For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Romans 13:9: (ESV)
So, why the huge copyright symbol across my photograph? It's to make a point.I simply right-clicked and copied my own image from another post. The copyright issue is very dear to my heart. I have been a professional stock photographer for over 20 years, and my income has dwindled dramatically thanks to the overwhelming amount of imagery now available (I can deal with that ) and also to those who see simply steal my work. That I find hard to deal with! Those same people would never think of walking out of a store without paying for an item. Yet, that's exactly what they are doing when they take images from the web from a site other than one which offers the images for free.
It's not OK to take something just because it is there and you just can and you think nobody is watching. GOD ALWAYS SEES! There are sites where you can get images for free. Make use of them! But please don't take my images and expect me not to be more than a little upset about it. Stores lose a lot of income from goods that walk out the door, but it's nothing compared to what content providers are now experiencing on the web. I run a business and have overheads like any business. I have spent many thousands of dollars over the years on education, studio rent, modeling fees, equipment, props, and location shooting etc. So, like any business, I have to take into account the cost of producing my work, and right now, I'm finding it tough to make a decent profit. Obviously, I have had to cut way back on expenses in order to compensate. I no longer pay rent for a studio. A spare bedroom serves as my studio, and a corner of the kitchen is my office. Most of my props come from the Dollar Tree store! I am now in my senior years, and the lost income because of theft is hitting me very hard!
The Apostle Paul stated to young Timothy that “The laborer deserves his wages.” 1 Timothy 5: 18 (ESV)
I believe that not only applies to Timothy, but to all who do an honest day's work The worker is to be paid.
It has been six days now since I joined Steemit. The first thing I did on that first day was search on Christian, and imagine my surprise when the very first post to come up was a post on Why I gave up Christianity using my copyright image from Getty Images as if it were the poster's own. There truly is a God in the universe. It was not an accident that I found that page. There are no coincidences with God!
In the comments section I pointed out that he was using my copyright image and provided the link to it on Getty.
I made no accusations, but gave him time to respond. If he did license my image from Getty, (I have not yet checked my sales reports from a year ago) then he knows the terms. It can't be used in a standalone fashion without giving credit to both Getty and myself, so he is violating the terms of the contract by not giving me credit. If he did not license it from Getty, the only “free” way he or anyone else can use my image is to embed the Getty image ( which appears not to be possible on Steemit) or simply provide a link . The only legal way to post an actual image from Getty on here then, is with a paid license and the proper credits. I am the only person allowed to post the image in such a manner.
In his post, he said that he left Christianity because of the hypocrisy in the church. I know of no Christian who claims perfection. We will continue to make mistakes and we will continue to learn from them until we come face to face with our Maker. There is no perfect church family anywhere. He appears to claim that he is following Jesus more closely than those who claim to be Christians, and he may be. It is not for me to judge that. However, if he does happen to be using my image without having licensed it, he is guilty of violating the 8th commandment: Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal.” (ESV) and is not showing love to his neighbor.
He mentioned the command of Jesus about loving others in Matthew 22:39-40 , but he omitted the preceding verses. Without those two verses, the verses he quoted are meaningless.
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 22:37-40 (ESV)
It is spelled out clearly In Romans13:9 that loving your neighbor as yourself means not taking what is not yours. I do see that he made a handsome profit from that post, yet I as the image creator likely made not a penny. As a neighbor, I am not feeling very loved if that is the case.
Romans 13:9: For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (ESV)
I apologize if I am wrong and he simply did not pay attention to the licensing terms. As I mentioned, I have not yet checked my records of sales from a year ago.I am giving him now the opportunity to remove the image and create a link to it on Getty, or provide the appropriate credits if the license was paid for.
My aim is not to point fingers, but to educate people about why copyright violation is morally wrong. I'm a real person not a corporation, and I'm being robbed daily by seemingly good people.
To find my photography on Steemit, please search on dianemacphoto and to find my designs, please search on dianemacdesigns. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing.
FYI: You are more than welcome to use the Christian-Trail tag if you think it's fits in our community.
We are a group of Christians that support one another both by using this tag to make it easier to find one another and by following this curation trail.
Not everyone joins the trail though, but that's ok :)
Be Blessed.
The price of most things falls to the marginal value to reproduce which in this case is zero. Is it right to sell the same thing so many times?
A better model would be to sell it once for a high price. Or charge someone to take the picture in he first place. It's a little dishonest to sell the same thing an infinite amount of times for a 100 percent margin.
