Images From Faa For Free

they had like 65 of mine and or my mothers.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

If you put your images ANYWHERE on the internet, they can be scraped. People will usually get the low res 900px image from just a google search.

@ Heater
They are taken directly from FAA. There is even a link to the original site.
Your RF licensed images of same size are at $325 so what is the point of buying them if everyone can have them for free?

Well I've worked out licensing deals just fine - people who license images from me want high res, larger files so they can actually use them for things.

Furthermore - if there is a direct link to the image on your website - WIN!

LOL, I didn't think of it this way.

Also, considering even the stuff of Mike's on there that I looked at has zero views, I wouldn't exert any time or stress worrying about a site no one really uses.

Yes, people might use it for a blog or phone background but generally businesses, real businesses, will not violate copyright law using free images the will license the image.

I only have three. I should send a letter of indignation.

"Your RF licensed images of same size are at $325 so what is the point of buying them if everyone can have them for free? "

The difference is with a license you can legally use it. A small image with no license is useless to a business person. Further more they run the risk of being taken to court. At the very least the web host could drop their ad. It makes no sense to spend money on advertising if the image can be taken down by a DMCA order.

I guess maybe you miss the whole point of licensing. You pay for the license. The 900 pixels is free, but you can't use it without the license.

OK then, I will rather concentrate on working out that RM prices now instead of worying about free advertisement :)

Bradford, I don't miss the point of licensing. I've been on stock industry since 2006 and have sold quite a few thousand images there.
I have also seen many cases where companies misused my images i.e. bought editorial image and used it to advertise their product.
Recently I've found 12 such cases in this year. I reported them to the agency and gues what? they did nothing about it.
I've also seen many products that were made from such "small" files.
I worked in the printing industry some time ago and I know what can be done with so "small" files" without license.

Seriously. What kind of business model is this?

Artists and photographers make images (which no one asked them to make) and throw them on the web. Anyone in the world with an internet connection can copy those low-rez images and use them for whatever they like. There's nothing to stop them and there is precious little enforcement. Then, instead of continuing to make images, far too many artists are spending precious time chasing down low-rez image infringement, accusing people of thievery, lecturing on ethics, threatening legal action, getting upset and dealing with the fallout.

Is that a recipe for success? How much longer are image makers going to wrap themselves in a business model that only sort of worked in the 90s?

Look at successful, profitable artists and photographers. What business model(s) do they have? You can bet it's not the low-rez one!


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

I thought Dan might have been out playing in his band. Took a while for ya to jump in.

:o)

Dan, there is no low-rez vs hi-rez case. Image is image, and there is also a copyright and license thing if you know.
Imagine that someone sells the rights to the image, I did it a few times for a nice money, and the new "owner"
discovers the same image is spread all over the Internet. Can you do that?
How can you be a successful, profitable artist or photographer if you don't know or care about your rights?

as you saw in all these other threads that small images are used just fine. low is fine for most things. and you even patted one on the back because she got money for hers.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Okay, all that said Dariusz. and first let me tell you I agree 100% with Dan, where is all of this going?

These threads are seeing more and more of these complaints. But what is being done? Nothing.

What can be done? Nothing.

So I ask again, were is all this bitching and moaning going?

What is the goal?

Does anyone think that FAA members single handle y are going to solve this problem by constantly complain about it?

I agree, this is wrong. This is not right. It is bad. It is everything evil you guys are saying it is.

But where is all of this going?

NOWHERE!

Make art, sell art and get used to the realities of selling on the Internet.... or get off the net.

Those are you only two viable options.

Sorry to be so rude and blunt... but at some point all this complaining has to have a purpose. Or it is just a waste of time.

"Dan, there is no low-rez vs hi-rez case."

Sure there is. People can (and DO!) grab your low-rez images from the web. That renders them virtually worthless from a make-a-living-selling-low-rez-images standpoint. But people can't get their hands on your hi-rez images. Which are more valuable?

