Hi everyone, this is a very serious issue, and I hope everybody will take it as seriously as it should be taken. I started this kind of topic about “privacy” a while ago, but got attacked by people from all sides. The general trend was: I would be proud if someone would steal my photos, so what is your problem. Some members even stated: if anyone out there wants my photos, go ahead and take them. And as I’m not always good at explaining myself, I just left it at that. But I had no idea our photos would pop up on Google, for the whole world to see, and easy to take.
Yesterday I was just looking for some birds, and put “Southern Boobook” into the Google search engine. Amongst many other photos, there was one of mine, I had taken last week. When I clicked on the image, it said Birds in Backyards, and also, original image. Clicking onto that gave me my flickr code. I have my flickr account set on the highest privacy setting, I haven’t found the “scramble” button yet. But it says “nobody can see” my photos. When I post them on BIBY, you can’t click onto the photo to bring you back into my account. But on Google, you click on the photo, then onto “properties” my flickr code comes up. Just copy and paste, bingo you have my photo. It also brings you back into BIBY.
Now my question is: How can BIBY allow Google to take our photos? I only looked at a few different bird categories on Google, and just one example, under Yellow Robins, you will find 7 of my photos, all taken from, and leading back to BIBY. But most disturbing, they let everyone out there get my flickr code.
Now, I would like to urge everyone to look into this matter, I’m certain you will find some of your own photos on Google. Put in the name of a bird, then click onto “more images” on the right hand, see what comes up. That raises several questions for me, and so it should for everyone else in my opinion:
“How can Google take photos without our knowledge? Can BIBY prevent Google from publishing them?”
(BTW, this is not an issue of: o, how wonderful, someone likes my photos, they can have it. There is some bigger issue here, namely, some commercial people potentially taking your photos to make money out of them. The problem is, we might never know?) So far I have found a few photos of other members, but I haven’t had enough time to search, (Mother’s day, and that…), But just looking briefly has shown two members already, pacman and Kathie from Dandenong Ranges Photography. I will have a closer look later tonight.)
Please take your time to think about it, and please don't go down the road of saying "I'd be so proud if someone takes my photos", that's not the point. If there is not privacy protection on your images, I'd have to think twice(?) before I post on BIBY again.
Hi M-L you can upload any photo from BIBY to your own computer, simply by right clicking on the image, and then saving to your computer. You can then do what ever you want with the image. Have not yet figured out how to remove the watermark, but am sure it is possible.
I am with you, your permission should be sought before any of your work is used anywhere. Sorry in advance, but here is one of yours which I have just saved to my ipad, and have on my photobucket account (i promise i will delete, and not use), just wanted to show how easy it is. Maybe there is a way to increase security??
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
I did not know biby forum users were making money from their photos?
Hi Beef, don't think M-Lwas eferring to members making money, but anyone can steal, and use for financial gain. I guess once you have the photo, you couldd crop, and remove the watermark' and pretend it is your own work. That is plagiarism, plain and simple. If someone wants to use one of my photos, I probably would let them, but they have to ask first!
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
I see what youse are saying now!
I just don't think Google should have the right , to take any of my or your photos from a website like BIBY, re-publish them on their site, without permission. I have found countless photos of mine on Google bird images. I had no idea they were doing it, and wasn't asked, nor would I have given my permission.
M-L
Hi M-L, i understand what you are saying but google only provides links to your shots, they don't take them.
If they could not provide links then when searching for things on the WWW you would find nothing. It would be like a Dictionary without words.
As dale has pointed out it is very easy to take a photo on line and make it your own (don't worry i will delete this soon as i don't use other peoples photos)
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
Have you added a Copyright symbol on the photos or is the web site copyrighted ?
I think without these every thing is regarded as public domain and able to be copied by anyone.
I could be wrong but I think you need to speak to someone with more knowledge than me, but I have seen sites with copyright notices on the opening page.
Shirley said:
If you don't understand anything I said just ask me to explain myself further.
Thanks Shirley, I don't understand yet. I will have to think about it some more. I'm a technophobe..... I will ask more questions later.
M-L
I understand completely what you are saying M-L. I'll try to explain what I have nutted out following recent discussions - I'm not the best explainerer (or very good with grammer
), but I'll do my best.
As rawshorty mentioned, Google just have the link to BIBY - which in turn (if you right click on the photo) shows the link to the photo hosting site. My host is Photobucket and & I'm pretty confident that if you right click on any of my photo's, then shorten the link to just my Account/Album name with Photobucket, you'll be denied access to my full account, or the original photo itself.
Which gets us back to the Google images issue. Google, or any other search engine "crawl" all sites for images. So, if it can be seen, Google (& others) are permitted to download it to their "image library" - as rawshorty said
.
