assistance to all of us, Deb.

Yes, part of the Scripps' legal article you refer to above is certainly not clear to us, who are not legal eagles: "legalese" like that is sometimes purposely vague.

It seems as if the main responsibility still rests with us to keep our eyes wide open for, well, photo stealing.

(When I looked at the dates it seemed that the infamous Deanna Bauer -- Dee Dee -- had been blogging with our recipes and photos at least since Oct. 2010 -- more than a year before that kind man registered as a member here to alert us in this forum).

[awalde]

Dear Debbwl, Zurie and Annacia,

Thanks a lot for assistance; I really appreciate your advice and suggestions.

In the meanwhile I found out how to watermark photos with photoshop.

Watermarking gave me the opportunity to learn more about Photoshop and
In this case I learned how to put a watermark in a photo (using "layers") and use it again (with drag and drop) adding the watermark to other photos. In the new photo I can always change the appearance of the watermark, changing color, transparence, shadow and much more.
I found the instructions here:
http://video.about.com/graphicssoft/Watermark-Images-in-Photoshop.htm.

I wish you all Merry Christmas!

[IngridH]

Thanks for posting this, Deb. I wasn't in favor of watermarking when the the topic first came up; but now that I've thought about it, I think it's a good idea. I wasn't worried because I'm not that great of a photographer, and didn't feel like anyone would want to take my pictures. But occasionally, I take a really good one (often by accident), and I would be really unhappy if anyone else claimed it as their own work. I'm also quite unhappy when anyone claims the work of my friends (which includes any of you reading this). So, even though I'm not sure all my photos really need it, I'm going to start marking mine. If this site is unfriendly to photo thieves, we will all be better off. Maybe people like Dee Dee will stop coming here for their material if we make it harder to steal. Sad, but unfortunately, that's the way the modern world works.

[Olive*]

How can we watermark our previous pictures that we posted, if we can not edit the pictures? Not that my pictures are great or anything, but they are still mine.

[Kerfuffle-Upon-Wincle]

Olive wrote:
How can we watermark our previous pictures that we posted, if we can not edit the pictures? Not that my pictures are great or anything, but they are still mine.

If you no longer have the original photo on your computer, you could download your original photo from the recipe ~ (right click, save to your computer), watermark it, upload it again to the recipe, and ask Customer Support (CS) to delete the one without a watermark! Most likely CS would comply ~ or you could ask in CS first, if that is how it should be done!

[Debbwl]

Thank you K-U-W yes that is the only way I can think to do it also.

[Olive*]

Thank you!

[DuChick]

Just tonight, I found one of my photos from here posted on Pinterest. The link took me to a blog with my food photo front and center! The recipe name had even been changed from the original on here. Of course, no credit given to me or the original recipe poster. GGGRrrrrrrr!

I wrote the blogger an email and in the nicest way I could, I asked for credit for the photo. Such thievery and dishonesty to let others assume she took that photo!

I'll let you know what her reply is...

[orphinsit]

When i look the photos the water fill in my mouth i will taste these dishes ..

[Debbwl]

DuChick, so sorry to hear someone is using your photo without asking or giving you credit.

You did the right thing writing an e-mail most the time that does the trick.

Please do keep us posted.

[desertrat]

orphinsit: - Whazaat you say I didn't understand the comment.

[Debbwl]

Desertrat, what comment don’t you understand?

[desertrat]

desertrat wrote:
orphinsit: - Whazaat you say I didn't understand the comment.

[desertrat]

What I didn't understand was...orphinsit posted a comment which I now realize is fraught with idomatic syntax, and increasingly difficult to convey since it isn't quite "americanized" with regard to meaning or content. I think what was implied was that "pictures would makes one's mouth water." No other discussion needed.