F1technical.net

Just curious -

It seems like the number of "second-generation" watermarked photos being posted here has increased exponentially this year. Most of them (all of them?) seem to point back to various Italian blogs/twitter accounts. The photos themselves clearly come from Sutton, Darren Heath, etc., but their copyrights are cropped out and a new watermark pasted in, along with a handful of occasionally useful arrows, circles, insets, etc. I don't know if these guys have licenses for these images, but it seems like they don't, since usually the arrow-laden and watermarked photos come only after the original image has been posted in the thread by someone else. Plus, if you compare them to Matt Somers' posts, who definitely has a Sutton license, he seems to always be careful about keeping Sutton's copyright in the photo, even if he's manipulated the photo himself.

Just seems like these guys are pretty far over the line of what would be considered fair use, since they point back to other sites and as such are seemingly being used for commercial purposes.

Perhaps it's not a big deal, but most of what we discuss here is possible due to the graciousness of the F1 photographers allowing us to use their work. I'd hate to see that come to a halt.

A fair concern, I would say. I'm always for a loose regulation with regard to recreational use of intellectual property. I think that characterises pretty much what most of us do here in terms of image use. But if you start pirating other people's work and drop in your own water marks its well over the line and I would like to see such users being blocked and dumped from the board.

The answer would seem to be for the bloggers etc. to add their own mark for any tech stuff they add but leave the original mark on there so everyone knows where the photo came from. That would be an honest approach in my mind. If they make any money from the manipulation then they should pay for the use of the photo. If they are just an enthusiastic amateur posting on their favourite forum then there's probably not too much harm done so long as the original source is clear to see.

agreed, fair enough link to the original picture so the owner gets traffic to his site but putting watermarks on someone elses pics should not be tolerated. If pointing something out requires drawing on a pic its easy enough to get paint out and draw what you mean but it doesn't mean all of a sudden you own that picture same as if you remixed a music track, if you didnt get permission and pay rights then the original author would get all of the proceeds.

Agreed. I question also if they only take the pictures. I'd imagine some publishers walking around here like they were at a supermarket with nothing but free goods: looking around and taking the best ideas from forum members.

You know? This happened to me twice here, to see my drawings and ideas ripped. And curiously both times it was by italian blogs. But I am not sure that we are looking at bad intentions here, I think this is more like a cultural misunderstanding on what's acceptable in the internet.
One of the times it was four of five of us posters in F1T ripped, and it was particularly infuriating to see the "I" translated as "Io". But after complaining (two days later) the guy rewrote all those pronouns an gave credit to users of F1T.
The second time i complained and the guy (a different one) answered in 10 minutes, clarified the situation and within the hour he had changed the text and given proper credit. It turns out he didn't even know where the pic and the idea came from. Some other guy had taken it from here and posted it on his twitter.
Clearly they weren't too worried about copyright in the first place, but the very speedy apology and reaction in the second case prove that it wasn't done in bad faith.
That said, removing a watermark and adding another is way over the top, but are we sure it was the same person doing both or that the two are connected?

if nothing else its about common decency. If we want the forum to keep out of trouble whilst respecting original authors/right holders because this site is a great resource or knowledge base but if some of the sources get upset then we lose out. Most forums have a sticky about these kind of things and maybe it is in the house rules somewhere. Its not a complaint about f1t though and on the whole its well moderated without over castration.

Reporting copyright infringement to the respective owners is the best way to deal with this. It leads to either "cease-and-desist" fancy letters from a law office, or to some agreement - words from experience by ex-cyber cop.

In some cases, however, there is no watermark on the photos. Then, you need to mention that this isn't yours long-exposure-fancy shot, but instead a team photograph, which has editorial license - you can post it, as long as you don't make money out of it.

It's a common problem, even our beloved community suffers from it: https://twitter.com/f1technical/status/ ... 1376196608

I think Italian friends took the hint. Good job guys.

There's no issue with sharing knowledge. As long as proper credit is given, publishers can freely copy my work if they want too. As long as they realise ethics apply on the internet also, I'm good.

If i was ripping other people's photos for various reasons I'd have no qualms about leaving the original watermarks on them. I did reports of World Superbikes and MotoGP races on a local forum for 2 years and even when the photos didn't have any watermarks I'd cite the respective people/websites as the source at the end of my news posts. I thought it'd be common sense to do so...

If someone were to publish some photo I'd edited and posted here, I think I'd be pleased as punch. And if they started doing it often, I probably consider a career change.

I do think it was funny that someone who it seems ripped off one of Sutton's photos got all high and mighty when one of his fellow bloggers then used the photo for themselves.

Perhaps there should be an option under reporting posts for misuse of images? Then they could be removed or the copyright holder notified.

Taki Inoue managed to peel off my watermark of one of my drawings and post it on his Facebook and Twitter pages. Tried to get in touch with him but, inevitably, he wasn't going to say a word. Not just the Italians...

theWPTformula wrote:Taki Inoue managed to peel off my watermark of one of my drawings and post it on his Facebook and Twitter pages. Tried to get in touch with him but, inevitably, he wasn't going to say a word. Not just the Italians...

Taki doesn't come across as someone you can reason with

Since the moderators/administator have remained silent on this, and the offending posts continue, I take it that they consent to the practice.