The government can not always protect rent seekers today. Copyright is another bad law which will eventually fade away.
In your case clearly you did not charge Getty enough. The person used a copy of your image. A picture of a picture. Getty should not make it so easy to do this or they should pay you more.
All that said thanks for the post and for starting a nice discussion.
You do not understand stock photography. Images are only "sold" if someone offers a buyout. In such a case a buyer pays sometimes thousands of dollars to use an image that no one else will ever be able to use. It could be an image for a national marketing campaign. For example Coke would not want Pepsi having access to the same image.
Images are typically licensed. It is far cheaper for big corporations to pay for a licensed image than to hire a photographer to shoot the image in the first place. Images are in effect being rented. Is it right to rent cars or tuxedos for a wedding, or to pay for a hotel room? You are never buying these things. You are paying for a right to use them.
You pay for the right to use my work. Simple enough. If you think it is wrong, buy yourself a car or a condo for your next vacation. Lol!
Getty is an agency - like an agency that rents out property. They do all the marketing and take 70 - 80% of the fee. It's not a case of how much I "charge" Getty! We have contracts. They place a huge copyright notice over the images. Sure you can right click and remove the copyright notice if you think it is morally right to steal because you can.
They have given bloggers a way to legally use the images by embedding the image. It provides a link back to the site. Steemit somehow does not support this. I tried it. The other option is to use the link .
But, you are basically saying in your comment that it's ok to steal something if it easy to do and that renting out something is dishonest? I don't get it! Why should my business be any different from others?
Nice response. I don't understand image copyright. I do think once it became cheap to copy this kind of material these laws will never last. They are kind of bizarre as all govt backed monopolies are.
I enjoyed our debate. It is possible to have different views and be nice. Thank you! By the way, I hate government intervention in most things, but I suppose like most of us, I like the laws that are there to protect my interests. That's human nature. :-)
Great post! Thanks for educating us.
Followed
Following you too now!
Agreed. More has to be done in this regard, and it is a shame that it happens all over the internet too. The line between creating and sharing content has gotten blurrier in this time given what technology can do (Facebook, blogs, personal web sites). Here's one recent article on the problem with images on Steemit:
https://steemit.com/blog/@uruiamme/a-dirty-big-secret-of-blogging-on-steem-and-my-solution-to-come-clean
There is also, I believe, going to be more done to provide Steemit users with a library of free images, and they recently offered some pay to stock photographers:
https://steemit.com/photography/@uruiamme/photographers-get-usd3-sbd-if-you-sign-up-for-steem-stockphotos
Since you're new to Steemit, too, you may find this guide to the site that I put together to be helpful. God bless!
Thanks! I will check out both. I'm following you, but can't Upvote, as I did not understand the system and gave out too many votes. Still trying to figure out what I am doing!
You're welcome. And no problem about upvoting. I voted too much at one point and it's been hard to get my voting power back up since. Not many people understand the system when they first get here either :) I'm just starting to get to know it a bit better myself, a little at a time. It didn't seem that complicated to me before I signed up. There's so much having to do with cryptocurrencies and computer technology, though, that I'm not sure I'll be able to learn that much about. Is there anything you're wondering about right now? I might be able to give you some idea what the answer might be or where to find it.
Thanks! You have been so helpful with the link to your help post and the links to @uruiamme. I have signed up for his project. Now I need to educate the Christian community, as I see far too much copyright violation there, and that should not be! Oh, for more than 24 hours in a day! LOL! I have some power back now, so will try to Upvote now! Yeah! I'm going to be very careful now about what I Upvote!
You're welcome! Glad if I can be helpful. And I know what you mean about there not being enough hours in the day :)
I need to print it out and read it the old fashioned way, I think! :-)
I read that you were wondering about steem, SBD and steem power. Here's an article on them that may help some. I was completely mixed up on them too for awhile. I actually went looking at about a dozen people's wallets just to see if I could figure out what was going on but it didn't help much. This video helped some. From what I've learned, steem-backed dollars are about $1 U.S. There's a peg. Payouts are in SBD. The price of steem on the other hand fluctuates. I think one steem right now costs about $1.80. Steem power is like invested steem. It gives you influence here (determines how much your vote is worth) and you can "power it down" (withdraw a certain amount over a certain period. It used to be over 2 years but now is 13 weeks I believe ).
It gets a little easier to understand once you do a little more with it, like send some SBD to people or receive some. You might see that people offer SBD in posts and there are contests that do as well.
