I think a strong watermark is the only online deterrent available today.

Privacy laws and copyright laws are completely different matters. The rights of the one making the photo, and the rights of the person inside the photo are different.

I you want to use someones picture for your political campagne, you need that persons permission. That has nothing to do with copyright. I am not challenging privacy law, i was talking only about copyright.

Privacy != Copyright

@ Brian

Something that is not physical can never be property. It is not possible to own ideas. Copyright is a market regulation, nothing else. The phrase "intellectual property" is just a clever trick to distract from the anti-market nature of it.

Copyright != Property

So, Thomas, you would have no problem if I obtained your photo, and used it in an ad for a political candidate of my choice-
or perhaps I could photoshop that photo of you and use it to advertise a drag club in a city near you? Or the before photo in a Viagra ad?

After all, I would just be, in your words, "do(ing) whatever i want with any data i get my hands on."

This is different from a photograph, or a novel, or a song. These things are not arbitrary data, that belong to the world. These are artistic and/or intellectual products created by my mind and my hands. I arranged those 0s and 1s in a particular order. That order belongs to me. If I read you my book, or show you my photo, it does not make them belong to you.

The "data" that belongs to you is the photos that you created, or the words that you wrote. Feel free to do with them as you see fit.

Unless you receive written permission from me to use my work, then reproducing it is the same as stealing my car. It belongs to me, you take it and use it without my permission, that's THEFT.

You wrote "I will fight for my freedom to do whatever i want with any data i get my hands on."

So from your argument, if I could get my hands on your street address, home phone number, driver's license number, Social Security Number, etc., you would have no problem with me posting them with your name, for any would-be identity thief to use as they see fit? That is all just data after all, and from your statement, "whatever I want with any data I can get my hands on."

Linking to a work, possibly in some cases using a thumbnail of the work while discussing the work is the digital world replacement for the appendix of references in the back of a paper book.

Totalitarian systems like Communism and Fascism exist, where the brutish mindset of an old culture and the refined technologie of a new culture come together.

I dont mean to fight you, but there is no doubt in my mind, if we allow our culture to be treated like property, we will loose our freedom. I will fight for my freedom to do whatever i want with any data i get my hands on.

Thank you for the clarification. Now I see where you're coming from.

People want property rights online simply because maintaining those rights keeps the lights on, the kids fed and the business going. Basically the same reasons people do any jobs.

The Web allows for the free flow of ideas in ways not previously possible.

Discussions can happen anywhere.

Supporting or contradictory evidence can be provided instantly with in-line linking.

But that doesn't mean that the content itself is free. We all have bills to pay...

Is the Internet a virtual world, or is it one facet of the real world?

Treating data like physical objects is the most retarded thing you can do with a computer, because the very problem why property exists, does not exist inside the computer.

Why would anyone want property rights inside a virtual world? That does not make any sense, except if we are dealing with morbidly misguided or plain evil people.

Indeed, power derives from information.

But there is a distinction between your information and my information.

We maintain the right to do whatever we want with our information. We can sell it, give it away or keep it entirely private.

Those rights are indirectly afforded by copyright law.

In fact, copyright allows people to make a living by uncovering and displaying information.

I fail to see how the Internet and computers place democracy and copyright at odds with each other.

The Internet has opened up new, and much more cost-effective, means of getting information out to the masses.

Indeed, HTML was designed as a way of easily linking documents to documents. But there's an inherent difference in saying here's a link to this really cool (photo, video, story, painting, song, etc.) than there is providing the medium in its entirety on your own page.

From an academic standpoint, I am very interested in your opinion that technology puts democracy and information at odds. Please expand.

In the age of the computer, you can not at the same time have democracy and copyright.

On Fair use: Unfortunately, the way it is set up, it allows for complete confusion and misunderstanding. I am not totally against it but I wish that a provision would be added to contact the copyright owner. Out of pure courtesy. Same with Creative Commons.
instead of "all rights reserved" we could have "Available through Common Courtesy".
best

Paul, I'm a big fan of yours. Your contribution to the industry has been and continues to be nothing short of remarkable.

