Two or three months ago, I discovered that an Australian enterprise was using an image of one of my distinctive improvisational quilts as the background for its promotional materials in a wide range of online and print media. I will not go into specific details but I am pleased to say that direct telephone contact, supported by a formal letter of demand (sometimes called a “cease and desist letter”), resulted in resolution of this matter.
If you ever find yourself in a similar position, you may find the following resources helpful:
- Copyright Infringement & Letter of Demand Information Sheet prepared by the Arts Law Information Centre of Australia;
- Generic Sample Copyright Cease & Desist Letter;
- Stocks letters by Plagiarism Today: Cease & Letter to Website Owner and DCMA Notice to Web Host. Note that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) is only law in the United States but your country may have similar procedures;
- Two easy steps for using a DMCA takedown notice to battle copyright infringement by Carolyn E. Wright, a US attorney “dedicated to the legal needs for photographers”.
PS: As a result of this experience, and in response to photo sharing without attribution that regularly occurs on Facebook and Pinterest, I have decided to add discreet watermarking to images of my art used on my websites and blog. This measure will not stop unscrupulous copyright infringements but will assist more people to: identify that I am the copyright holder; find my websites; and see more of my work. I’ve been playing around with different watermarking options. What tools, if any, do you use for your watermarks?
Candy's Home Patch says
I think this is an excellent idea Brenda. The images should always work to your benefit.
I had only used watermarks in word docs, but I added the Photogene App on your recommendation and like that for adding comments to photos. Changing the opacity gives a good ‘watermark’ result and I like that you can select a font too. I assume you have played with this and are looking for a possible alternative?
Brenda says
Yes, the Photogene app for iPad is currently my favourite tool for adding watermarks. I especially like how the copyright symbol © is integrated into the Photogene keyboard. However, it’s always interesting to hear about the apps and tools that other people find useful.
Candy says
Im glad to hear that ended well! I started research months ago on plugins that would retroactively add a water mark to everythingon my blog, but I never followed through and tested them out…sigh, I really should do that! Let me know if you find an awesome plugin!
Jonathan Bailey says
I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the link and mention. If you need any help or want to reuse any content on PT, just let me know. I’m always eager to assist any way I can and I license the content on the site openly.
Vivien Zepf says
This is great info to have. I’m curious to know how you discovered the use of your quilt in the first place…
Brenda says
Vivien, the infringing material first came to my attention as a flashing promo graphic on a third party newsflash. This led me to the company’s websites and other places online. The same week, I saw an advertisement in a magazine. I understand the promo materials had been circulating for 12-18 months.
Jane Davila says
Brenda, have you thought about using a digital watermarking service like Digimarc? Your images will be permanently embedded with your info and you can track them anywhere on the web.
http://www.digimarc.com/digimarc-for-images/professional-edition
https://dfi.digimarc.com/selectProduct.aspx?family=pro
Brenda says
Thank you for stopping by my blog and for your suggestion. I am coming to watermarking reluctantly so it’s good to learn about the range of options available.
Ruth says
Thanks for the resources, Brenda. I’m glad you were able to resolve this situation. I have become slack about watermarking… Your comment re: the iPad Photogene app made me wonder – do you blog from your iPad? I’m finding it works to jot some draft posts down on the iPad as I think of them, but that I need to finalise the posts, especially the images, at our iMac. I would love to do more of it from the iPad. Hmmm, I might need to look into that further…
Brenda says
Ruth, because I have been travelling so much this year, I estimate that around 40% of my blog posts have been done on the iPad. I use the WordPress app which is not so dissimilar to my usual WordPress interface (I work in HTML on my PC rather than visual mode so I am used to coding). I have also tried the Blogsy app. However, I find it much more efficient to prepare blog posts on my laptop especially if there is lots of text, links or photos. The iPad really doesn’t lend itself to cutting and pasting or quick coding.
I do like quick editing photos on the iPad. As noted in my earlier post My 10 Favourite iPad Apps, I use the camera connector kit so I can load images straight from the SD card. Mostly I use the Photogene app although I am also playing around with the Art Studio app which has layers functionality but seems to crash a fair bit.
Ruth says
Thanks for the tips, Brenda. I have purchased the Photogene app now and look forward to playing with it to see how I like it… I might have to also review my file storage system in order to blog more from my iPad…