By: Thorsten Overgaard
Here's a page that could be an eye-opener. When I look at my page statistics I see a lot of MySpace pages and others who deep-link to pictures from my site. I usually don't do anything about it.
But this one, a deep thinking blog of Dave Keating, I thought it was too much for someone to do a political comment type of blog - and then steal my picture of Angela Merkel (as well as the others on his page which are all deep-linked from newspapers, etc).
It's like there's a distinct line between blogging about and sometimes crediting, and then blogging and appear as one have bought in editorial pictures to support one's writings.
Anyway, this is how I redesigned his site. It's kind of mean but ... he's been showing my pictures like 6,000 times over the past six weeks.
Lots, actually, of people think that when someone has taken a picture, using it is not theft. It's anyways just lying there. The photographer should be kind of proud.
But thing is, when someone buy the right to use a picture, that is exactly what they buy: A time-limited and usage-limited right to use a certain picture. It doesn't make then the owner of the picture.
And as for lying around: The actual value of a picture is not the taking and archiving of it, but it's worth in "looking value." The more it can be used, the more value it has. And that is the exact value, one pays for. Not for the file or the photographer's time.
/Thorsten Overgaard
