Online Photo Album and Free Web Space Servers - Are They Stealing Your Photos?
This seems to be a rather "hot" topic on some of the digital camera web sites in the last couple of days. Is it true, are they actually stealing your photos?
I won't stick my neck out and say YES or NO. The truth of the matter is that I don't know for sure one way or the other. There is so much legal "fine print" in their Conditions of Use Agreements that it's hard to tell exactly what they are saying. These services for the most part are on the up-and-up and are only protecting themselves. In the eyes of the law they become the publisher of anything they post to the Internet on your behalf.
The bottom line is that if you want to protect your photos there are several things that you can do BEFORE uploading them to a remote web server:
- Add a copyright symbol, date and your name in the photo
- Never upload the original full size image, only use smaller scaled-down images
- If in doubt - don't do it in the first place!
Most Internet service providers (ISPs) offer you some kind of "personal web space" for non-commercial use. This is the best place to put your photos online even if it means you have to learn some HTML coding or use a program that will do it for you.
If you decide to use your own web space remember to put your name and copyright symbol in the photos anyway.
And you better check your ISP's Conditions of Use Agreement, you might just find that it's worded the same as all these other guys agreements! There's just no escaping lawyers these days :-)
