Thanks for the replies, Ann, Igor & Mark, The point about theft with a watermarked image is well made. I'm not sure how practical in terms of litigation it would be for someone in one country to try and stop the use of a stolen image in another part of the world, but in many ways it's beside the point. It would at least confirm that the theft was intentional and it wasn't an orphan work which was taken and used. You might not get the thief to take the image down, but his provider might do the deed with proof like this. I also like the fact that it can identify a photographer that you like the style of quickly, if the picture is not immediately associated with the web space of the photographer.
If someone asks to use a picture, and will attribute it correctly - and preferably link the picture to the photographers own web space, I would (in general) have no problem with that. It also raises the issue of what the watermark should say. Much can be put in the metadata (which no doubt many will not read) and there is a limit of how much print (however discreet) you put on an image. Because of the huge backlog of slides I'm scanning, I'm keen to add the year taken as well as my name, simply because that would help me. I was very interested in the special measures on pictures for sale, and those of course in the most danger of being taken in particular images covering current news and events. Malcolm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
