Photo Stealing on the InternetWriten by Rohn Engh
Should you worry about photo thievery on the Internet?
Theres an element of human nature involved here: Trust.
Back when we first got here to the farm, the nearest grocery store was (still is) the Horse Creek Store. Fred Nelson would stand behind the counter and retrieve the products you wanted from the shelves. Its not that he didnt trust his customers. He was giving them service. It had always been done that way. A few years later when supermarkets were introduced, I asked Fred if he thought customers would walk out of supermarkets with products in their pockets without paying.
Freds response, Well, there might be some of that.
As we all know now, yes, a few people, it turns out, will do that. Maybe 2% - maybe 5% - of the population. Nevertheless, at the Horse Creek Store you now gather your own items from the shelves. And the supermarket service model, used everywhere from huge groceries to hardware stores, has benefited both customers and owners. Customers retrieve the products themselves, and thereby a greater volume of customers can be taken care of per day. Businesses have learned to factor the minor loss through thievery into the cost of the products, and volume sales.
Back to the Basics
This model assumes an element of trust on the part of the store owner. The owner's position is that, I trust you (most of you) enough that you wont walk out of my store without paying. The owner absorbs the cost of the rare instance of thievery.
The Internet will also eventually settle into a comfortable balance built on sensible commerce. (You pays for what you gits.) Why not put energy toward serving the 95% of customers who are going to be trustworthy, rather than put undue time and attention on the 5% who wont be?
You might say, Well, photos are different. They are easy to steal. No one is watching.
Perhaps, but small items ranging from chewing gum to shampoo would be easy to steal. But most people, including teenagers, are basically honest. They dont steal. Besides, stealing, along with being immoral, has disadvantages that outweigh the benefits.
A FOREIGN LAND
When we hear of instances of Internet theft, youll find that most of the perpetrators fall into the immature hot shot category. Another small percentage of guilty parties are people ignorant of Copyright Law. The final percentage consists of people who do live life trying to get away with getting something for nothing. But is it worth your time to track them down with PicScout or other expensive software, just to shake a finger at them? (Thats about the only reward you would realize.) And remember, too, that in our corner of the stock photography industry that we are not dealing with advertising clients or graphic artists who might be able to benefit from such theft. We deal with photobuyers and researchers at publishing houses. Its almost a different country. Its rare that you ever hear of a staff member of a publishing house or magazine risking their job by stealing a photo. In more than a decade of on-line experience I have never heard of a case of photobuyer thievery at a reputable publishing house at least not at any of the 8,500 in our database.
If its a question for you of whether to post your images online or not, I would advise to go about your business and post them without agitation, knowing that human nature is on your side. The majority of people who are going to visit your website are not going to steal, either because they are moral or because it is too inconvenient!.
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. 1 800 624 0266; E-mail: info@photosource.com . Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com