3 Replies Latest reply: Jul 2, 2013 1:50 AM by Dave Merchant RSS

    Copyright metadata and printing

    CramohcE Community Member

      If I apply copyright metadata to a client's purchased images will this in any way affect their ability to get the files printed (pro-lab or with public-lab) or print them themselves?

        • 1. Re: Copyright metadata and printing
          web-weaver Community Member

          If everybody acts professionally, yes.

          If they want to cheat, no.

           

          The only thing that helps is a watermark, and you have to place it so on the image that cropping it away makes the image worthless.

          You have to evaluate your customers: With professional art directors you can expect that they honor your copyright.

           

          But if you send images to other customers - for instance if you do weddings or events - better use a watermark.

          • 2. Re: Copyright metadata and printing
            CramohcE Community Member

            Thank you, this does help my situation.  It is for a wedding couple who have purchased the right to print the files themselves.  I just wanted to add my metadata so if they post their images online I can get the SEO benifits, but I did not want to risk them going to the print lab and being told they can't print them. I still have the copyright to the images but they have a unrestricted personal use licence.

             

            Thanks again for your answer


            web-weaver wrote:

             

            If everybody acts professionally, yes.

            If they want to cheat, no.

             

            The only thing that helps is a watermark, and you have to place it so on the image that cropping it away makes the image worthless.

            You have to evaluate your customers: With professional art directors you can expect that they honor your copyright.

             

            But if you send images to other customers - for instance if you do weddings or events - better use a watermark.

            • 3. Re: Copyright metadata and printing
              Dave Merchant CommunityMVP

              Some points to remember in that regard:

               

              1. Many times when a photo is posted to a website (social media, etc.) all the EXIF tags are stripped by the software that resizes/compresses the upload.
              2. Normal web searches don't include EXIF tags, so having your name in the copyright tag won't make it appear on Google.
              3. If you need to track where images are being used (e.g. to prevent a copy being exploited for commercial purposes) you will need to invest in a digital watermarking service - they use steganography to invisibly-embed your identity into the pixels of the image, and crawl the Web looking for matches on your behalf. Even if the image is recompressed by a website, the watermark usually survives.

               

              CramohcE wrote:

               

              I just wanted to add my metadata so if they post their images online I can get the SEO benifits,