The Artist's Paradox

"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt." - Bono

Well...So, what do you think? You haven't even noticed the new changes have you? Now I feel like the girl who gets her hair done and her man doesn't even notice! Fine, I'll just point it out then...

If you will cast your eyes to the top, just below the header, you'll now notice I've added a menu bar where you can view additional pages to the blog. Some were along the right column and some are new. But now you can click on the menu options and get a bit more detail ABOUT ME, ABOUT THIS BLOG, well...you can read. So I invite you to peruse the menu bar and check out the newness of Photo Anthems Blog. I liked it. You'll also notice I've added a slide show on the right. Its the best I could do. I wanted to add on that featured a particular gallery of images, but Blogger doesn't seem to allow that, at least as far as I can tell. These are pretty much all the images that have been posted on my blog, but they also include the comic strips and any other pics that I've posted that are not personally owned by me.

What is the Artist's Paradox? I know I'm not the only one dealing with this dilemma, but it does frustrate me to no end that we live in an age of tech geniuses where just about anything is possible, yet artists can't get protection for their work. I'm talking reasonable protection, that is. I know there are ways to circumvent anything. Its a war of upsmanship. (I don't think that's a word, but it expresses my point). Much like the viral wars, as any new security feature is invented, somebody creates a virus or hack to breech it. Then the tech powers that be, have to plug the hole. And it creates a never ending cycle. That's been the nature of war since Cain. I'm sure Seth then came up with the idea for a helmet.

Model, Melissa

The only absolute answer most people will reply with (usually non-artists) is, "Well, if you don't want your stuff stolen, DON'T put in in the world wide web!" True, but that's like telling us abstinence is the only thing that's 100% guaranteed to prevent unwanted pregnancies or STDs. It might be correct, but do we really want to stop having sex? No, we do assume a certain level of risk, but we at least have the option of reasonable protection in a condom. Its not 100%. They do fail at times but that failure rate is reasonable and its mainly due to user error. Not only that, we don't pay the equivalent of a car payment for a condom and they are not only for the upper echelon of the social classes. Bentleys...yes. Condoms...no. I don't have 12 Bentleys in a garage, but I've got 12 condoms in a box...wait, maybe less. (Crass, I know).

"Old Hacienda", Model Samantha

All I'm saying is that I wish somebody'd satisfy the artist's need...dare I say, compulsion to share and display their art with reasonable protections against theft. I know there's somebody that can get your stuff whatever you do, but damn I don't want to make it easy for the masses. If you break into my house, you've got to do some damage and you risk discovery very easily. People on the web are way too anonymous. Where is all this coming from? Well, I've always felt this way. Many of the popular online galleries we use don't have adequate protection. Model Mayhem doesn't. They moderate sites for decency which protects their interests, but have no security features to protect our's. Model Brigade, however does, only they are not as popular. One Model Place also does. Deviant Art does not and its very popular world wide. I've recently found a profile that spits obvious theft like an old diesel engine spits oil. Yes, there is the "style" of images that are not the same throughout the gallery. But there are other clues as well. For those grade of images, you'd think the creator would have a watermark on them. He'd have a website or another reference linking back to more of his work. There would be contact information to solicit more work. Meta data for the camera used, date the pick was taken, focal length, etc. might be displayed. This profile was completely blank. No ID. No About Me. Nothing except for commentary of other people saying, "Love your work". I did a quick TINEYE.com search on one of the images and despite the title profile identifying him as a US student, I found the author of the work to be in the Ukraine. A few more searches came up with more European and Russian authors. Deviant Art only deleted the one image when they should have deleted the profile. I found this same instance a year or so back only the profile user was selling the images he stole. This passive style of "protection" should be more proactive in my humble opinion.

"Sun Bath", Model Samantha

What can we do? Keep exposing ourselves to risk? That doesn't make good business since, though. Maybe that's where the adage "Starving Artists" originated from. I often hear about talented artists who never make it because of lack of business savvy. On the other hand, how many times have you seen a guy making millions and you KNOW your work is better. Chances are, he or she was a better marketer and promoter of themselves. People make money on less talented work every day. So what do we do, my friends? Is there a better way? I may have to look into this further, but I also have to take a look at the man in the mirror and I ask the same of you. Who among you has a boot-leg movie from the guy who approached you in the Wal-Mart parking lot? How about a fake Rolex, software, perfume, or a Gucci bag? Who has unlocked an iPhone or is big on movie/music sharing? It would seem like its part of our nature to circumvent the rules even if we justify them as Us Against Big Business, or Sticking It to the Man! I'll let you draw that line. In the meantime, I want to protect my stuff.

