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How to Prevent Piracy Of Your Images

Chris Gampat
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06/23/2016
2 Mins read
Final Umbrella Image of Grace by Chris Gampat (1 of 1)ISO 2001-30 sec at f - 5.6

When you think about piracy, the biggest cases amongst the art world have to do with music, movies, etc. Those are all things that were created: content, if you will. But sadly, very little is done about imagery and preventing or stopping piracy. People consume and love to listen to music and watch movies or videos, and over the years they’ve been completely fine with providing a fee to get the content that they really, genuinely love and enjoy. However, no one has really come out to try to protect the rights of photographers in equally big ways. While Trent Reznor and Tarantino talk a lot about paying to get a great experience that they’re working very hard on, people have been acknowledging this.

So here’s what we need to do as photographers.

Chris Gampat The Secret Order of the Slice You and Me on the Couch, Now (1 of 1)ISO 2001-13 sec at f - 2.8

There are really two different ways that we can do this. Here’s the first method:

  • Stop capturing photos
  • Start creating photos
  • Find inspiration from various things
  • Come up with unique ideas that you’re passionate about
  • Develop a genuine creative vision
  • Work really hard on those projects almost as if they’re a production
  • Register them with the government and get a copyright
  • Go about contacting gallery owners, curators, photo editors at publications, and other gate keepers to spread the word and distribute the content that you’ve created
  • Ensure that you have a centralized website where people can come back to to find more of your work
  • Keep doing this and make people hire you for your creative vision or license your photos if they’re using them for commercial reasons.
This may indeed look like a mistake, but believe it or not after Photoshop accidentally created an image like this, I tweaked the images for days until I recreated the effect myself.
This may indeed look like a mistake, but believe it or not after Photoshop accidentally created an image like this, I tweaked the images for days until I recreated the effect myself.

This is how we’ll truly be able to compete in a world where everyone thinks that they’re a photographer. Unfortunately, they’re not a Photographer–and the difference has to do with intent. They don’t understand that you can create a whole load of awesome photos and various cool ideas that they can’t–and that that’s what they’re paying you for.

Heck, people want to DIY their own wedding photos these days!

Otherwise, here’s the other way:

  • Go capture photos
  • Keep capturing really good photos
  • Get better and better at it
  • Get pirated one day and realize that there is nothing you can do about it
  • Or at least very little
  • Cry
  • Take all your photos offline
  • Learn to not trust digital
  • Shoot film
  • Take film for development
  • Learn to not trust development company
  • Learn to develop film yourself
  • Live in the woods and off the grid
  • Huddle with your photos and say “Ahhhh, my precious” just like Golem in Lord of the Rings
  • No one will ever get your photos.

Now that’s a bit of a stretch there, but realize that you’re going to have to take risks and if someone is stealing your images, you know that you’re doing something right at least. Still though, with no big companies really looking to protect us, it’s up to us to do it.

 

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.