Internet Image Theft
by
Cindy Ellen Hill, Esq. for Fine Art Registry™
An artist I know walked into a large chain craft store a year or two ago, and stopped dead in her tracks. There before her, laid out over and over like so many television screens on the wall of an appliance store, was one of her paintings – cheaply printed as the insert illustration in rack upon rack of frames offered for sale on the store’s shelves. A manufacturing company in China had lifted an image of one of her paintings off her website, thinking it looked just right to attract people’s attention to their product and demonstrate how nice their frames can look surrounding a lovely piece of art.
The explosive growth of the internet has been a mixed blessing for artists, as it has been for writers and many other creative artisans. The internet, like the television and telephone before it, and the telegraph before that, has rapidly altered culture, in many ways ‘shrinking’ the world by making it convenient for people to transact business at all hours across a span of continents. For artists and artisans this has meant an unprecedented ability to display and market works on a global scale, even when one is working from a remote rural studio. Whether you launch your own website or market artworks from a gallery page on Fine Art Registry™, your works – or at least digital images of them – can be seen by appreciative audiences and interested buyers without the overhead costs and cut-throat competition of securing prime on-the-ground wall space.
Internet Theft: Point and Click
On the other hand, working in a global electronic market has its unique and sometimes overwhelming challenges. The vast availability of free clip-art may have greatly diminished the number of clients looking to pay graphic artists for bread-and-butter logo and letterhead design work. On the other hand, the rapid increase in number of websites has created a new field of web graphic design that has probably more than made up for the losses due to clip-art availability.
But the bigger problem for fine artists is a nasty brew of factors that are the flip-side to the easy global access and the clip-art mindset: First, it is extremely easy for internet users to perceive of all images posted on any website on the internet as free clip-art. This perception is bolstered by the fact that all you have to do is click to lift most images on the net, then save the image to your own photo files or to image-dump sites that allow you to reload the image to your own website later. (Some of these image-dump sites exacerbate the problem further by entering images loaded into the site into searchable databases, where they are accessible to even more internet users.) Many internet image-rustlers aren’t even aware that they are stealing. Lifting an internet image feels more like that bowl of candy on the receptionist’s desk of a business office; many people assume that it’s there for free consumption. They’d be as shocked to be charged with a crime or sued for copying an internet image as they would for idly picking up that hard candy from the bowl while waiting for an appointment.
"The laws regarding protection of those images around the globe have yet to catch up with the advances in technology."
Second, the laws regarding protection of those images around the globe have yet to catch up with the advances in technology. But even where the law is clear, tracking, detection, and enforcement are virtually impossible. In the case of the artist whose digital image of her painting was lifted by a Chinese manufacturing company to help sell their frames, for example, Chinese law on the books protected her works with something close to the same copyright protection afforded in the United States. However, had she not walked into a craft supply store that happened to carry this brand of frames, she would never have known that her copyright had been violated and the picture lifted by a website viewer.
Once she discovered the violation, this artist’s options were limited. International law enforcement agencies are somewhat overwhelmed chasing terrorists, drug and arms dealers, and thefts of actual paintings; an internet copyright violation of a single image simply isn’t high on the list of criminal enforcement. That meant pursuing a civil lawsuit, against a corporation located in China. Unless she captures the attention of a big-name law firm sufficiently enough to persuade them to front the expenses of such a suit, it’s doubtful that a small rural studio artist could afford to bring international civil litigation.
This doesn’t mean she should do nothing, however. She could, for example, sue the local branch of the craft store, in the hopes that would compel them to have to bring the Chinese manufacturer into the suit at their expense, or at least stop them from selling her image without compensating her for it, even though that might not stop the frame manufacturer from selling it elsewhere in the world. While many attorneys advise artists that it’s ‘not worth it’ to pursue copyright infringement litigation, I firmly believe that artists need to boldly assert their copyrights where ever and when ever possible in order to raise public awareness of the nature of artists copyrights.
Safeguard Your Internet Images with FAR®
Unless and until enforcement technology and the justice system pertaining to internet images catches up with net advances, artists, art owners, and galleries should take steps to safeguard their images when taking advantage of internet marketing. This involves asserting copyright by making theft of the image both physically and legally difficult for the thief. These steps may not stop all internet image theft, especially when it’s being deliberately done by a manufacturer who intentionally is trying to avoid paying for appropriate artwork to market his product. But they will help eliminate the casual lifting of images by people who are otherwise unaware of the problem, and will deter the intentional thief by at least making them have to work for it!
"Since protection on the net is of paramount concern, publicly registering your work with Fine Art Registry™ on the web is critical."
Legal protection of your copyright on the net starts with basic copyright protection: register your image with the U.S. Copyright Office. But don’t stop there; since protection on the net is of paramount concern, publicly registering your work with Fine Art Registry on the web is critical. An internet thief can hardly claim they didn’t know the rights in your image belonged to you, when the registration and claim to your work is right there on another web site, easily found with any common browser.
If your image is lifted, do whatever is within your means and the course of reason to assert your copyright infringement claim. If the lifted image appears on another website, formally notify the hosting entity – copyright theft probably violates their terms of service, and they may shut down the offending webpage unless the issue is resolved. Find the webpage operator if at all possible and send them a formal notice of the infringement with a demand that they stop. Consult an attorney in your state to review whatever other legal options you may have.
Physical protection of your image also starts with Fine Art Registry. On the Fine Art Registry site, your image will be embedded with an FAR watermark and identifying information. Use this FAR-watermarked version in ALL your internet postings of your work including on your own website, and anyone viewing your image will know immediately that it’s rights are secured and have been publicly claimed. The watermark also quite simply makes the image less attractive to thieves, who will not want to print your picture with the watermark on their coffee mugs, letterhead, or website. Conceivably, a highly-skilled hacker could go through the steps necessary to cover over the watermark. However, the effort involved would not be worth it for casual thieves, and doing so would prove the criminal intent and malfeasance of anyone who goes that far.
Also consult with an experienced ‘techie’ to stay up to date on other advances in encryption and file embedding; the more information regarding your work and your copyrights that you can intertwine with the digital files that display the image, the better. You can set your website up in such a manner that the images on it can not be copied, at least without high-level tech skills. This will cost more and be more complicated to load and change than ordinary everyday website loading processes, and thus may be out of reach for many artists and small galleries. As more artists and web designers request these protections, however, prices and availability are bound to come down. In the meantime, take advantage of that global art marketplace, but protect your internet images by being ‘net-smart’ and using FAR.
— Cindy Ellen Hill, Esq. | January 18, 2007
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© 2006-2008 Global Fine Art Registry, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without express permission.
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