Judges, eh?

[Mike Farley]

It is not just camera club judges who come in for criticism. A court judge in the US has just decreed that using photographs found on the Internet for a commercial website constitutes "fair use" if it is used in a non commercial way. The image also has less value, apparently, if it is considered factual rather than creative. I would not be surprised if this rumbles on for a good while yet as there would seem to be plenty of grounds for an appeal.

More from PetaPixel: https://petapixel.com/2018/07/02/court- ... -fair-use/. You can determine for yourself how much creativity the photographer applied in capturing the scene. As it stands, it would seem pretty much all photography is devalued unless the photographer goes to some lengths to set something up, either at the time of capture or afterwards in post processing.

[Sarahrs]

might agree with the judge on this one. The photography was publicly available on a website for free. And website didn't try to make money from the photograph directly. However, it clearly shows that if you put something on the internet, expect it to be used. Or put a big watermark and copyright that I've seen some professional and amateurs do to stop this from happening.

So how do you put a watermark/or a copyright signature on your image?

[Mike Farley]

I am a little surprised at some of these views. Would you walk into someone's house if they had left the door open and take anything you wanted on the basis that they had not said you couldn't? Unfortunately, the Internet/World Wide Web was never designed to protect copyright and there are some unscrupulous people who take advantage. Fair use is one thing, but it did concern me that the judge had introduced some new criteria as to what is acceptable, especially the creativity aspect.

For what it is worth, I never watermark or copyright my images. Where there is no protection available, I prefer to keep them small, both in terms of pixel dimensions and file size. It limits what those lacking moral integrity can do with them. My most stolen picture is one which another website published using an original full size image which I had submitted into a competition.

[Mike Farley]

DPReview has published its own summary of the case, which I found easier to understand than the report I found on PetaPixel. Or at least, it would be more comprehensible if, at the time of writing, DPReview had not repeated most of the final section which is a tad confusing. No doubt that is a glitch which it will amend in due course. The judge who made the ruling certainly comes in for considerable criticism due to his interpretation of the law pertaining to fair use.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/976166864 ... -precedent

[Mike Farley]

In a reversal of the US case, an EU judge has ruled against a school which used a photo downloaded from the Internet without permission. The judge also stated that it is up to individuals to act honestly when using material created by others and it is not the copyright holder's responsibility to protect their work. That will be a radical thought for those who confuse freely accessible with free.

https://petapixel.com/2018/08/08/online ... urt-rules/