Let People Steal Your Images

Almost all photographers and copyright holders want to keep a firm grip on their work, or in some cases, their artists' work. Photographers especially can get pretty annoyed when they see people using their images without permission for anything from MySpace and desktop wallpapers to printing out lo-res copies to hang on their walls.

Let it go. People don't steal images to upset you, they "steal" them because it's the most convenient way to show their interest and appreciation in your work. To paraphrase author, Miguel Ruiz, life becomes a lot less stressful and more enjoyable when you stop trying to control people. That is, in a sense, what you're doing. You're trying to control people from enjoying your work on their terms. You want them to enjoy your work on your terms, but quite often, your terms don't match up with their terms and so it becomes unfeasible for someone to enjoy your work that might have otherwise.

Perhaps a small company used one of your photos off your web site without paying for it and have it on a web site or worse, a printed ad. Oh well. Chances are they most likely bookmarked it while the project was in development and upon its completion, another ad agency likes it and asks about it and all of a sudden, you've got something from nothing. You've possibly just made a sale that might not have ever even happened.

Many photographers try to keep their work from being stolen, or if you think about it, spreading, by placing watermarks that distract from the actual photo. Sometimes they'll even go so far as to disable right-clicking on their site to prevent someone from saving it. Unfortunately most don't know that the Print Screen button is just a quick shortcut around that, but since you've already alienated a potential fan of your work, they'll get disgruntled and move on to appreciate someone else's work. After all if you're inhibiting somebody from downloading your photo, your essentially inhibiting that person from being able to show it to friends and brag about what they found.

When someone sees a piece of art that's relatively unknown that they have a connection with, they want to show it off to their friends. They want to support it and get their friends behind it also. By preventing that with watermarks and technological locks, you're essentially killing off any word-of-mouth advertising you would have had.

Now of course if someone's downloading it and selling it, that's a completely different story and they should be reported to authorities. Anyone unlawfully profiting off of your work should be stopped, but your average kid that likes your work and can't afford a poster shouldn't be crippled from enjoying your work if he/she likes it. Let them steal it. Stop trying to control people, relax and have fun with photography so that other people can have fun viewing it.