In my research, I come across many realtor websites that use nice, professional looking photos in their banners, advertising, etc. As a photographer and videographer in Toronto, when I see these I wonder whether they are actually the realtor's own photos, purchased, or stolen. Judging by the quality of property photos posted, it was more than clear that they simply couldn't have shot the good photos themselves--the discrepancy was too great.
As a photographer who spent the last 10 or so years fine tuning my skills, it irks me to think that people would steal photos and use them without permission. For fun, I put myself in those "peoples'" shoes and imagine just how easy it is to take photos from the net. And value? Whatever. "After all", my imaginary criminal thinks, "these photos were simply the result of a person pointing a camera at the subject and clicking a button, right?" Wrong!
Good photos are a result of years of practise and small fortunes worth of gear including lenses, cameras, tripods, heads, computers, software, and more. A perspective correcting, for instance, cost me just under $2000. A full-frame digital camera with cinema grade video: $3500. Software: over $2000. And the list goes on. But that's just the gear, folks. How do you put a price tag on ten years of studying and practice? Just as a writer spends years developing his/her style, just as a realtor spends years studying and training and marketing, so do us photographers spend years learning and perfecting our style, our business. And just as writers make their work seem effortless, just as effective realtors "magically" sell properties with apparent ease, so to does a photographer produce publishable work with ease. Picture it: a photographer stops, looks at some building you passed a thousand times without noticing, maybe squats down, composes, thinks a bit, waits for some light, adjusts aperture, focuses, checks exposure, and, click--it's done. That's it. And yet, he sells the piece for thousands of dollars, sometimes more. You can do that, right? After all, you have a really nice point and shoot with a big zoom, right? So where is the worth in the few seconds it took the photographer to shoot the photo? It's in the years behind him, the gear that almost bankrupt him, etc.
Fines
So what are the fines of copyright infringement, you might wonder Well, to put it into perspective, a recent mortgage company was sued over $19,400 for simply using two photos in their advertising without the photographers permission: http://www.cgstock.com/essays/copyright_lawsuit
If that doesn't impress you, this piece of news from yesterdays paper should:
"Italian photographer Paolo Pizzetti filed a suit against Leibovitz in U.S. District Court in New York, claiming that she had taken his photos and used them in an advertising campaign. According to Pizzetti, he was hired by Leibovitz to take photographs of scouting locations for advertisements to be run by Italian coffee company LavAzza in April 2008. The Trevi Fountain in Rome and Plaza San Marco in Venice were among the sites he shot. The photos were allegedly used in a LavAzza calendar of Leibovitz photography released last October – including the cover.
Pizzetti cites weather conditions, cloud formations and the appearance of a particular bird in the photographs according to the complaint filed. He continues that Leibovitz never said she planned to use his photographs and never sought permission to do so. Pizzetti is looking for a court order requiring that Leibovitz cease using the images, as well as pay $150,000 per infringement and other unspecified damages." (source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/06/renowned-photog-annie-leibovitz-could-face-more-lawsuits/)
I recently came across www.tineye.com, a website that lets photographers input their photos which are then searched online for occurances. The interesting thing about this is that the program even recognizes the photo if it was altered or cropped. Of course, if a photo has been found to be used without permission and owner of the work is keen on collecting, fines are likely to result.
From Tineye.com:
"TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. For some real TinEye search examples, check out our Cool Searches page."
Cool, huh?!
Avoid the trouble--I can provide you with professional photos and videos of your current or next listing. My name is Peter and you can reach me at (416) 488-3295 or peter@stonehomephoto.com
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