The Nerve of Some People

Observed on Craigslist:

Sheesh!

Mike
(Thanks to Rob Atkins)

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Mike Hess: "Do you think they asked the photographer if they charge to remove the watermark? The rates might not be bad...."

Comments

[Richard Howe]

They could have meant a "water mark," i.e., a stain . . . (I'm just sayin').

[Mike Johnston]

Richard,
Someone should respond to the ad and ask to see an example of one of the photos with the "watermark." Could be interesting investigative journalism. :-)

If it turns out to involve a stain with a small "c" in a circle, one might even alert the rights holder to the attempted shenanigans.

Mike

[Dave Stewart]

Ironic that this follows on from the restoration post. Some similar skills and tools may be used, or abused...

[KeithB]

I'll do it. But it will look worse with the big black letters that spell "Thief!" in comic sans instead of the watermark...

[Pak-Ming Wan]

Why don't you send in our intrepid image restoring reporter Ctein to investigate? *grin*

Pak

[Michel]

the watermark can easily be removed by paying the rightful owner the agreed upon rate.

[Jay]

Of course there is the slight chance that it's a camera generated date time stamp or something similar. Very slight.

[David Bostedo]

"Someone should respond to the ad and ask to see an example of one of the photos with the "watermark." Could be interesting investigative journalism. :-) "

I could definitely see Chris Hansen doing something like that. Assuming this is what we think it is (stealing copyrighted material), I think it would be interesting to see if the person even realizes that what they are trying to do is illegal.

There is the possibility though that this is just for the poster's personal use. So copying the image would be legal (in Canada - according to Wikipedia), but does that mean you can also alter it?

Actually, that brings up a larger question - is printing images out from the web and hanging them on my wall covered by fair use? What if I alter them? I know for TV shows, and the like, you are allowed to make copies for personal use. Does that apply to pictures as well?

[seth]

Someone once asked me to copy prints that were clearly stamped "Do not copy"

[robert harshman]

Craigslist is the citadel of creative professionals opportunity for abuse. Austin Texas seems to be one of the most extreme examples of this as CL is extremely popular there.

Just one of many daily examples of this abuse:

A group of professional chefs that did catering and supplied a few institutions with thousands of meals a day advertised for a intern. That sounds fine, if you follow the rules for unpaid interns and the internship had something to do with being a chef or at least the food business.

That was not the case. These fine scumbags were advertising for a video-skilled intern. And of course the intern had to have their own equipment.

The chefs wanted to have the intern produce instructional cooking videos of them.

I actually replied to them, but NOT for the "bend over position." It was to scold them for the blatant abuse of what they were trying to do. Actually illegal too in most states.

And of course, I wanted to inform them I was looking for a intern too. As a professional photographer I was willing to take on a chef intern. They would have to supply their own kitchen, pots and pans and food. I told them I wanted to eat three meals a day prepared by my intern and I would critique each meal so the next day's might be better :)

Craigslist can be a great resource but buyer beware, it's also filled with less than honorable requests and a wild west attitude that it's OK to ask for anything since it cost nothing.

Cheers,

Robert

[Miserere]

I'd charge him $500 per image. I have no scruples, but I do have high fees :-)

[Keith Fitzgerald]

I wonder how much it costs to get a watermark removed as opposed paying for the image, photoshop time is not cheap, but probably the person who would reply to such a call is using a cracked version of photoshop and probably no intention of paying taxes anyway. I dont watermark my images, I just keep them on the web at low resolution as I can. I see good reason to watermarking but they really do take from the viewing experience, just have a look at Magnums website.
Everyone wants something either cheap or for free, problem is something has to give, creators of art work deserve to be paid, it is their work.

[Evan]

Someone should respond, get the pictures, and inform the original photographer (assuming the pics are from the web - which seems likely under the circumstances - they should be easy to find).

[David Saxe]

Scum!

[Bernd Reinhardt]

Chris Hansen? After today's news he will be the last one investigating anything.

[Account Deleted]

...maybe he's just lost the drive with all his originals, and all he got left are watermarked samples he sent to a client by email ;)

[TBannor]

The follow up post says it all:

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/crg/2471200019.html

[Sam]

Sometimes you won't be able to buy these pics as many event photography places delete their images rather quickly. If the photographer won't or unable to release pictures of you or your relatives, If that's the case, then I don't see anything wrong with removing watermarks.