Now I'm at the point of starting to look into what to do with this SBD and steem to turn it into USD. THAT is really advanced Steemit, I'm starting to see. There are so many different options and steps, and the directions aren't always in clear English. Everyone seems to do things a little differently too. I'm just trying to learn about it all right now. From what I see, you use an exchange to turn steem/sbd into bitcoin or another coin, and then send those coins to a wallet. I've signed up with coinbase for a wallet and then from there I may see about getting something called a "shift" card, which I believe is a Visa bitcoin card. Whew! I think it may sell your bitcoin into USD as you use it. But so many people here have figured out some system for themselves that I'm encouraged that I will too. There are a lot of posts here giving advice about it and I've just started reading them. Have you figured out how to use your keys yet?
You only got .001 from me, but hey! Every little counts, and it all adds up in the the end, I guess. I have learned that from microstock. I used to make hundreds and sometimes over a thousand dollars per image licensed, but with microsctock I make pennies and a few dollars here and there from someone who pays for a one time download. It all adds up when there are multiple downloads of an image. I have been doing microstock for only about a year and one image has had over 400 downloads on one site alone! Many of those sales were pretty good ones. This has given me an idea for a blog post :-)
Thank you! It does add up a little bit at a time :) And getting a little bit of a time in life does teach us more about depending on the Lord.
You are so right there! We are where we are because He needs us here! He needs us to know that we can depend on Him no matter what! He always has our best interest at heart!
Amen! He's working all things together for our good!
Liked and followed :)
Thank you! :-)
This is an excellent article and one @dan should read. all too often Steemit, Inc. Seems to want to hold us all to higher standards than they hold themselves.
At the very least you should be compensated from the proceeds of that post.
Resteemed..
As I mentioned, I am not CERTAIN that he did not pay for the licensing. I am asking him to let me know one way or the other though. You never know, I just might be nice to him and let him off if he asks me nicely. LOL! It was kind of fluky that it was my very first experience of Steemit!
Yes, and I wouldn't think that is the experience we would want for new members. @dan has since left Steemit, Inc. But obviously he still have influence here.
Let's hope he responds in a positive manner :)
Blessings.
Oops! Was he a founding member or something?
This post received a 1.8% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @christian-trail! For more information, click here!
Thanks, whatever that means! I think i get it, but am not sure.
God sees everything, but it is our flawed natures that cause us to do the things we know are wrong. Even so, you must protect what is yours.
You are right, but hopefully most of us do correct the wrongs as best we can. ;-)
I agree completely!
It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote this, and i have been on Steemit about 3 weeks now. I am very happy to see that a lot of people will gladly right the wrong, because they did not know it was wrong in the first place - because so many are doing it. Then there are others who are very defensive and will not give up the belief that they have the right to take what they want without having put in the work to create it. Hopefully, they are the minority! :-)
Yes I agree.....I still believe that most people are honest!
I believe you are correct. :-)
It may be, that my opinion about that topic is not welcome...
Personally, I generally use copyright free, or my own pictures in my posts. In one of my latest posts, I used a quite great comic, that was not mine. I had some success with it, because I put it in another context and directly wrote to the creators (they put it on facebook), that I somehow feel bad having earned probably more with their content than they did. I invited them on Steemit and promised to send them a fair share of my rewards. We'll see what will happen...
This is my own conscience and my decision.
BUT:
Markets develop a price based on scarecity and demand. In the age of digital things that CANNOT be scarse, we (you) have to find different ways of monetisation. BETTER ways. There are some, already. The best ones, I see is patreon and Steemit, surely there are even others.
Copy"rights" are actually the biggest drag shoe of industrial development. Most are not aware of that, but even if you want to produce an electronic tool, or even develop a program you have to pay to a hundred different companies for THEIR knowledge making the price rise from 5$ to 250$. Imagine where we could be today if this weren't so...
I am kind of an artist myself, so I feel with you. It's annoying not to gain money for what you create. The solution though is not hiding behind rules, laws or the bible, but finding ways to solve the problem.
Edit: Nontheless, you are of course right to point out, that you should have been mentioned AND payed because of good manners and morals.
Opinions are always welcome if presented in a fair and non-argumentative manner. :-)
Here is my response to your well organized answer:
I know all about supply and demand. I have had my own business for 23 years now, and have taken many business courses during that time. I understand that Stock Photography as I once knew it has gone the way of the typewriter. (I thank you for reading my #introduceyourself post to find out more about how I have been adapting to changes!) I am not doing “Business as Usual” like some of my peers. I have even joined the iPhoneography crowd and am licensing mobile phone images! I forgot to mention that in my intro However, I will point out that although typewriters are obsolete, you still have to pay if you want one – maybe big bucks because they are antiques. LOL!