The low-rez images are free samples to get people interested in your profitable hi-rez stash.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

if the high rez never sells ever - because it makes a better web graphic, and you sell the small one over and over again, then the small one is far more valuable. a small image can be made into an number of products. not everything is a poster, and not everyone needs a high rez version of it. the size is hardly a sample. you've already seen a number of people using the small image without issue. that lady with the grapes got a nice sum - don't you think? fish sticker, houses for realtors etc. that is where money is - its in everything. both sizes are valuable it depends how you use it. it really doesn't make any sense to have a 900px sample and a 900px size for sale as a license.

not everything will be printed as a wall sized image.

i do think the larger sizes do sell the product better. but more should be done when it loads. like cube up the image so its harder to download. but of course that would restrict google from finding us proper. whats left is the watermark.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Dan has a point.....in advertising people like and use freebies all the time to get business in the door. There are all kinds of free stuff given so people will sign up

*bangs head on table*

Not another thread about copyright theft.

Dan said
"People can (and DO!) grab your low-rez images from the web. That renders them virtually worthless from a make-a-living-selling-low-rez-images "

Did my post above go in one ear and out the other. A low rez dl is useless for any reputable business unless it has a license. Why do you thing Getty sells my low-rez images for hundreds of dollars? It's the license. It will sell for less on microstock because the license is not as broad. They are also paying for a legal guarantee. I have had my images online for 17 years and have licensed thousands of times with gross sales of over $100,000 and no end in sight. How much experience do you have?

Sure there are some low lifes using copies with no license. I would say it is a cost of doing business, but it is not even a cost. It's just part of it. Someone give me a real example of how an infringement made them lose money. Did you write it off on your taxes like you would shrinkage in inventory?

Agreed though that the low res with no license is advertising. Or try before you buy.

Not as broad of a license? Bradford isn't an RF license more broad then RM? I think you mean that they pay for exclusivity with a Rights Managed license. Which is diminished when someone puts the same image all over the internet.

I've sold one low rez image 182 times on a single microstock site so far. Who know what the lifetime earning of this particular image will be.

....

There is no "free advertising' when your orphaned image just floats around the Internet with no way of potential buyer finding their way back to you. At least with a watermark someone knows where the original can be found.

......

That site's views never change. Seems to always be zero. There is a single link back to the FAA site after bouncing through something called "Blankrefer" but all the other links and tools to embed the image into someone's wordpress blog refers back to Onlyimage.

All of this probably has the potential of this "source" for your image becoming the top spot on search rather then your original FAA page.

Edward, RF on Getty actually has less limits on use than the micros. For example the number of copies is higher. For micros you need an extended license.

My best selling image has netted me over $8,000 on the Getty companies in four years with no end in sight and sells very well here as a print. You can get a screen grab from a hundred sites that use the image. Am I worried?

Thanks for clarifying.

Getty gives away low rez images anyway. Right?

....

I noticed that site must be a sales affiliate to Shutterstock. They have some images listed as "premium stock" and the clicking on the image goes directly to Shutterstock.

A silly question: Why doessn't FAA have Hot Links Protection enabled throughout their site?

Seems that should've been enabled from the start. Though I understand with all the added sites (pixels, etc) that might be a pain, it certainly should be possible.


Personally I don't know why any site with images would NOT have Hot Link Protection enabled...

I don't think anyone will hot link to my images to give them away since I have watermark enabled. ;)

And if faa had that enabled, just how would all the artists share their work on social networks, their websites etc? :)

Shoot. my images are not there. I guess my photography is not good enough to steal!!!

Hot links protection? No they actually encourage hot linking! How do you think I can do this?



Edward, yes you can hotlink to a low res Getty image for non-commercial use. Every image sold or linked to on Getty is embedded with tracking code, tracked and monitored. Even images on Pinterest are monitored and the meta data is restored if it gets stripped off. So the images always link back to the purchaser or to Getty.

Abbie said: 'And if faa had that enabled, just how would all the artists share their work on social networks, their websites etc?'


