Confused -- SPICECOMMENTS.COM is getting images HOW?

[S.Horton]

This appears to be a site where people 'get' links to photos to post on MySpace etc.

It looks like it is using PHOTOBUCKET -- On the bottom of the page, it just says something weak like "© SpiceComments.com - The images belong to the respective authors - 2008 "

http://www.spicecomments.com/comments/sexy_girls/

The images appear to have no attribution to the authors.

At least some of the images look professional.

I wonder if the authors (a) granted rights without knowing it or (b) the authors don't know this is going on.

[superstes]

Send Content to Us
The spicecomments.com wants to make available a great quantity of images and comments for other users post in the myspace, orkut and hi5. If you would like to see your artworks in our site, please send your images, glitters, animations and photos to us through the email address below:

Please Read
The submissions must not contain any material which infringes the rights of any other person, including material which is an invasion of any privacy rights or which is protected by copyright, trademark or any other proprietary right.

http://www.spicecomments.com/send_content_to_us/

Could be from here, or does it go deeper?

[S.Horton]

My guess is that they just surf around, link to stuff, then put a bullsh*t statement on the front of the site and move on.

I do not understand what happened to respect, plain and simple, for the works of others.

And it is NOT the WWW's fault.

The WWW does not teach people what is right or wrong.

[superstes]

The submissions must not contain any material which infringes the rights of any other person, including material which is an invasion of any privacy rights or which is protected by copyright, trademark or any other proprietary right.

Looks like a perfect example why we should watermark our stuff with copyrights.

[Karl Johnston]

Some images we have on the site are images sent by our users, photographers, artists and contributors, if you find a photo of yourself or image that you created and would like it to be taken off, please use the contact form and give us a detailed explanation and we will be more than happy to take your image off.

We do our best to avoid copyrighted material.

The question is, how does the author know ? How would they know? How could they find out without searching every site like this one for their work?

The more important question is: how far can this damage an author ?

[S.Horton]

I saw one image from the Transformers movie.

This site is definitely flying below-the-radar.

Perfect example of a business founded upon deception.

[Karl Johnston]

In all honesty, what does it matter? Sure it's unethical, but it's like downloading music..people do it, people listen and appreciate it and everybody exchanges it. It's illegal, of course, as its infringement.

On the other hand, it's not as serious as if someone takes that music, remixes it and reproduces their own copy of it without the artist's consent or adherance to licensing agreements.

Unethical, unprofessional..but nothing too serious, it's just the internets; chances are these people (myspace profiles) aren't looking for anything side from personal use to decorate their websites.

The site even has a handy little report funciton located here:

Copyright Infringement

Some images we have on the site are images sent by our users, photographers, artists and contributors, if you find a photo of yourself or image that you created and would like it to be taken off, please use the contact form and give us a detailed explanation and we will be more than happy to take your image off.

We do our best to avoid copyrighted material.

http://www.spicecomments.com/private_policy/

The images are so crappily rendered and displayed, you couldn't reprint or republish them in any shape or form, stock or print or fine art or otherwise.


..Ps: what were you doing looking for "sexy girls" on there, anyway?

[S.Horton]

Point taken: there are probably no real money damages. I think it is interesting what passes the line -- Disclaimer = good night's sleep.

A band I shoot for has a Myspace page; that page got signed by a person with what looked like a professional G&N photo, so I clicked, that's how I found the site.

http://www.myspace.com/switchbacktheband

[Moppie]

If you look at the html to add the photos, they are simply using photobucket to host the content.

So they are not taking it off other photobucket accounts.

[S.Horton]

Ah, then photobucket is helping them.

I wish I could come up with a revenue model based upon the work of others without paying them.

[Floriantrojer.com]

As said before, just WATERMARK your shots.

In all honesty, what does it matter? Sure it's unethical, but it's like downloading music..people do it, people listen and appreciate it and everybody exchanges it. It's illegal, of course, as its infringement.

Karl, excuse the disrespect, but a statement like that makes people think you see no reason to protect your own goods, and find no value in your work.

I see the analogy with downloading music, but what you forget to add is, that if you get CAUGHT downloading music, you will get FINED!

Same with photography, a whole lot of people use shots without permission, but if we catch them, fricking fine them too!

[S.Horton]

^^ There is not yet a good body of law to deal with the Internet.

I don't think that good laws will exist for 20+ years, generally.

[Karl Johnston]

Originally Posted by Floriantrojer.com

As said before, just WATERMARK your shots.

Karl, excuse the disrespect, but a statement like that makes people think you see no reason to protect your own goods, and find no value in your work.

Not at all, what's a watermark going to do? Most of them are easily removed, anyway. The best way to protect your images is to register your copyright of them with your state body or office. There are no fines in infringement that I know of. Though I do know as far as legal goes you can take up an issue with small claims court, but that's usually not even worth it. A payout can be anywhere between 300$-12 000 at the absolute highest depending on the image, depending on the case. When it takes 150$ an hour to hire a lawyer...where's the point gone? More stress than its worth.

Side from that .. most websites don't make money off of taking your images for blogs, my space, personal use; the owners just want to spread them around. If you upload low resolution files, there's no problem..not even a stock agency would take a low resolution pixellated jpeg, most require file sizes of at least 4 mp files. Sure you can upsample in photoshop but the quality is still too reduced to do anything with it. If someone has that kind of time and can find a way to figure out how to do anything worth doing anything with an image after all of that work...kudos to them.

In all honesty if someone can figure out how to print off one of my works from the web at the absolute crap quality they're uploaded at ...and make money in the process..then they deserve that cash.

I use digital embedding watermarks in my works, I've never really known how that's supposed to work, actually, but there you go. It doesn't screw the image up too much with a tacky watermark that can easily be cloned out in a few passes with the clone brush.

I'd love to see someone print off one of my shots from my website and then print an 8x10 of it that is the same quality of a print I can make with the originals.

I've never, not once, never ever heard of anyone getting fined for lifting a photograph off of someone's webpage and personally using it.