I appreciate that. But copyright is also there to protect the small content provider like myself. I have been successful a few times in pursuing payment and issuing DMCA notices against websites that are hosting my stolen work. People blatantly copy my images and sell them as their own, with everyone raving about the beautiful pics!
Images of pets are particularly vulnerable to theft! In the past, a right clicked image would not be worth selling because it's use was too limited. Today that use is popular because most content is used on the web anyway. My very first copyright violation collection was for a picture of a horse that someone was using to make prints and sell on Ebay! How the heck did she manage that? Well, she was selling miniature prints for dollhouses! Getty's lawyers went after her and shut down her business, as all she was doing was selling prints of images from Getty! It does not matter even if she paid for a license. No one buys the copyright (unless in a buyout which is another story.) The license fee is for using the image and does not allow representing the image as your own and reselling it! Only I as the artist have the right to print and sell my images.
The saddest collection I made was from a Christian publishing company which paid a fee to use my image only on the book cover. However, some graphics designer decided to use the image all throughout the book and also on the back cover. I was happy they liked my image, but they did not pay the appropriate licensing fee. That was an easy one, because the company was a good client of Getty's and perhaps would not have knowingly avoided paying the correct fee in my opinion!
The most ironic one was from a bank which was using my image to promote accumulating wealth. Until I collected from them, I was not accumulating wealth. Hehe! They claimed that a newbie graphics designer was to blame for the mistake.
The poor graphics designer always gets the blame! It's up to companies to make sure their designers know how and if they can use images.
Still think I do not have the right to copyright protection?
And lastly, I'm not sure I totally understand why you quoted Proverbs 21:5.
Here is the NLT version : Proverbs 21:5 Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.
It is saying that hard work pays off and that taking shortcuts does not. I agree wholeheartedly. That's why I'm against someone TAKING my work to use. That's a shortcut that SHOULD end in poverty. Of course, the Proverbs are guidelines and they are not telling us what actually happens. The age old question is always, “Why do the evil prosper?” And that I'm afraid, is a question I have no answer for!
I thank you very much for your very long answer, and I have to excuse myself for my unusual and probably harsh and rash words. If I were forced to label myself, I would say that I am an anarchist, suspicious of every form of power directed to control people (thus against a copyright law). I very strongly believe in most christian values which are not directed to preserve the positions of power of only a few people ( e.g. the system of "church"). As a christian without a church I believe that hard work is always rewarded, not always in money, but in friendship, good relationships, knowledge, a fulfilled life, satisfaction and many other good things that are way more valuable than money. (You know that, I am sure, so who am I to lecture and unfortunately having money does not really hurt) Very often our "rewards" come from another place than we expect or where it is due. Thus "Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity" is true for me in any case.
The second part "hasty shortcuts lead to poverty" is for me the short thinking that it is ok to force people into anything, or to be angry about the outcome of a situation (e.g. a person taking your picture without mentioning you and without paying you). I could imagine that your feeling while you wrote that article made your day worse, made it poorer than it could have been.
Why I think that this interpretation could be right... easy... the whole bible is NOT about money, but about a way of living and about giving good example.
Unfortunately I, myself am sometimes far away from these words and I have to remind myself very often to rethink my own behaviour and my feelings.
I strongly believe that the evil prospers, because we forgot what "prosper" really means. Prosper means to grasp "Self" to develop conscience and morals and to live them and give example. Making laws and rules, forcing and condemming people into what WE believe is in my opinion the opposite of giving good examples.
Again I have to ask for your forgiveness, because my first answer was directed to a 25 year old photographer lost in beginning ideas of christianity and promoting state power and copyright laws, using a harsher tone than I would have, if I had met you in person ( I didn't even read the whole article at first ). As I now know that you have a quick, active and quite experienced brain, I hope I was able to explain at least parts of my perspective.
Thank you!
Pollux
I forgive you. :-)
You are right. I have been around the block a few times. My first career was as a schoolteacher; I sold real estate for a while before going back to college; i worked as a computer programmer (I programmed in Cobol); I then worked in management before going back to school again in the 90s to study photography! I worked for 2 years in a stock agency as a staff photographer before going out on my own 20 years ago.