It's true that I'm fairly new to hotlinking. Yet I refused to believe that I wasn't able to have buttons show up on FAA with hotlinking enabled, as per what I was told. So I've slowly been working on getting things the way I want them, as I believe there's no such thing as 'It cannot be done!' With the right tools and knowledge, anything can be done with a web site in my humble opinion.

Hotlinking Protection is enabled on my personal site, the button images were uploaded to that site and yet they show up:

Imagery by Charly (the buttons in the left hand column)

Why? Because I put that FAA URL into my hotlinking protection; URL's to allow access. Meaning any allowed URL I specify can link to images on my web site, but wankers/thieves cannot.

So then, why is it that FAA can't accomplish what I have? Keep in mind, I previously said it might be a pain. :)


EDIT: In case anyone is wondering, I use Wordpress with my sites.

Every single artist would need to tell FAA which site(s) they wished to add the images. Nobody who wished to share your images for you could unless they got permission

There are over 100,000 members. More staff would be needed just to cope with the emails requesting permission

I cannot see this happening

Bare with me here.... I might be following you incorrectly.

Since we upload our images to FAA (site/servers), FAA then retains a copy. Correct?

With that being the case, FAA has complete control over what is done with our images, not us, because the link to our images is via FAA. Meaning FAA stipulates who can hot link or not, not sellers. Thus FAA wouldn't have to deal with anyone to put Hotlinking Protection in place or add more staff. Right?

Now in regards to sellers having the ability to post to Twitter, FB and the like, FAA would allow their URLs access. i.e. twitter.com


For an example the buttons I mentioned previously:

Since they are on my private web site, I allowed access and because FAA has no hot link protection enabled they also show up on my artist website with FAA. If FAA enabled hotlinking protection, I think it would break the link on my artist website (not sure). Although if that were to happen, I would add my artist website URL to my Hotlinking allowed URL access.

What you need to keep in mind Abbie, we are talking about more advanced stuff that most don't apply to their FAA or Artist websites. Sure I did it, but whatever FAA puts in place to break what I added, I would fix without contacting FAA. Unless I couldn't decipher what FAA changed. Make sense?

My biggest concern with stuff like this, is that my work will be presented poorly. Low-res images upsized, that sort of thing. This is rather a vote for adding the watermark.

Anyone know how to do that in bulk?

Whoops forgot to speak to Bradford

On my hotlinking protected web sites, I can link within my sites on any post/page :)

The sole purpose of hot link protection is to stop sites (like onlyimage.com) from giving away our work, using it w/o permission, etc. And before it's mentioned, I know the only sure way to protect my work is never to post it to the internet. Yet hot linking protection is an added measure of security

As far as I can see, they arnt 'hot linked' any way.

They have been copied, and the image is on their servers.

@HW Kateley

There's no way to bulk add the FAA watermark. You'd have to delete/upload replacement image with watermark enabled. Though if you ask Abbie really nice, she can add watermarks on your images for you. :)


@FireFlux Studios

We wouldn't have any way of telling if our images are hot linked to other sites; commercial or personal. That's why I use watermarks on FAA, but not on my personal sites since I have more control over them.

But, 'hot linking protection' would not have stopped onlyimage.com, as they arnt hot linking.

The image is hot linked from FAA. Just click on Original Website on one of the links Dariusz has in his OP and it takes you to "HIS" image page on FAA.

Meaning, hotlinking protection is NOT enabled on FAA. If it was that page would most likely throw a 404 Error page and onlyimage.com would take it down.

This all gets very complicated and I'm not always good at articulating things. Within code which is what's used for you to see anything on the net, you literally can make anything happen. Like using a hook or action to hot link to a page and in turn there is other code that turns it into the page you see linked in the OP. Suffice to say, without the hot links onlyimage.com would NOT take the time to copy/paste all 2.5M images on its site. If hot links were enabled on every website on the net, that site and site's like it wouldn't exist. Image theft would drop drastically just with that one little thing enabled.

