Kavey

Gosh, that's news! Thanks Clifton, I had better see about finding new homes for those albums then. What a pain!

Budman

I got the same e-mail this morning from ofoto. I guess I'll head somewhere else. I did buy something from they about 18 months ago, though.

Any recommendations?

degas

I tried once to sell some tasteful nude photos of myself, but was quickly rejected. In fact, the legal staff of several magazines wrote back and said they would sue me if I ever submitted anything of such a revolting and utterly shocking nature again.

Budman

You could always post them "free of charge" on ofoto for all your fodorites to gawk at.

Yeah, slow day at the office for me, too.

marcy_

Here are the terms from Ofoto:

"Ofoto provides free online storage of images to its members for an initial period of 12 months from the date you first upload an image to your Ofoto account. To maintain free storage, you need to make a purchase from Ofoto at least once every 12 months (the 12 month period will restart with each purchase). If you do not purchase any product or service from Ofoto for a period of 12 months, Ofoto may delete the images stored in your account."

I wasn't aware of their policy either, but if you buy one print a year, with tax and shipping it's $1.80, which isn't too bad for the convenience of posting your photos with them.

Dick

I'm another person that uses pbase.com instead of Ofoto..just for the reason nyfoodsnob mentioned. Ofoto seems to actually encourage you to print out someone else's photos.

Another place to be careful is photo contest. Some newspapers, for instance, say that by entereing the contest ..you give them the right to use or publish your photo in print or elecctronic.

Can you imagine....losing the contest but the paper could use publish your photos for their own profit.

REading the rules and/or fine print reveals a lot.

Dick

This is from Ofoto's Terms and Conditions.

"18. Copyright in Your Images
Ofoto does not claim ownership rights in any image contained in your account. For the sole purpose of enabling us to display your images through the Service and fulfilling any orders for you or those you have shared your images with, you grant to Ofoto a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, distribute, and display those images. Please note that when you share images, you allow the recipients to share and make photographic prints from those images"

.

crazymina

Hm...interesting. I have not gotten the ofoto email, and I have been using the service since 2002. Of course, now that I have posted this, I will get the email....

Still, I like the service, and it's a small price to pay.

Kavey

I haven't got the email either and I know I've had my images on there a LONG LONG LONG time...

PatrickLondon

It's possible for anyone to download a picture from the web, unless the site-owner has put in lots of precautions - neither pbase nor worldisround have such precautions, as far as I can see. And how would most people get to find out if someone else is making money from their photos?

It's not difficult to find a suitable script to add to one's own web-pages to stop the most obvious and easy way to download - I've done it myself: but I've just worked out a not-too complicated way to get round that...!

Kavey

The only precautions I've come across are disabling the right click option which really doesn't stop anyone since they can just do a print screen and grab the image that way. Of course, all they will have is a low resolution version but most of us only ever put low resolution versions on the web anyway since this minimises download times.

NYCFoodSnob

It took me a few years to "get over" my fear of internet thievery. Early on, I was also reluctant to use credit cards online. Most fears, whether real or not, leave you behind the 8-ball and prevent you from living a fuller life. If you're too afraid to show your images because of theft potential, you deny yourself the ability to make any money from displaying your images on the web. I'm usually willing to change with the times and/or not prevent lucrative ventures but, then again, I am a business woman and, therefore, I think like one.

72 ppi jpeg images are mostly useful to web designers only. They don't look good in print and I seriously doubt anyone could make a buck off an ugly print. Most web designers in NYC respect copyright law. Outside of NYC is another world.

Thievery does occur, even among professionals, and in NYC, photographers, assistants, and friends always keep an eye peeled for this sort of thing. We also have lawyers. The good news is, copyright thieves are mostly rare, especially in the realm of big bucks profit loss. Typically a "cease and desist" letter takes care of any infraction. The number of individual copyright infringement cases that go to court is small. Suing is very expensive, whether you win or not.

Most thieves actually steal partial images, such as your perfectly lit palm tree on that lovely South Pacific beach. The web designer thief in Florida will say, "Who can tell that tree isn't in the Florida Keys? I need that tree!"

Will you be able to tell when someone has stolen a piece of your image? Most likely not. Could you actually make any money from trying to sell a piece of an image? Not much. So why be riddled with fear?

The most important thing is to never surrender copyright or grant a usage license without receiving compensation. A non-professional photographer will have no clue what image of theirs will make someone else money.

cmt

Was there another thread comparing various photo-sharing sites? I'm looking for it to send to someone.