I have also been a Christian for many, many years, and started 25 years ago on the advice of my husband to keep reading through the Bible from beginning to end. I'm not bragging about this, just establishing who I am. Reading the Bible in its total context is crucial to understanding it. It is too easy to take verses out of context and make them say what you want them to say. You have to understand what the whole book is saying.
The Bible is not as you say about a way of living or setting a good example: The Bible is about one thing - one person only, Jesus Christ. The bi-product of looking at Him and seeing who He is, is a desire to be like Him which then leads to setting an example and living a way of life that is in sync with what the Bible says. But it's not because we try; it's because the Bible changes us as we read it, and the truths become second nature to us.
You misunderstand if you think that being a Christian means you are to sit back and never be angry. Jesus showed righteous anger when he overturned the temple tables. Anger is righteous when someone has done you wrong. That does not mean that you hold a grudge forever, or think about it night and day and let it ruin your day . Perhaps that happens to you, but I do not dwell on such things. Just because I posted an article about copyright violation, does not mean I'm walking around angry all the time. Anger is not an emotion I even experience very often! I'm a very laid back kind of person. So, no! It did not ruin my day! As I said, my focus daily is on Jesus, and He works all things according to His purpose.
The bottom line is that it does not matter anyway what your opinion is, or my opinion is. I'm not going to change your mind and you are not going to change mine. What does matter is God's opinion. And He does tell us pretty clearly, "Thou shalt not steal." He does not add any exceptions to that. He does not say, "thou shalt not steal unless it is a stock image. " I did not write the book. I just follow it.
I understand that all of this sounds trivial to you, as you seem to think that it is ridiculous for me to be concerned about something so minor as lost income. However, being a Christian does not make me a wimp that sits back and is walked over! But I also understand that you are not dependent on stock photo royalties as your means of income. If you did, I can assure you that your attitude would be totally different. As I wrote in my #introduceyourself post, I have no problems with adapting to the changes as the market becomes flooded with imagery. That is fair competition. What I do have a problem with, is the attitude in today's world that says you can do whatever you want as long as you get away with it. That is what is happening - and it is wrong!
That is why I am a member of the Copyright Alliance, which is fighting to keep photographers, artists and musicians from losing the rights to their own hard earned work! The world is full of people who want something for nothing, and those fighting copyright enforcement are fighting to have the right to take anything they want and use it. I have read the comments in our Copyright Alliance posts. I know what is being said on the other side!
As for the answer to why the evil prosper, only God has that answer! Our opinion of why does not matter.
Isaiah:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (ESV)
On that comforting thought, Good- Night! :-)
Thank you very much for your forgiveness and your time creating this answer, too.
Still I have to react on some assumptions you make. For myself: I've gone to a Highschool run by benedictine monks, and my mother was a "hardcore" system christian. I, too suggest to every person to read the bible as a mean to understand what our culture is. You cannot understand literature, art, poetry, morals and many other things going on, without having read the bible. This is anything other than trivial to me and pure logic, so far.
On the meta-level it is up to any person, what to make, feel, understand about it. I am glad to hear, that you found there what you needed.
I opened myself up to this platform in a way, that I did not do anywhere else and so I somehow repeat myself when I say:
I struggle and I am dependent on every Cent I earn, here and in real life. And I am angry often. Anger is an important tool and it is rightous you speak out against people that steal.
I have the impression that you think, I somehow spoke out FOR stealing, which I did not. Stealing is bad, it's immoral and there is no doubt about it (Even if someone did not read, understood or believes in the bible)
What I said (and probably that is due to my anarchist way of thinking) is, that there are better ways to make sure, that artist, musicians, poets, writers and also photographers earn their fair share. Using laws is a way, but outdated and creating at least as much harm as they are helpful. Using the bible or morals doesn't affect nonbelievers or amoral people.
To my knowing Christ used exactly ONE TIME in the whole new testament aggression to force someone, when he "kicked out" the bankers of his fathers temple. (one of my favourite parts of the NT)
Also, I am very glad to hear, that your day was not ruined. Most people would carry that anger for days and feed it (I myself tend to do this sometimes).
tl;dr
I think we have to change ourselves and our ways of doing things to make sure that content creators get their fair share (and multiple other things, that COULD be changed this way) instead of relying on a created force outside of ourselves ( state, laws, police, even morals).
Thanks again for your good reply. It's very difficult to get a feel about where people are really coming from in written dialog like this - no body language or facial expressions to read. I do get the feeling though, that you are a genuinely caring person.