Let me give another for instance:

On my ImagerybyCharly.com site, I recently added a SSL Certificate. That is used to encrypt my entire site, secure checkout and thus took the http:// to https:// (note the "s") Until I added the https://mysite.com to the URLs to allow access on my web host cPanel Hotlinking Protection page, all my image links broke. Wow a photography site with absolutely no images showing; only a ? in a box. Scary eh? But, I knew instantly why that was occurring and within 15 sec. had all my images back on my site. :)

Thats not Hot Linking, thats just a standard link.

Hot Linking is where they put the fineartamerica.com URL of your image directly into their HTML IMG tag, and use it to display the image from FAAs servers.

That is not what they are doing.

Its impossible to stop people creating links to other sites, that is how the whole web works.

They have copied the image, and put it on their servers, and added a click link to go to FAA.

"They have copied the image, and put it on their servers, and added a click link to go to FAA."

Numerous FAA bloggers ask for artists to feature on their blog, and that's exactly how they do the link. And artists here flock to participate. If that's what they are doing, then there's no difference. Just another way for people to discover and purchase your work.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Yep, I know :)

I'm just disputing that they haven't used Hot Linking, and 'Hot Linking Protection' would not have stopped them.

My apologies, as I said, I'm not good at articulating. Yes any page can be linked to, that's the internet, but not one hot linked protected image can be linked to. You see when you type code in for an image, it has a URL directing it to that image file you want. All my images are in folders on my host server with their own unique URLs.

Since the chances of a site copy/pasting 2.5M images is minute (I mean really think about how time consuming that is to give away images and make nothing?), they use the "image" code via hot link within their own code and it would be in a php file that you wouldn't have access to. Anyone can link to any of my image "PAGES" on my site, but if they grab the URL that is the source for the image on my host server, they would be blocked from using it on their site. Does that make it a little clearer?

There's no way I or any intelligent person would bother with copy/pasting millions of images, because we know that code/templates/functions can do it for us. And if onlyimage.com wasn't using hot links, why on earth would they bother with linking to the original site? To cover their butts a bit on infringement is the only reason, hoping that will protect them. I'd venture a good guess that if FAA enabled hotlinking protection on the 2 pages in the OP, they would go down. It would break their code.

I reckon we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. :) Yanno, I don't even know if Dariusz put in a DMCA request to take them down, they would comply. Perhaps, the take down notice would have to come from FAA.

Have a great weekend FireFlux!

Let me try and explain this

There are two ways of sharing an image

1.

Hotlinking

Your image is on site A. If I use your image on site A I am not hotlinking. I am linking
If I use your image on site B however, using YOUR link, I am hotlinking. I am using an image on your server and placing it on a totally different site

Now, site A does not allow hotlinking so, when I try and place on site B, I get a red X ro a cleverly placed image saying THIS PERSON IS HOTLINKING WHAT A BADDIE!

If site A DOES allow hotlinking people on site B see a lovely image

--------------------------------------

2.

Linking only by saving the image to my computer, then uploading that image to my server on site B
I now put that image on my page on site B and I am NOT hotlinking as I am having nothing now to do with site A at all

---------------------------------------

So, site A now says they will stop hotlinking so site B cannot steal their bandwidth (see underneath for bandwidth theft definition

So they put on code that says no other site may use any images on their server.

Great BUT, some people need to use the images from that site so the owner of site A goes in and has to manually type in the allowed address for site C, D, and G

Then he gets more members who need to hotlink and he has to go on and allow E, I, J, K, L,

Then he gets 100,000 members and says WHOA, I have not got the time to type out all these addresses, or answer all these emails requesting permission, each wanting to share to 1, 2, or even more sites so he just allows hotlinking and takes the risk.

FAA is not going to turn on hotlinking. What people do on their own personal sites is entirely up to them :)


BANDWIDTH THEFT

Bandwidth Theft or "hotlinking" is direct linking to a web site's files (images, video, etc.). Example using tag to display a JPEG image you found on someone else's web page so it will appear on your own site, weblog, forum message post, etc.