My understanding is that BIBY can place a robots.txt file in their server, then Google will remove all images from their index. That information came from here http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35308 as I am no computer whizz, and all a little over my head. But, I have no idea whether or not this will stop ALL other search engines from being allowed to crawl and add images from BIBY also? Or if a separate robots.txt file has to be added for each search engine out there? Like I said, little over my head, but it seems it can be done. Of course, I have no idea of the practicality or cost of adding such a thing from BIBY side of the fence.
A robots.txt file wouldn't stop any single entity from going into BIBY, and right-clicking and copying an image though, unless right-click was also disabled by BIBY.
Just my 5c worth (inflation
)
West Coast Tasmania
Thanks so much Ruby, you are a very good explainer. Anything too technical goes over my head, just doesn't exist in my Artist brain
, I also have no understanding of any kind of numbers
, but I get what you are saying. Well, let's wait if Holly has any suggestions?
(I also want to say, I love the sentence under your posts, exactly how I was brought up, and I taught my children.My children went to a Rudolf Steiner School)
M-L
Oooooooooo, my head is spinning
.......
Thanks everyone though
M-L
Here is a simple watermark using lightroom. But it can be removed given time.
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
It is also a good idea to only upload low resolution versions of your photos to the internet so that anyone appropriating them without your consent will not be able to do much with them of a truly commercial nature as high resolution immages are needed for professional reproduction.
Alison
~~~~~~
"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
Thanks Shirley
, you just answered a question I had floating in my head after I mentioned disabling right-click - had an inkling that would be too good to be foolproof. I like that watermark rawshorty - it's actually not as "out there" as I imagined it would be.
REALLY good point Alison. What would be a "good" low res choice as a kind of standard for photos? 1024 pixels on the long side, or ..... ??
West Coast Tasmania
My watermark is set at 50% opacity, so it can be set lower to make it even less intrusive if wanted.
I have seen in the past on websites that the picture shows no watermark on there site but if you copy the pic you get one covered in watermarks. Not sure how they do this though.
As for placing it diagonal that would make no difference, still can be removed with no extra effort. If someone really want's your shot they will go to the effort to remove the watermark.
My duck shot was uploaded to Flickr @ 7.95MB but if you copy it from here you only get a 269KB pic. Forum sites downsize your pics to save on bandwidth.
Shorty......Canon gear
Canberra
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rawshorty/
Yesterday I spent 3 hours in a waiting room. Anybody who knows me, would know I’d cease the opportunity to strike up a conversation. Minutes later about 30 people took part in a discussion about “is there still such a thing as privacy”? As this was in a Hospital in the inner City, there were people of many different nationalities . Most of the older generation had no idea how much is already known about all of us, and how much we can find out about everyone else. That’s almost everything.
Most of the people coming from other countries remembered the problems of being spied on, and the consequences they had to suffer.
But what worried me the most , was the blank look on the faces of a few young people , they had no issues with any breach or invasion of privacy, they either hadn’t thought about it, or they didn’t care. They had no idea how information can one day be used against anybody. They seemed to think it’s normal and has always been like that, just one click and all the information is there. They had no idea, how society can change , and use information against certain groups of people or individuals.
How does all this relate to this thread here? Well, it made me realise , there is no point in trying to make your photos private, as that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Just as my son told me, mum, if you want your photos to be private, don’t post them.
If this post has any value at all, I hope it makes you think about the general topic of privacy.
M-L
Hi ML agree with everything you have said and raised. Just hope you are not going to stop posting, as we all enjoy your work, maybe more than you will ever know. I also have concerns that if I stop coming to BIBY that I may retreat into the black hole I have already spent too much time in, and not come out, and I have concerns for your health as well (all members for that matter) this is an ADDICTION, and you will have withdrawal symptoms and subsequent depressive episodes if you suddenly stop! May never get to half the standard of some of our members, but I don't care. I will still put my best photos up, and if people enjoy that is fine, if they don't, it doesn't really matter to me.
Please keep Em coming.
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
This is a most interesting thread. I must confess to being very, very concerned about the way my own privacy has been invaded several times on the internet. But I also confess to feeling quite powerless to do much about it apart from being as careful as possible about what information I give to whom. Even then I strongly sense I'll unwittingly hand out private information if I haven't already.
I believe that our economic system encourages anybody to do anything to make a profit & if this involves invasion of privacy then so be it. Any legal limits are usually imposed well after the stable door has slammed shut & the horse has bolted. Technology is usually well ahead of community awareness & political will to respond.
