Essentials Cafe

Does anyone know other people can download our art work and use it without our consent? Or do we as creators maintain full rights?

 you as the creator automatically have full copyright - but think of this, for print an image needs to be at least 300ppi, neither should it be compressed - therefore a picture from our forum of say 800 x 600 pixels compressed to below 256kb is only 2.6" x 1.7" @ 300ppi - not exactly much use to man nor beast - this is less than 20% in size of an image straight from my camera, and the 15mb image has shrunk down to 256kb or less - not much use other than to look at and get a general idea of what the picture originally loooked like - I cannot imagine commercial use of such a tiny image, with the risks of copyright infringement involved

As a photographer I deal with this all the time, tracking down those who are linking to my images.  Tolouse is right regarding copyright.  You have to watch out which websites you upload your images to, as some grab rights from you.

Needless to say copyright won't stop people from copying your image, saving it onto your computer, etc.  If it's posted online, even if there are "protections" that prevent right-click saving, as long as it's displayed on a screen people can take it!

And DPI is meaningless for protecting images...if you post an 8mp image at 10dpi thinking it will stop people from producing a quality print think again...anyone can change the DPI at any time.  It's best to keep an image small in terms of pixels...1024x768 is the largest image size I would post online, but usually smaller.

 What if you change the photo file information. I know in Elements 7 I can add my information and copywrite information to the photo file. I know this won't stop most but if someone should steal your picture and use it in advertisement wouldn't your photo file still show you as copywrite owner?Can someone change your photo file information? I always put my copywrite name on the front of the photo too but I know that can easily be photoshopped off the picture too. I guess we really have no protection and have to be careful not to post pictures that we aren't willing to give away.

as the creator you automatically have the copyright, whether you add a signature or copyright symbol makes no difference to the law, so there is no real need to do it. I have spent half a lifetime producing images for print, and the pictures we show on this forum have to be below 256kb, compared to the original the quality is awful, so if someone wants to steal an image which is below 256kb as opposed to the original 15megapixels then what exactly are they going to do with it? I don't know of a single printer who will accept an image which is below 300dpi and many want 600dpi. At that resolution a picture from this forum is about the size of a postage stamp, so why worry? My pro work often goes straight to the client, and never goes on the internet at anything larger than 800 pixels on the longest side. If someone wants to steal such a low quality image they must be desperate - because the copyright laws do not worry about size or resolution, the penalty is the same whether it is full size or a thumbnail, so why worry? If you have the original you clearly have the copyright, and you can quote whatever info you have added to the image as security. I cannot imagine an image below 256kb as having any commercial value to anybody.