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferred from a web site to a user's computer. When you view any web page, you are using that site's bandwidth to display the files. Since web hosts charge based on the amount of data transferred, bandwidth is a big issue. If a site is over its monthly bandwidth, it's billed for the extra data or taken offline (suspended).

A simple analogy for bandwidth theft: Imagine a random stranger plugging into your electrical outlets, using your electricity without your consent, and you paying for it. http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html

For instance, If you are using any image that is not on your own server space and 'calling' it from that site without asking the owners permission first, then you are hotlinking. Example

img src="http://1stangel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1-artist-at-work-beth-edwards.jpg"

This img tag tells the site to request the image.jpg from a different server other than your own. Every time the page is loaded, the outside server has to use its bandwidth to display the image. To avoid this problem, don't link to any files on servers that don't belong to you. To share images and files on your own web page, upload them to your own server's directory or to a free image hosting service that allows direct linking.

Oh you mean in PHP... ok, well, thats not really hot linking.

But, all hot linking protection does is check the HTTP_REFERER tag, and if you are writing stuff in Curl/PHP then no HTTP_REFERER gets set (unless you specifically set it)

For example, on your site. Even though you have hot linking protection setup, I can still use Curl to get your images individually, and also write a PHP script to automatically grab all images, by just not setting and referer, and then the protection 'doesnt' work.

Hot Link protection is more about stopping the browser with HTML from directly getting one image from one site, from another, using the HTML IMG tags, to stop your server being overloaded by bandwidth thieves, not to stop images getting taken.

If someone is going to write a PHP script, they can still get them.

Rob.

Oh Abbie beat me by 10 seconds! :)

Took me ages that post LOL

Good question HW. Is there a way to add watermarks in bulk or do you have to do each image individually?

"There are over 100,000 members. More staff would be needed just to cope with the emails requesting permission"

I get a kick out of people that keep telling FAA they should do this and they should do that and we need this and why don't you do that.

But then bitch about the $30 a year.

If FAA did even 1/4 of what everyone keeps telling them they should do the price would have to be $30 and hour!!!

For $30 a year, I don't see where I have the right to ask for anything more then what I am getting.

Now before you go there, yes, I have asked for better tracking data. But I have also said I would be willing to pay $30 a month for it and a few other things of course. Yes, $30 a month. Actually when everyone was asking for a juried FAA I said I could see it happening for $300 a month. but not ever going to happen at $30 a year.


Okay... you can hiss and boo now... LOL

I think most of you have missed what I was trying to say.

There is a subtle difference between some guy hotlinking your image in their blog
and someone giving away your images, no matter what size, and saying
"download this free image".
There is nothing wrong with someone sharing or hotlinking image on their blog or FB page.
It would be nice if they ask permision and give a credit but that is something rather rare these days.

I don't like to see my images on sites that encourage other people to steal by saying "you can grab this free image,
you only need to like my site". That's what the onlyimage site does.

@ Floyd,
No, I wasn't asking for better protection from FAA. I've got a feeling that whole disscussion has went a wrong way.

I agree Dariusz, that is wrong and I do not like it either.

I don't care what you do to protect your images. Some one will always be able to steal them.

Some one post or give me a link to one of your protected like Fort Knox images. Hot link protected, water marked... I don't care how it is protected.

I bet I can "steal" if and have it up on FAA for sale in very sell-able 16x20 within an hour.

The last time I did this it only took me 20 minutes.

Some one? Anyone?

I do business with two of the most paranoid artist on the Internet. Maybe in the world. We go through this all the time. One of them actually has a lawyer that searches the net for her images and writes threatening emails accusing people of bootlegging her artwork. I know because he sent me one one day. lol

I called him and said, hey did you pull my dealership or something? He was embarrassed and said ignore that email.

The other guy was teaming with other artist trying to get an association going to hire some one to search the net for images of members of the association. I think that failed but I know they were up and running for a while. Same thing happen. I got a scathing email form his "mother" that was doing the work. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I called the guy and asked him, is that really what you want to do, tick off all you dealers by sending them this kind of email? He started cross referencing his dealer data base to make sure they don't accidentally get an email.

