I often get asked why I mar my photos with huge copyright signs and my name. It’s simply because it gives me a tad bit peace that people trying to steal my photos will have a hard time cloning them or rather not waste time doing it.

Yes the wonders of photoshop can usually clone out those copy signs but at least it wouldn’t be easy.

This was all sparked when I found out one of my photos had been stolen and pubished by a tabloid in India. Yep stealing goes beyond borders. That’s when I realized trying to get my rights in a country like India is nearly futile. There is a huge risk of putting up photos online. Your photos can be stolen, used by others without your permission or morphed for other use.

Usually the culprits are big firms and news agencies who can afford to pay for the photos yet they have decided sites like Flickr and Facebook are theirs for taking. Our own news agency The Star has been known to use photos without the permission of photographers as they wish. Sometimes they even steal content.

Facebook users are continuously fighting with the creators on the rights of usage of the photos posted in Facebook. There actually is a setting that allows them to use your photos in personalized ads for their advertisers.

Most recently Toyota was found to have stolen photos from Flickr and only after being cornered by the photographers themselves have they apologized and stopped using those photos.

In this age it’s nearly impossible to not share your photos online. So to stay on the safe side, its best to put a copyright and your name on a photo that is to be put online to avoid your photos from being stolen.

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