| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| fivespud364 |
Photos needed for my websiteWe have just had a bit of a major hitch re- the photos on our website someone is trying to charge me over £900 for a photo of a basil plant I have used.I therefore now wish to delete all existing photos from my website but that will make it look pretty dull so if anyone has any photos of their veg that I can use for free can you please e-mail them to me at vegetableplantsdirect@googlemail.com I would be most grateful and if you can name the variety so much the better |
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| Silas |
Have you used copyrighted photos without the permission of the photographer? | ||
| fivespud364 |
Not Knowingly The picture concerned must have been used by someone else before me | ||
| Floyd |
If you Google Stock photos free, you will find many sites where you have access to free to use Photos.
Hope this helps Lee |
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| Tavascarow |
Be careful if you do that. Many of those free stock photo sites are just glorified image search engines & many of the images they throw up are copywrited. My Fotothing site (along with many other members there) got hit by one a couple of years ago & virtually all the images on Fotothing are copywrited. |
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| earthyvirgo |
Fivespud,
If you want to be safe re copyright there are a couple of image libraries that don't charge the earth. It's simply not worth the stress of using images where you're not sure of the source. Bigstockphoto ... (com I think) is one, I can't for the life of me remember the other at the moment. You buy credits for use of the images and they cost $6 upwards for 72dpi resolution images for web use. EV |
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| Tavascarow |
Of course the real answer is you should be taking & using your own images anyway.
Digital photography & cameras are cheap. You don't need an expensive digital SLR to take web quality photos & there is plenty of cheap/free image manipulating software available. Also by stating on the page that all images are of your own stock/produce will give your customers more confidence in what your selling. |
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| Fee |
morguefile.com is your friend.
Basil pic on there: http://morguefile.com/archive/display/20545 there are others too, if you do a search. |
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| sarahloo |
You should offer plants/seeds in return for photos!
Not sure if I've got anything you'd like but if I have we could probably strike a deal 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skycarrots |
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| Fee |
Yummersetter & Mr Yummersetter do photography for websites, might be worth talking to them about it? | ||
| yummersetter |
beat me to it, Fee - I was talking to himself about it just last night
We were saying how much better as a 'brand' it would be if you had unique pictures of your own that were a unified image of your company's products rather than bits and pieces from various sources. You need images of the supplied plants and finished article, I think. And professional photography is a tax-deductible business expense, so is in fact, more affordable that you think. |
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| vegplot |
This site demonstrates this clearly. Afon Wen employed a photographer to take pictures for their web site and the result is far better than using library images (IMHO). |
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| tahir |
That sounds like a good deal |
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| MarkS |
The NUJ recommended rates for use of digital photographs online.
http://www.londonfreelance.org/feesguide/index.php?language=en&country=UK§ion=Photography&subsect=Online+use+of+photos&subsubs=All Note that this is for pre-agreed use. Typically the charge for unauthorised use would be at least 2x or 3x these rates. While many photographers would accept a minimal payment for a personal site, very few would allow a commercial site to get away. If your letter is from Getty Images you are probably in trouble (google getty images copyright) You should ideally use photos of your own stuff as recommended above (what shop shows pictures of other peoples goods?). Failing that you need to find images which are cheap from a suitable supplier. You need to find a microstock agency. istock/alamy/etc. Flickr now have a deal with getty Expect more people to have this problem because things like http://www.tineye.com/ are making it easy to find people stealing images. |
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| vegplot |
If it's a Getty image then they're well known for doing this. As far as I know, and I may well be wrong, Getty have never successfully prosecuted a breach of copyright, relying on fair heavy handed techniques. They will reduce their 'fee' if resistance is met or give up altogether as the cost of taking it to court doesn't normally warrant the effort.
This is not advice just an observation. |
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| MarkS |
They've started.
http://copyrightaction.com/forum/getty-finally-sues-and-wins http://copyrightaction.com/forum/the-real-cost-of-being-sued-by-getty Threats were a cheaper/easier option for them until everyone realised that they hadn't actually been to court. But now it make sense for them to do a few, to encourage the others. |
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| tahir |
Blimey, wotcha Mark | ||
| MarkS |
Hi Tahir. Not a bad bit of Lurking? |
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| Barefoot Andrew |
Where in heavens name have you been? Glass of R&S?
A. |
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| MarkS |
Don't mind if I do, Andrew.
After I've put the kids to bed perhaps. The dulcet tones of their cries for hot milk are even now reaching across the house. |
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| vegplot |
The swine. They are ruthless and now they have a test case under their belts I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of such cases. |
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| fivespud364 |
Slight problem with that one Tavascrow were to busy the grow our own veg hence why I can't photograph my own and I would need acres to grow all the varieties we sell anyway ( One day I would love too !!) |
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| fivespud364 |
No It was Corbis images that we are having bother with via their solicitors but it sounds like a similar approach I have spoken to a specialist solicitor in the matter and they say the common practice is to ask politely to remove it and then if you don't , take the legal root.
The solicitor said they would have to prove I took the image from them which I did not it must have been being used by another gardening website at the time its not even a particularly good picture of a basil and certainly not worth £902 !! which is what they are asking me to pay. Daft thing is theres a three page heavy handed letter with all its non negotiable bla bla etc but on the licence theyre asking me to pay it says "i am an authorized representative of vegetable plants direct and understand that the payment of the amounts identified herein is voluntary" Oh well that's ok then I volunteer not to pay But seriously paying something of this magnitude at this time of year would mean me not paying rent or feeding the kids its that serious and if they pursued it it would probably bankrupt us as I don't have that sort of money and certainly don't have the £5000 legal fees theyre talking about |
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| MarkS |
I would suggest that your 'specialist' solicitor doesn't know what they are talking about. They certainly do not need to prove where you got the image from, all they need to do is show that you used an image to which they own the copyright. Have you checked the corbis site to find the image? Or checked other microstock sites (or used tineye) to find other versions of the image? Check what the cost/licence terms are whereever you can find it. I would guess that as Vegplot suggests they hope you will pay up without them invoking court and if you take the image offline may not pursue it further, but from what you've said you are bang to rights in the wrong. Dare I ask where the other images on your site came from? |