I realize that non-Christians are not going to be affected by what I had to say. You are so right about that. My post was intended for the Christian community and not the community at large, though.
Non-Christians couldn't care less about what the Bible says, but for Christians it's God's Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth! LOL! Always doing what is right is not easy, but when we know that we have done something wrong, then it is up to us to correct that wrong.
That's why it was tagged "Christian." It was written as a post for Christians to read, as sadly I'm seeing the illegal usage of images in the Christian community too. If the reason is ignorance, then I intend to educate.
Have a wonderful Thursday!
So @dan, is the Founder of Steem immune to copyright laws?
@Dan owes this lady an
apology. Actually, I think he owes this lady (and Getty) a licensing fee, if you want to get into the #philosophy of it.This whole situation is just too bad to be true.
Here we are on the Steem platform that @dan helped build to be friendly to all comers of all backgrounds. Except the people who take stock photos to help pay their bills?
As a stock photographer, and especially as one who has discovered her photos being used for "free as in beer" by the founder of Steem... I think @dmcamera is making her point, with virtually no steem power, and with no tantrum or drama or threats.
This is a sad day.
But I have hope.
This, people, is why I would like to start a Stock Photo site for Steemian Artists and Photographers to make some Steem/Steem Dollars when their images are used. My idea is nowhere near completion, but I hope to keep plugging along in the months to come.
Meanwhile, @dmcamera, I hope you can forgive @Dan, and I hope that the wrongs can be righted. Please stay with Steem, and I think you will see a bright future.
And @dan, would you be able to offer @dmcamera something for this predicament you created?
Gee, I had no idea what I was getting into. it just happened to be the VERY FIRST post I read on Steemit, and it happened to be using my image as an attention grabber! I have signed up for the new Stock Site, and am so happy that there are people out there who understand where I am coming form. Thanks for taking that initiative!
As was mentioned elsewhere, the image used is a copy of a copy. Arrangements of 1's and 0's are not a scarce, rivalrous resource, and thus no one can place a claim of ownership on them. You cannot own an idea, as ideas aren't scarce, and thus they are excluded from property norms.
This is why so-called piracy cannot possibly be theft. Copying something and leaving the original deprives no one of anything. You are entitled to the proceeds from selling what you have (your original photograph) to someone or to a group of people. You are not entitled to compensation from a later user who has utilized a copy of your original work.
Using myself as an example, I write. I produce fiction and non-fiction. If I wanted to sell what I produced to someone, ethically I am entitled to the agreed-upon amount for the sale, and for any other arrangements for compensation I have established with the buyer. However, if someone were to copy my work and print it themselves, I am not ethically entitled to any proceeds arising from their sale. I would be well within my rights to point out that this work is not theirs and show how it isn't (reputations exist for this reason), but I have no grounds whatsoever to seek restitution.
Use without attribution is a poor practice, to be certain, and I don't agree with it. However, making the leap into theft is baseless. There's no consistent ethical foundation for it. Nothing you own has been stolen by the copy that was used, as tasteless as its use was.
Ah, you have no idea what you are talking about. I beg to differ! How on earth can anyone ever sell the ORIGINAL of a digital image? LOL! I own the revenue from that image that I produced. And I own the rights to every reproduction of it! No one ever purchases my work , anyway! It is licensed for use, and that is all! I have the right to rent out anything I own, because that is essentially what I am doing!
You cannot copyright an idea to be sure. So if someone else wants to photograph a cross on a Bible, then that's OK. On the other hand, if someone sets out to reproduce my image with exactly the same lighting and placement of the cross, even that my friend is a copyright violation. Taking my image, and even altering it for your own use is a violation too.
By law no one has the right to use my work or derivatives thereof without my permission, or the permission of the agency licensing it. You may not like the laws. You may not like speeding laws either, but break the law and you face the consequences. There are consequences for breaking copyright laws too, and I am well within my rights to pursue them! I'm sorry if that offends you.
So, are you telling me that as a stock photographer I don't deserve to make a living from what I create? Where is the freedom for me to make a living? You tell me I have to collect all the ones and zeros of my original image and I can sell that once, but I have no right to rent out my own intellectual property? I have invested many thousands of dollars in education and equipment for my business just as any other business owner has. So, I don't have a legitimate business? Tell that to the IRS!
I'm not angry with you. Your attitude just bewilders and saddens me. A whole generation seems to think that if it feels OK just do it, and if you want it, just take it! It doesn't matter who gets trampled on in the fray, as long as THEIR rights (as they see them) are honored! Forget the rights of the creator!