How we use your pictures in external competitions, web, YouTube and social media

Home » How we use your pictures in external competitions, web, YouTube and social media

Information for Oldham PS Members from Christine Widdall, webmaster

Pictures used in External Competitions

While you are a member of Oldham PS, unless you opt out, we may, from time to time, use your images for external club competitions, for example: battles with other clubs, Federation and PAGB competitions and the FIAP World Cup. Images are taken from the quarterlies, annual and other competitions, but not usually from appraisals. If you are a member of another club, you need to let our Competition Secretary know which club you are supporting with your images. Sometimes there will be no conflict at all, but other times you need to be sure that both/all your clubs, know who can use your images.

We have an external competition bank on the upload portal and it helps us out enormously if you can upload your most successful competition images there and keep it up to date with the newest versions.

Opting out: if you do not wish to allow us to use your images, please contact the competition secretary.

Pictures used on the OPS web site
© Andy Kerr

You retain copyright of all pictures that you/we post to the web site. This is regardless of whether or not you have watermarked your images with a copyright statement. On the galleries page, I do put a statement that the pictures remain copyright of the photographer.

It is recommended that you embed your copyright symbol in the EXIF data on all of your pictures. This can be done in camera, or from your software editing programme, e.g. Photoshop/Lightroom. The easiest way for me is to automatically have my copyright as part of the data that is applied to every photograph as I import it from my memory card to Lightroom.

However, be aware that EXIF data can be stripped off or edited by unscrupulous persons. It is always possible to steal a picture from a web site, even when “right click/save as” is disabled. If it is displayed on a computer, it is in RAM and can be extracted.

You may wish to choose which of your photographs you are prepared to share on the web and this is why we will not post your images without permission – this was not always the case in the past, where we did publish some competition images as a matter of course, but it is firmly the case now. With our CompEntry software you can mark up which of your pictures we are allowed to publish on the web.

What size do we post at?

We will post your images at 800 pixels on the longest side on web galleries or 600 pixels on the longest side if you prefer. We ask you to supply them to the webmaster at your preferred size and watermarked, if you wish, with your own copyright. For images used direct from the competitions, the output size is 800×600 pixels and the software adds the copyright information as a watermark.

How else will we post your images?

We sometimes use a plug-in to display some pictures at small size in the side bar of the web site.  These are extracted from the work that has been given permission to use. We will publish images from the competitions in results galleries from time to time, using only the images which have been cleared for publication. We also publish some images from challenges. Sometimes we post pictures to our OPS facebook page.

Who can post your images on the website?
  1. The webmaster
  2. Any other member with admin rights (currently Mike Lawrence, who also hosts the site)
Can images be stolen and re-used?

Yes, it is possible for someone who steals your image to use it.

A major worry these days is the theft of images from salon CDs. Many salons produce a CD of accepted images after the competition and, where they are at large size, they can be extracted. There have been many cases of such plagiarism across the world and image theft is a significant problem, even in the UK. There was, not long ago, the case of a photographer abroad who won great acclaim and many top awards internationally with wholly stolen images. He was eventually found out and red-listed.

We all have to decide if we are so precious about our pictures that we don’t want to share them at all. That, I think, would be a shame.

How long do pictures stay on the web site?

As long as you want while you are still a member! If you ask to have pictures removed, the webmaster will remove them. Sometimes older pictures are removed when the web site is updated. If you leave the society, your pictures will be removed from galleries, but may remain in archived articles and the media library (unless you request otherwise). Our Data Protection Policy will clarify details of usage and archiving.

Submitting images for the header area

The header area contains panoramic images at an exact size for the template that is currently in use. If you want to submit pictures to possibly be used in the header, please send them to the webmaster for consideration and she will give you a submission size.

Who owns copyright of the pictures that we post to facebook?

You do. In the UK, copyright remains with the photographer unless you sign it away to somebody else.

However, it isn’t quite as simple as that on social media. In uploading your pictures to social media, you have granted a license for that organisation to use and display that content however they like. That license expires when you delete the picture from their web site. However, if the picture has already been shared elsewhere, it may still be in use.

If you want images that OPS have posted to Facebook to be removed, please request the webmaster to remove it and that will be done as soon as possible.

YouTube

In 2021 we began to use YouTube to show some Exhibitions of our work. Members who object to this should contact the Council to ensure that your wishes are carried out.

How can you find out if your image is used elsewhere on the web?

Right click on the image on the web page. Select “Search Google for this image” (Chrome browser).

Or…

  • Find the image that you want to search with.
  • You can use Google to search by image instead of text.
  • Visit images.google.com in your browser.
  • Click the Camera button on the right side of the search field.
  • Add your image that you want to search with.
  • Click “Search by image.”

Both these processes work if Google has already found and catalogued the image, so images that have recently been posted may not yet show up.

a MEMBER’S Experience of image theft

Christine Widdall says:

  • I have had an image stolen from my website and re-used to advertise a product. I contacted the webmaster concerned and the image was speedily removed.
  • I sometimes find my some of my images re-posted in blogs, but if they are linked back to my site, I generally don’t worry about it…otherwise i ask for them to be removed.
  • I have also had two tutorial videos stolen and used on an eastern European web site and re-posted on YouTube. In that case, it was more difficult. I had to fill in forms for YouTube and they investigated and removed the stolen versions. They could tell that mine were the original versions and the others were poor quality copies. But it may not be as easy as that with other organisations!
  • There is no easy way to prevent theft. If your image is out there, it is vulnerable.
Taking action when your image is stolen from a web page

The following advice is from Digital Camera World:

  • Contact the webmaster of the web site that is displaying your image.
  • Contact the web hosting company of the website concerned.
  • Contact the advertisers and let them know the web site they are advertising on is displaying stolen material.
  • Take legal action (expensive)