Quote Originally Posted by AcadieLibre
Curious can you elaborate on that further? You must do some photography for enjoyment and don't you want others to see your work?
Sure, the first area is copyright. Despite the fact that the photographer retains copyright whether he/she posts photos on the net or not, enforcing these rights can be difficult, particularly if the offender is based in another country. Determining loss due to copyright infringement requires you to trace the use and perhaps reselling of your photo.

To talk generally about law suits, I am finishing up work on a different one after 3 years. The time involved has been considerable and for example something as mundane as photocopying costs of documents has totalled $20,000.

Even, if you win a judgement, you still need to collect it, which may involve court orders and further legal action.

The type of shot that is stolen is most often the simple shot that symbolizes or represents places and concepts: Canada, Québec, Newfoundland, Africa, multi-culturalism, racial equality, freedom, love, sorrow, war, peace, environmentalism, pollution etc. The second type of stealable shot is one with a perfect location in the image for a text overlay. The third is the emotional/humourous, effective, candid grab shot which has all kinds of potential uses.

The second area is visual impact. Owners of stores, web sites, magazines, newspapers, television stations, etc. find that they need to redo their visual layout and appearance to be noticed and get new customers and potential business. When it comes to photography, buyers are often looking for a "fresh", different style, look etc. Inversely, a lot of public exposure reduces the saleability of a photo. "Oh, people have seen that before!"

So, of course, I could create a gallery/site and not put my best work in it, but I am not sure whether that would be counter-productive or not.


Tegan