What all this means for the future I really don't know. It's like wandering in an intensely dark forest without a torch to see the owls. I just hope I can continue to afford to keep my internet security up to date & that I'll maintain the awareness & the ability to protect my privacy as best I can. But I fear that our society is rapidly becoming one in which everyone & their personal details are fair game to the legion of exploiters in our midst. What a morass we've created.
O, thanks so much Dale. I know exactly what you are talking about. I'm far too stubbern to just give up and disappear, and neither will you. I love looking at everything you post, and read your comments
And Woko, our generation (I'm older than you
) remembers and can see the dangers, I'm more concerned about the "information generation", everything is out there, but they don't see the danger of it. It should be up to us to switch on the warning lights.
M-L
Well, I'm not sure if I'll be renewing my pro account after they positively murdered Flickr overnight. Looks like they're aiming it all at the social networking ipad/mobile crowd now so it's been totally revamped. You got lots of HUGE, IN YOUR FACE photos with none of the attached info visible and it's a perpetual screen ... you go down the bottom and it just keeps loading more and more and more ... It's sucking up my bandwidth. Not being an airhead with my index finger glued to a little screen, I am (and it seems, from the forums, 1,000s of other people are also) not happy.
They're also trying to get people to upload higher resolution photos now ... a low res photo is one way to make it not worth the while of photo thieves who want to profit from your efforts. One wonders if there's an alterior motive behind that, given that Yahoo and their ilk have the right to use your pics however they choose.
But what's the alternative?
Wendy
Mandurah, WA
Peel-Yalgorup System Ramsar Site
http://www.flickr.com/photos/girlinoz/
I just noticed the change, there has to be something behind this.
What is "photobucket" like. I'm sure someone on here can tell us about it?
M-L
I use Photobucket, the free version, and am happy with it. I appears secure from my end. Seems easy to use, but with anything free you have to put up with the ads. Not sure about the Pro version, I don't have enough photos yet to upgrade. You can also use it from multiple devices (I have PC, iPad and iPhone) and can view the account from all 3 if I want. It is slow to upload photos, but that may be my connection, computer or both. You also have the ability to edit and crop\if you need to.
Have a look at the free vwersion, costs nothing to try. I tried flickr, and for some reason could not get it to work very well for me.
Goodluck
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
Ms Woko reports that, using Google, she went to a blog site today & found a list of recent web sites she had visited. She plans to visit some web sites using search engine Duck Duck Do (which I'd never heard of but I worry that's it's owned by Disney Corp) & then revisit the blog site to see if Duck Duck Do does or doesn't list her lastest visited web sites.
Say thanks to Ms Woko, I'll Duck out to have a look at Ducks in a moment
That’s how all the advertising agencies know what kind of crap they will send to you.
I’m also forever surprised that so many people have those frequent flyer cards, (and the like), the ones you get points on in Supermarkets. Years ago, when they had them first, I had a friend who worked on a computer processing the information (points) of those cards. She told me, don’t use one. You’d be even more surprised to know, how much information about yourself you give them? Like, how much you spend, where you spend it, and on what. (that is the smallest proportion of what they find out about you) Let’s say, if you have a certain amount of money you spend in a particular store, but you (and a few other people ) haven’t spent any of your money on underwear lately, that item will be on special next week. Or you will be bombarded with advertising on your PC.
Trust me, there is a lot more to those frequent flyer cards than meets the eye.
M-L
I use photobucket. It does change every so often but I find it easy to use.
I guess Ms Woko and M-L should be aware of Duck Doo Doo! Appropriate browser for thhose with a fancy for birds!!
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
One thing to be aware of with google searches - when you search on your own computer google knows who you are (in general terms). They know your interests and what sort of sights you visit. Inevitably they will serve up to you your own postings, and make your content seem much more visible than it actually is. Some anonymous person in another country can search the same term and get much different results, i mean that for other people your postings would be much harder to find. People complain that google reinforces people's existing ideas and prejudices rather than exposing them to new ideas.
Also, if you post things to the web forums you are making them public, if you don't want them to be public it is easy, just don't post.
Sorry, folks! Ms Woko tells me that Duck Duck Do is actually Duck Duck Go. So do go & have a look at it if you're of a mind.
Araminta, those big supermarkets never give anything away for free. Frequent flying is for the birds!
Peter
Haha Peter, you must eat a lot
I'm a Singapore Airlines Frequent flyer, I have upgraded to Business Class a few times, even without bying groceries
at a certain store.
M-L
Google somehow has the right to show any images they like. I've seen a few of mine on there. You just have to watch other birding sites on the net to make sure nothing of yours is being pinched.
If worried about theft any form of watermark on your image is good enough to make a point to others that you own the image.
Cheers, Owen.
Peter