Protecting Online Images

Posted: April 09, 2012

[caption id="attachment_9996" align="alignright" width="339"]© Noam - Fotolia.com[/caption]Recent conversations about the Pinterest website terms of use, new technologies that allow making large prints from low-resolution images, Facebook image "borrowing" issues, and myriad other concerns about images posted on the Internet, have POMA members anxious. The positive of the conversations are suggestions about how photographers can attempt to protect images from unauthorized use.

Tim and Deborah Flanigan suggest photographers:

Watermark all posted images
Remove all Facebook image tags. Some printing services allow people/entities tagged in an image to print the images
Set Facebook to notify you if someone tags one of your images. Other Facebook users can tag your images. If they do, the tag could mean an image could be printed by someone not authorized to do so
Only post Facebook images to the “friends” settings and not to the “public” settings. Otherwise any subscribers, and not just your vetted friends, can view / have access to these
Remove all posted images, except for a few, usually about 1-2 weeks after the original posting
Post a copyright notice with each image: “Images are copyright protected. Do not download, share or use without permission.” Also post on your Facebook wall photo album collections. This quote follows any image that someone might share, posting it to their wall. Perhaps they may be embarrassed and remove the image
Save images in a way that retains metadata. Using a "Save for Web Device" option often strips metadata. Some image sites also strip metadata when images are uploaded

Do you have additional suggestions for protecting online images? Post them in the comments section below.