More on Protecting Your Work

There are several people on deviantART.com that I follow and one of those artists is Dave Ellis of the UK, who also goes by Dingodave. I began followind Dave because of his nude work. I liked the simplicity of his art, using natural lighting or his expert use of whatever light he could find available to do his bidding. However, when you look at the man's landscape work, OMF Goodness... you'll be mesmerized by his use of HDR. Even when he doesn't use HDR, the way he captures the local scenery around where he lives in Herefordshire, make me so envious, I want to move across the waters.

Oh...I'm sorry. I'm getting off the point as to why I am posting about him in the first place. (See how just talking about his work gets you distracted?) Umm, oh yeah. In his recent dA journal entry, Dave is disgusted by the recent theft of some of his artwork. According to his post, well, let me just put it in his words:

"That is until I 'googled' DingoDave as a image search today - in just 5 minutes I found 7 of my images on 5 different sites (including flickr and photobucket, suprise suprise ) - One A'hole even had my image for sale as a print!!!!"

Now that's just downright wrong. So not only are knuckle-heads pulling other people's images off the web and passing it off as their own, you've got low down scoundrels who will actually try to profit from your hard work! This has been an ongoing topic of discussion and area of concern for photographers every since the first image capture. Many opinions exist on the matter that go from one end of the spectrum to the opposite extreme. In a recent seminar/workshop, we got to listen to a pro give us a talk on copyrighting your work. But then another pro in the group began shooting him down on the spot, believing that none of any of the copyright laws work and that you should simply not have anything on the web...period. ~Good heavens~

I've seen some photogs welcome any and everyone to their body of work. Right-click at your heart's content, as far as they are concerned. I can't recall who, otherwise I'd definitely give you the link, but they surmized that the more their images showed up, the better exposure. Well, I guess that's fine as long as the right-clicker is giving you credit and singing your praises. I am not sure I am as comfortable as this artist in having my work in the hands of anyone who wants a copy. Yes, you expect those who will pull your images from the web where the final destination is their C: drive. But what can you do for the freaks who will do you harm or profit from your efforts?

I am not an expert on the matter, let me assure you. For that I invite you to Carolyn E. Wright and her bloggings and legal opines of lawful protections and rights of the photographers. I've posted on her blog, Photo Attorney before (just recently, in fact). Let me emphysize that I strongly suggest you become quite familiar with this woman. It'll do you good. I promise! However let me add in a disclaimer: That promise is not in a legal since, of course...just as a figure of speech.

For starters, register your images with the Library of Congress Copyright Office. As a rule of thumb, I do it every 3 months. That's because that any NEW work you produce is fully protected when registered within 3 months of its creation. Otherwise the protection starts on the date of registration. Infractions that occur before registration are not protected. Second, you need to let people know your work belongs to you. Throw a simple copyright text on your image. An ALT-0169 will get you the "©" (using a PC). I normally use © 2008 Terrell Neasley on my images. I also don't put images on the web at high resolutions. Typically a web image doesn't need to be bigger than 72dpi and I make the file size small like around 70kb or under. These are reasonable protections. Can someone lift your copyright info...sure. They can crop it out or just edit it out. The fact remains that you need to still show that you've made an effort to identify the owner to the image and protect it.

Also, you can build the metadata into your photos. Chances are, your camera already includes some of that info. I need to be better at this myself. In fact, there are a lot of things in which I need to be better. The metadata is embedded into the file of the image itself. You can also have digital watermarks in your images. I won't go into great detail on all this. You can easily google the points and get a plethora of info on anything you need to know. Creative Commons is another legal protection device that will actually let you stipulate terms as to your images use. deviantART allows this option. There are many software companies that provide a for-pay service that will track a certain amount of images for you. This way anywhere that image goes on the web, its traced and you'll be aware of its use. I have no idea as to what happens if the image is altered by someone. You'll have to check that one out on your own as well. One company that is barking on another unique trend is a search engine that searches by image not words. You can type in NUDE on google and do a word search or an image search based on the word NUDE. Tineye, of Idee, INC., will actually do a search for an image, based on an image and show you where that image pops up, whether its altered or not.

I'm sure there is something I missed here. This is not an all exhaustive listing on a guaranteed, sure-fire method of protecting your photographic expressions. It is a start, however. Some will disagree. I already know that. Where I am in factual error, let me know. All this is info is based on my own research and indepth study over the last few years.

These are a few more images of Clarissa. Isn't she just beautiful? This girl has been through a lot and she still keeps going forward and upward. Gotta give her credit. She's a trooper.