A Couple Stories.
Story 1:
On a previous version of this website I had a spectacular stopping picture of a horse that opened the website. He was being shown by a really well known reining trainer and the horse’s owner used the photograph to promote the horse in ads. It was some of my best work and I was proud of it.
It had been on my site a while and a friend contacted me asking me how someone, another photographer (and I use that term generously) could be using the photograph on her site, claiming it was her photograph. Of course she couldn’t. She had stolen it off my website. I confronted her on it and she replied there was no way to prove that it wasn’t hers. This woman is so ignorant she doesn’t know enough about digital images to realize that the metadata, digital information in every photograph, had my copyright in it! No matter, the “Takedown Demand” from the DMCA lawyers apparently convinced her it was in her best interest to remove it!
Story 2:
I had a proof of a nice stopping picture of a youth kid on my site. It was from a show in Missouri and the youth contacted me about purchase. I gave him details about purchase and he said his mother would get it. I hadn’t heard after some period of time. So I just fired off a note. He responded that his mother got it. I didn’t remember the order. So I had seen the mother on Facebook, I think. I asked her if she would like to purchase it. She replied, “Oh no! I don’t need to. I downloaded off your site.”
Yes. That’s what she replied. Our digital age has convinced her it was acceptable practice just to download it. I am convinced she thought it is perfectly acceptable to steal it. Shockingly, I invoiced her and she did pay it.
Please don't take photographs off my site!
Just because you know how to CTRL-R to download a photograph, does not make it right nor legal. If you do, the photography community and especially the horse community is very close knit. (I also have a utility running in the background that is constantly searching the web for my copyrighted photos) I will find out.
And we all have budgets we need to work within. If you need a photo for a gift or ad and things are a little tight right now, I will work with you. Just ask.
Yes, it sounds slightly hokey. But I get far more pleasure from someone enjoying one of the images I captured than I do from the 20 bucks or so from a small print. You have my contact information right below here. Or click on the Contact button at the top of every page.