The Sharing Advantage
Too often, photographers miss a great marketing opportunity by presenting what, in effect, are barriers to potential on-line customers. For example, a photographer will build a beautiful web page and then splatter "warning" signs all over it, like signs that it is illegal to copy the photos the visitor is viewing unless they get permission. This is tantamount to walking into a shopping mall store and encountering "Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted" signs on every aisle. This does not create a pleasant place to shop. You need to make sure potential buyers feel good about coming to your website. Yes, have the infringement notices up there, but make the emphasis on your photography, not on the penalties a visitor could encounter.The Copyright Law does have a provision for you to allow visitors to copy and paste images for their personal purpose or educational use. It is when the individual plans to use the photo for publication or commercial purposes, that they need your permission and to pay you for such use.
But if you prevent any legal copying (sharing your photos) in the first place, you'll curtail your chances of sharing in actual transactions. It is important that web-sharing and word-of-mouth are the best kind of marketing available to you.
SHARING IS NOT INFRINGEMENT
As a photographer, you care very much about your copyrights and defend them vigorously. At the same time, remember that visitors share your works legally when they provide links of your on-line images to their friends. Everyone knows what it means to share, and that sharing is different from shoplifting, outright stealing. The practice of sharing, though, is too often confused with the concept of infringement.
Big publishers and distributors will work hard to prevent any kind of fair-use linking of pictures on their site, whether it benefits you or not. However, this is where there is a departure from old-time publishing and new-time publishing. You, the creator of images, do not have to go through a publisher to connect with potential clients. Those customers can come directly to you if you lower some of the "hard-line" warning barriers on your website that discourage people from checking out your photos.
Don't be resistant to sharing your photos. Photographers willing to allow web sharing opportunities to potential clients will realize a marketing benefit much more powerful than those photographers who cling to a last-century obsession about copyright infringement. In other words, the benefits of exposing your photos to the public electronically to be shared, far outweigh the disadvantages. -RE
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