[Jim Hughes]

David Bostedo writes: "I could definitely see Chris Hansen doing something like that. Assuming this is what we think it is (stealing copyrighted material), I think it would be interesting to see if the person even realizes that what they are trying to do is illegal."

I assume you know that the New York Post reported today that Chris Hansen of Dateline Expose fame has just been caught on camera cheating on his wife!

Jim

[Josef]

I work at a copy / print shop part time and you wouldn't believe how many people get mad when we won't step all over copyright law for them.

Just yesterday I had a customer email an obviously professionally done logo for a business, complete with the registered trademark next to it, and ask if we could "just erase the words" and change them to the name of his business.

[Mark Kinsman]

Maybe Andy Baio can provide a solution?

[Mike Johnston]

"I work at a copy / print shop part time and you wouldn't believe how many people get mad when we won't step all over copyright law for them. Just yesterday I had a customer email an obviously professionally done logo for a business, complete with the registered trademark next to it, and ask if we could 'just erase the words' and change them to the name of his business."

I'm sure you see it all...then again, there was a time that I went into a copy center years ago to get some color copies made of a magazine article, for a class I was teaching. The clerk refused to do it because the magazine was copyrighted. I pointed out (politely at first, a bit, ahem, less so as the discussion wore on) that *I* was the author of the article and the copyright holder, that the photos in the article were ones *I* took, not to mention that small numbers of copies for academic purposes are expressly cited as allowable in the Fair Use provisions of copyright law. Didn't matter. She was having none of it. I left without my color copies and had to make do with B&W ones from the school copier. :-)

Mike

[mike]

You might be able to put a price on removing a water mark, but you can't put a price on being a scumbag.

[erlik]

is printing images out from the web and hanging them on my wall covered by fair use? What if I alter them?

Well, who's going to check? I mean, do you see anybody going around flat after flat and checking? While it might be worth a lot of time for lawyers to debate, practicality tells us to dismiss such concerns. Selling such print is a different matter and can be found out much more easily.

[Mike Nelson Pedde]

Should read, "Need brain installed/ kickstarted. Please respond with rates."

Sheesh indeed!

Mike.

[latent_image]

Mike, in Canada schools license the right to copy through Access Copyright so that writers and visual artists can be recompensed. When it comes to work that you personally authored, well...

[Ed]

Hmzzzzz, watermark remover software actually exists. Well making and selling it is not a problem, using it, well it certainly could be, depends on what you are removing. And BTW not only photographers use watermarks, trial versions of software use the same technique.

Greetings, Ed

[phil]

Reminds me of the F1 Ferrari/McLaren scandal;
http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/magazine/16-06/ff_formulaone?currentPage=all (long version).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wife-of-mclaren-f1-designer-caught-copying-ferraris-secrets-456773.html (short version).

If you want a job done illegally, do it yourself!

all the best phil

[David Bostedo]

"Well, who's going to check? I mean, do you see anybody going around flat after flat and checking?"

That was kind of my point. What if this person just wants to hang some pictures on the wall, and wants someone to fix them up first? Then is this Craigslist post a big deal?

[Mikko Moilanen]

Maybe he accidentally watermarked all *his* original pictures.

You can never know. But you can be less prejudiced.

[Mark Roberts]

Heck, I'm tempted to just respond to the ad and give this cretin my rates: $50.00 per hour (with a one hour per photo minimum). Nothing like a little dose of reality to wake these people up.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I know a large number of stories, similar to Mike's, of idiot employees refusing to copy things for the copyright holder. I don't know what they're teaching kids in school these days, but it doesn't seem to include much of use.

If I were looking for somebody to remove a watermark because the original photographer has left town and is unreachable, or has dumped his clean copies, or something, I would make a point of explaining why I thought my obviously illegal project was actually legit just this once. So I tend to assume the worst here.

The followup article linked to doesn't give any additional info; it's just a person saying all the obvious things -- and we, here, while saying them, are clearly aware that there are (relatively unlikely) special cases that could be involved, which would make a difference. We still don't know it isn't one of those.

[Mike Johnston]

" We still don't know it isn't one of those."

David,
You've summed it up logically--it's *probably* somebody up to no good (possibly innocently, since ignorance of copyright is so widespread) but it might be legit, somehow. I actually tried to contact the poster but s/he hasn't replied.

Mike

[Tom]

Probably not the post to post this under but it seems to go well with Robert's comment above. From McSweeney's ...

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-great-job-opportunity