Feel free to beat me up a little over this one (and I'm straying further into murky legal-land), but Fair Use, to a very certain degree, doesn't bother me.

Fair Use is what allows people to cite quotations in everything from homework assignments to book critiques.

It allows you to reference a photograph of mine as a visual aid while you're discussing the merits of the individual work.

I'm hesitant to even bring up the Fairey debacle (it was such a disaster on all sides, so as to serve only as an example of how not to do just about anything), but Fairey took a work that was pretty pedestrian and made it significantly and uniquely his own.

Personally, I don't see it as any different than what Warhol did with a can of Campbell's Soup.

Fairey could have handled things much better (as could everyone else in that disaster), but this type of re-interpretation has been a hallmark of art for as long as art has existed.

That being said, Fairey could have freehanded it entirely and saved himself a world of hurt.

And it's not an art that I particularly respect, nor is it something I would engage in myself.

Personally, I'd love to see a system where copyright information is permanent and immovable in digital formats. Or film, for that matter.

But if you can get to the bits and bytes, you can alter and remove whatever you want. Then you start getting into proprietary formats, and no one will make any money. Imagine if you had to install a different piece of software to view individual Web sites...

I'm not sure about the jail thing... Maybe for the guys that go on Flickr and sell discs of "stock art" they downloaded there without permission. Maybe for the corporation that really, really should know better.

Digital media taxes, in line with what Canada does, might be an idea worth investigating. But then, who qualifies as an "artist" for reimbursement purposes and what share of the $7 per image do I get to claim?

Your last three suggestions are great, and I'd be happy to do whatever is in my power to make those a reality.

Especially the part about making tons of money.

Thanks for the comment. While there are certainly cases where I wouldn't hesitate to put a legal shot across someone's bow for infringing my registered works, I actually don't think suits are always the solution.

This is especially true of mom 'n' pop infringers: people infringing on my copyright to put a cactus picture of mine on their Facebook or personal blog.

Wrong? Yes it is. But suing them probably won't yield much for me, and as the RIAA has established for us, machine-gun suits against anyone and everyone cause a public backlash; resulting in more infringement.

For these infringers (who I really believe just don't know better) simply making it not so easy to infringe and engaging them in IP awareness campaigns will probably prove a better option.

As for the corporate infringers and people who should clearly know better, well, I'm not going to hesitate to file takedowns and/or suits as applicable.

@David

Let me start by saying that I'm not an attorney.

But it is my understanding that, although largely untested in the courts as it pertains to photo "sharing," two parties cannot enter into a contract that alters or modifies the rights of an uninterested third party.

In other words, if I get you to sign a contract giving me permanent rights to all your work and, say, the entire Black Star catalog, the Black Star part of it is not going to be upheld, since (to my knowledge, anyway) neither you nor I have sufficient control of Black Star's IP to negotiate them.

Generally, in those legalese disasters that are EULAs, they also require users to only upload intellectual property that they have the right to use.

Technically, user MySpaceHottie012 can't upload works that she can't legally transfer the rights to in accordance with the terms of the EULA.

I think that's how the lawyers keep the companies (social networking and photo sharing sites) safe.

The real problem is that there is no system in place to keep the individual users from uploading things that they have no rights to.

Most, if not all, social media content sharing sites - advised by lawyers - require all users to agree to terms of services that grant the platform unlimited non-exclusive rights to the content uploaded. Some terminate this license when the user closes his/her account. Some are generous to let the author keep his/her copyright.

Now they need these rights to operate as social media tools. They need unlimited rights because their business model may change with technology and market evolutions.

Problem is right-owners loose all control over their content by submitting to these platforms. Professional photographers loose their livelihood.

Are professional content providers excluded from social media websites? Is there any platform out there that has come up with a way to reconcile these opposing interests?

The message is clear, register your images and then if someone uses without permission, you have the ability to take them to court and win.

The problem of actually stopping this practice is like trying to make criminal activity to stop. It is a nice pipe dream, but criminal activity will continue, but society must enforce their laws.