I apologize for this non-food related post but there’s something that I need to air.
The internet is a big, broad expanse and it is impossible to keep track of it all as there is simply no way of doing so. Therefore, when putting my words and images online, I realize that there is a chance that some stranger can come along and reproduce my content elsewhere without attributing it to me.
Now, some might argue that when putting my photos somewhere like Flickr, it’s bound to happen and it’s not that big a deal, but I beg to differ. As many of my fellow food bloggers are well aware, many of the photos that we take are not just 5 second snaps taken on the spur of the moment. We do things like specially plating the food, seeking out ideal lighting, shooting multiple shots to find the best…many who are more dedicated than I am set up elaborate scenes and table settings in which to take these photographs. A lot of time and effort goes into creating and maintaining the content for these websites, time which we willingly give to be a part of this community.
It is understandable that other people who come across this content may like it enough to print it or save it to their hard drives for later viewing, and this is no problem. The problem arises when you take content and then distribute it to another public forum/location without attributing it to where you got it from. This is even more of a problem when the forum that you are distributing this material has the expectation that all content that is shared by it’s members is their own work.
This is not me being crochety or mean – this is just a statement saying that I put a fair bit of work into what is posted here, and that just because it’s on the internet does not mean that it’s a free-for-all. I’m happy for my work to be republished elsewhere, but only if I’m asked to do so (for a vastly public forum such as Slashfood, who already practice this) or I’m credited/linked (in the case of it being put up on something like an online bulletin board).
Further discussions on this topic can be found:
http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/2007/03/photography-how-can-i-id-my-photos_6335.html
http://stilllifewith.com/2007/03/26/watermarking-your-images/
If any food bloggers reading this don’t already watermark their images, I’d highly recommend this line of action as it’s one way of deterring image theft. I’m no graphic design genius, but if you need one then I can create a watermark that you can just paste on top of your photos before loading them on the net. Email me if you want to take me up on this offer 
[tags]theft, watermark, photos, copyright, copyright infringement, flickr, problems, food blogging[/tags]