Both of these people are members of Cowboy Artist of American. One is a past president. If you are familiar with western art, you know what them means.

Dariusz, I didn't say you were. But it is a thread about people using images for free and someone did.

"A silly question: Why doessn't FAA have Hot Links Protection enabled throughout their site?"

Floyd, so after starting it, finally I know what this thread is all about :)

Thanks Abbie for taking ages on that post and FireFlux for answering too! :) I really do appreciate your time in this discussion!

I'm sure all of us agree what onlyimage.com is doing should be stopped. And though I'm still really hard pressed to believe they copy/pasted all 2.5M images, you're saying they either did that or left out the HTTP REFERER to hook into FAA info? Meaning no way to restrict access...So the only way to stop them is with DMCA notice?

Prints of Italy, no I haven't contacted that site yet. Have you read their DMCA Notification Guidelines?
They are trying to protect themselves but for me it looks very fischy.
There is no information about the owner of the site but at the same time they want all my details?
No way!

Dariusz, indeed I did read over much of what's on the site. All of it sounds fishy, especially the bit where YOU the one wanting take down could be liable for attorney fees and the like if they find you have no rights. Well geez they could say that about anyone. Personally, I wouldn't contact them directly, but use my DMCA Pro account to handle it instead. Doubt they'd go up against DMCA.com and ask for attorney fees ;)

"especially the bit where YOU the one wanting take down could be liable for attorney fees and the like if they find you have no rights."

That's correct. If a counterclaim is submitted the service provider must re-activate the claimed infringing content within 10-14 days. It stays unless the copyright owner files a real lawsuit in a real court and submits the filing to the ISP.

http://www.dmca.com/FAQ/What-is-a-DMCA-Counterclaim


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

If issuing a DMCA notice you do have to give your full details. You could be anyone just wanting the work removed so proof is needed and, if it goes further, a record of exactly who you are and how to contact you.

Our own DMCA requirements are strict

People have to provide a Notice with the following information to the Website's Copyright Agent:


1. An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest;

2. A detailed description of the copyright work that You claim has been infringed;

3. A description of precisely where the material that You claim is being infringed is located on the Website;

4. Your address, telephone number, and email address;

5. A statement by You that You have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law;

6. A statement by You, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in Your Notice is accurate and that You are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

"If issuing a DMCA notice you do have to give your full details. You could be anyone just wanting the work removed so proof is needed and, if it goes further, a record of exactly who you are and how to contact you."

Abbie, that's correct. We know that FAA site is a legitimate business and it is safe to give you full details.
It is opposite as with the site in question. They do not show any information about their business and who they are.
The site is registered at a cheap server in Panama and that's all. There is no information about the owner.
They are obviously trying to collect details of their visitors through the social media and who knows for what purpose.

I would give my full details to such site as FAA, but I would never do the same with the site like them.
It is asking for troubles.

:) Understood

It is a theft, and there is no justification (or placid acceptance) for such a practice.
If we could place bigger watermarks in the center of our images, as practiced by stock agencies, that would drastically reduce such thefts.

and reduce sales

"If we could place bigger watermarks in the center of our images, as practiced by stock agencies..."

There is a great deal of resistance to FAA being seen as a stock agency. Or maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm the last one. I like it to be Fine Art, but that might be an outdated dream. The stock guys are certainly flocking to the site.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

RE: Watermarks
"and reduce sales"

That's definitely one school of thought, and we heard it here many times. Some even believe it. However, it's hard to substantiate it, and I am very skeptical of that claim.

The best thing and only proof would be to give the members an option of the watermark size and position on the image, on all or specific images, and leave it up to them to use it or not. At present, it seems that the watermark cannot be turned on or off for a specific image.

Sure it can. Turn it on or off as you desire.

Actually it is quite easy to substantiate and has been.

That said, the point is moot as they are not going to change with the exception of possibly adding a drop shadow.

JC,

I tried it and it seems that you can turn the watermark on or off only after an upload of a new picture.
Once, a picture is saved, I can't change it.