Partner Article

How photographers can protect against fraudulent image use

Cybercrime is becoming increasingly common and as technological advancements continue, it’s becoming easier for not only hackers, but the general public to steal online intellectual property. Whilst larger ecommerce sites have begun taking this seriously, smaller independent sites and photographers are still not doing enough to protect their assets says Tony Limrick, sales and marketing consultant at AFFIRMFIRST.

Images and logos can easily be taken either manually or by automated software. From the simple ‘right-click’ facility to take images, to sophisticated web-scrapers, which are freely available on the internet, fraudsters can download all the images on genuine sites to then use them as they wish. At present, once an image has been removed from a genuine website, it is extremely difficult, and often impossible, even with current search tools, to find out who is using a photographer’s images, where they are being used and for what purpose.

Tony Limrick says, “Most websites can be ‘scraped’ within a matter of seconds, meaning cyber criminals can then easily replicate photos and either pass them off as their own or use them however they see fit. There is virtually no control, no accountability and no warnings in place. This has got to be a dangerous situation for photographers that value their integrity and who rely on their images to make a living.”

This problem is particularly prominent for photographers, who find themselves in a catch 22 situation – they need to showcase their work online in order to secure bookings, but do not want their images to be easily stolen. Photographers should therefore be taking steps to secure their images as well as logos, to ensure that they cannot be freely copied.

AFFIRMFIRST has developed a Microsoft cloud-based technology which easily enables you to centrally control the accurate distribution, removal and syncing of images to and from targeted users throughout the global distribution chain. This in turn allows control over image copying and therefore protects photographers from having their intellectual property easily taken from them.

Tony Limrick adds, “our software puts the photographer in control of their images, where they are used and by whom. Photographers who value their online images (which has to be all) need to stop adopting a firefighting mentality and instead lead from the front to pre-emptively protect all of their intellectual property.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by P. M. .