Monday, November 03, 2008

Oh dear!

laptoprobin
Please feel free to download, print or copy this picture.

But you know you don’t want to. However handsome he is, what on earth would you do with a low resolution picture of my husband? I seem to have upset a few people by suggesting that it is unattractive and appears presumptious to plaster a great big watermark and or copyright symbol all over artwork on a blog or website, when so many really great artists don’t do that. In my view if you don’t want people to copy your pictures then don’t put them on the internet – just keep them at home and enjoy them by yourself. If you do want to share them, then share them properly so that people can enjoy them. If you’re bothered about earning money from your pictures (as I am) make sure that they are fairly small, then they will be of little or no commercial value and most people copying them won't be making a bean from your work but will be copying them for their own personal pleasure. Of course there are a few idiots who try to pass off other people’s work as their own but is it really worth presenting defaced versions of your own pictures to prevent that?

6 Comments:

Blogger annie said...

Gee, that's refreshing, Julie. I do learn so much from trying to copy a part or all of a picture, but I haven't been doing it because of the anxious warnings plastered over the Online Art.I did try one daring time but then cowered, expecting The God Police to swoop down and snatch me off so I threw it away.

11/04/2008 2:59 AM  
Blogger Timaree said...

I don't need to draw your husband as I have my own to draw. Then again, maybe your husband will sit still where mine didn't - I'm new to drawing and really could have used 15 minutes of sitting still. So, he ended up a bit fatter than he might really be. lol. I can see you need a sense of humor in this business! Following all that discussion I can see different sides but I like yours the best. It's some protection like locking the door but not having iron grids over ones windows trapping one inside while trying to keep others out.

11/04/2008 3:27 AM  
Blogger Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Hello Julie,
You really have spelled it out. I pinch pictures/photos on the net all the time to illustrate a point, but never declare them as my own! Putting a copyright sign on the naughty bits perhaps would be fun though. I don't sell my drawings these days - sometimes frame them and give them away for weddings etc.
w.

11/05/2008 6:55 AM  
Blogger owenswain said...

Glad you liked the drawing with your name on it :-) Maybe you'll even come back...well, mabye eh?

11/05/2008 7:44 PM  
Blogger Julie Oakley said...

Annie, I think so long as you don't make money from or publish your copied pictures (including on-line) nobody is going to know or care. However if you intend to put them on the web then I think the answer is simply to ask permission from the owner. Most people wouldn't mind if you made it clear it was for your personal art journey, and it would not be sold. If the artist has been dead for a long long time then copyright will have run out.

Freebird as someone who has been asked to steal photos for publications by clients (and refused) I know that most of the images you might want to steal (by professional illustrators or photographers) are unusable because like my pictures they're too low resolution, so all these amateurs getting het up about potential thieves are getting wound up over something they could easily fix by uploading low resolution pictures.

Naughty wendy - maybe a credit or link back would be in order?

Nice to have art created specially for me Owen.

11/06/2008 8:42 PM  
Blogger owenswain said...

Julie, you are welcome - really, it seems a joke but it was more than a nod in your direction :)

I think you'll see less (c) and the like on my site in the future as the whole EDM discussion (a weird way to enter EDM) is something I've thought about for some time now but your quite helpful perspective has moved me further along in the direction of less is more.

I usually put at least my initials on my work and maybe doing that is enough and not too much.

11/06/2008 8:54 PM  

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