Facebook frustration and possible solutions

[Sobriquet]

Make them small so they don't print well. Make your watermark readable so it is advertising for you. You can't stop it, work with it. Tell them they can take them and share, if they want prints not to pint these files as they will be pixelated.

[tzimmerman]

Fighting it is a losing battle...go with it and use it for publicity. Transparent overlays, watermarks, flash, java right click disable, all good things that will cut down on it, but nothing will stop it with someone who knows what they are doing.

We are just starting, but all our clients low res edited copies with our logo on them, and are specifically told and encouraged these are for internet use, please post anywhere you please but do not alter, as they are our property and a representation of our work. We haven't had any problems, and its honestly where most of our business comes from. I doubt we have ever lost a print sale because of it, so really what does it cost you? If anything it gains us print sales because family and friends request copies of the pictures.

Client posts pics on facebook, people say ooh I love your pictures...who took them (even though our logo is there), happy client posts back with our web address.....rinse, reuse, repeat. We live in a free information social network world, you can fight it, but adapting is worth more your time IMO.

Now for event photography and such it will be trickier, because alot of people will just want to post the images without getting prints. Maybe you could look at having reasonably priced unwatermarked for web size stuff as well to help monotize it a bit.

[lblongs]

Its free advertisement, plan and simple.

[ShantDotMe]

Option 5: Live with it & as other said, make it good for your own use!!

I would replace "it this is not on...." watermark, by "but this photo & more on...."!

I see that the "problem" with you is that you are selling "digital file" version of the photo too! how much of your sales is the digital version? is it worth investing some of it as advertising?

Remember that you are loosing time, resources (and hence money) fighting against people who do so.

As for the exif option, it won't work, as it will be way easier to modify it, actually that why Facebook removed "I confirm that I do have hte copyright of this photo..." when uploading pics, as everyone was checking it & uploading the photos.

[BigVinnie]

My question to the OP has not been answered yet but I'm going to toss this out there.

I think a lot of photographers are missing the boat when it comes to social media sites. Facebook is exploding in userbase. So much so that even Google has gone, wait, what did we miss here?

I think if >I< was in your shoes this is what I would do:

1. Put a copyright and facebook url at the bottom of all images.
2. Format images to no larger than 640 px long side.
3. Allow people to use ONE image on facebook with copyright intact.
4. Must be "fan" of commercial page if they use an image.

What do the rest of you think?

[ShantDotMe]

^^ looks like a solid plan! I would change the facebook url with profile / business site, as that should be technically easier n shorter than the facebook url