One of the biggest struggles that photographers have is people stealing their work. For some reason, people believe that if an image is on the Internet it means that it is “free game” and/or the images are then considered to be “Fair Use”. That is not the truth.
An image becomes copyrighted the second that the photographer pushes the shutter button. The image does not need to have a watermark nor does it have to be officially registered for it to be considered copyrighted.
What does this copyright stuff mean? It means that the photographer is the owner of their images and you can not download them, alter them and/or use them without their consent. If you do, you are committing copyright infringement. It is against the law and it can land you in a lot of trouble.
There are a few rare exceptions of ownership. If the photographer is employed by a company then the images would be owned by the company. Also, if someone is hired by a photographer to be a 2nd shooter then generally speaking, the 2nd shooter turns over the memory card to the photographer that hired them.
Personally, I have had a lot of problems with this lately. So much so that I paid an attorney for a consultation because of all the issues that I have been fighting with. Unfortunately, I am now having to go to extremes to protect my images and my business.
One can say, “don’t put them on the internet if you don’t want them stolen-but how do I get my work noticed without doing that? Instead of telling artists to not put their work online, how about following the law, respect the artist(s) and help with educating others about this issue instead?
Photographers work hard. It takes a lot of experience, studying, practice and skills to develop professional level images. Not to mention the cost of the equipment and the time it takes to edit photos. I would love to give my images away for free all the time. However, it costs me a lot of money and time to produce my shots. I would put myself in the “poor house” doing that. I need to make a living just like everyone else does. Would you do your work for free or like it if someone steals your things…or even not be given credit for the hard work that you do?
The following link is for an article that was written by an attorney. It goes into a lot of details about Copyright laws. I hope this can help educate and help everyone. https://sarafhawkins.com/copyright-fair-use-and-online-images/