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Copyright Assault in UK


pico

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Greetings All,

 

Whilst not exclusive to Leica photographers, as passionate photographers, this applies to us all:

 

Is The UK Government Trying To Kill Off Photographers | Photo This & That

 

It's an extremely serious issue, for pros, enthusiasts and snap happy parents, worldwide. All images are under threat, so please read the article and share it amongst your friends and followers.

 

Let's hope we can stop it from happening.

 

Cheers,

 

Edmond

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This is most certainly not a worldwide issue, any more than it already is. These laws do not impact in any way on my Australian rights or the agreements made under the Berne conventions on copyright. I can still chase copyright infringers if I want.

 

The real issues haven't changed though. While I can still sue and chase stolen images it's still just too difficult and expensive for the average photographer to do so. If some one in the UK steals one of my shots, unless it's a huge company, capable of making a huge settlement, this law hasn't made it any easier or more difficult for me, in the real world.

 

Certainly, in the UK, this is a real worry as it's just a legislated defence for big business to steal stuff as they see fit. Any law with the words, "satisfactory", "appropriate" or "reasonable" is almost always a bad law, IMHO. It also opens the gates for other countries to be bullied into similar laws. I'd hope that in the UK there's an outcry. But it'll probably just dissapear as quickly as the rights of innocents that the laws removes.

 

Gordon

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I don't think UK photographers need to worry too much. As soon as somebody takes this legislation to the EU court in Brussels it will be thrown out on an EU level as it is in direct contravention of international treaties and EU directives.

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I don't think UK photographers need to worry too much. As soon as somebody takes this legislation to the EU court in Brussels it will be thrown out on an EU level as it is in direct contravention of international treaties and EU directives.

Absolutely! I simply can't fathom why our politicians are prepared to waste parliamentary time (to say nothing of money) on this - it baffles me.

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Petition signed.

I don't post images on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter anyway, so they don't worry me.

I've made an enquiry of my website provider (Photium) re this and their precautions and I'll post the result.

As Bill says, forum pics will get a copyright notice (discreet, hopefully) in future.

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Petition signed.

 

FWIW I supply stock images, many of which are used on web pages - and these do not have watermarks because the user does not want them to have! Trying to protect images from illicit use is possible only if they are never supplied in a form which allows them to be uploaded:(.

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In addition to signing the petition (thanks for the link Andy) I'd urge anyone who has a Facebook page to share the link on there. This could really help get the number of signatories up, and it would be fitting to put Facebook to such good use.

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PS:

 

I understand exactly why you may feel the need to protect your work, and of course you must do whatever you feel you need to do.

 

But if one result of this absurd piece of legal idiocy is that more and more photographs are ruined with copyright marks, the bastards will have won.

 

I shall not ever watermark, copyright-sign or otherwise deface my photos because of some moronically petty-minded politicians. There must be a better way to prevent this ridiculous idea from ruining photography.

Edited by Peter H
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As an aside, I have a growing amount of my stuff on deviantART, where it sells quite nicely. Every photo is watermarked as part of the upload process as long as you tick the appropriate box. It's painless and easy.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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Then write to your Member of Parliament, Peter.

 

I shall.

 

Also, I'm a trustee of an art gallery and an art/community charity and one of the co-trustees and a good friend of mine is an MP. I'm meeting her on Friday and we'll be talking about this.

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