How do you prove a photo is yours?

padocon

I know if you have the raw image you can prove you own the image. But what if there is no raw file?

I ask because with internet sites like facebook ect claiming rights to photos people upload then how can you say "thats my photo and you don't have rights"

Do I make since?

DaireQuinlan

In the case of facebook and the like, simply don't upload. The problem with the rights grabs made by various places online when you upload images (maybe facebook, not familiar with the current situation there) is that you're actually specifically GRANTING them those rights when you upload. Assuming it's your image in the first place of course.

As for proving that its your image in the first place, nothing beats a negative

padocon

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

In the case of facebook and the like, simply don't upload. The problem with the rights grabs made by various places online when you upload images (maybe facebook, not familiar with the current situation there) is that you're actually specifically GRANTING them those rights when you upload. Assuming it's your image in the first place of course.

As for proving that its your image in the first place, nothing beats a negative

But what if someone else uploads your photo? and
What if its digital

DaireQuinlan

padocon wrote: »

But what if someone else uploads your photo? and
What if its digital

If you've no definitive way of proving that it's yours then it's time to start employing lawyers

RobBaxter

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

If you've no definitive way of proving that it's yours then it's time to start employing lawyers

Is there any way of proving who owns a digital image? Even if it's on the camera? How do you prove it's yours? If you upload it to your computer, how do you prove it's yours? Surely there must be a way!?bobby

Paulw

Even a jpg image (original) will have EXIf data that will show it's yours (such as camera make/model/serial number, date/time the image was taken, etc)

DaireQuinlan

Paulw wrote: »

Even a jpg image (original) will have EXIf data that will show it's yours (such as camera make/model/serial number, date/time the image was taken, etc)

That's true, easy enough to fake it though with the right tools. In 99% of cases though I guess that would be enough.

RobBaxter

Paulw wrote: »

Even a jpg image (original) will have EXIf data that will show it's yours (such as camera make/model/serial number, date/time the image was taken, etc)

But can that not be tampered with/edited by a computer nerd?

padocon

@Paul Do you know where I can find this?

sNarah

RobBaxter wrote: »

Is there any way of proving who owns a digital image? Even if it's on the camera? How do you prove it's yours? If you upload it to your computer, how do you prove it's yours? Surely there must be a way!?bobby

For facebook I *think* they have right to use your photos - I believe it's said in the terms and conditions you agree upon whe signing up... I could be mistaken but I think that's how it works. Not posting on FB is one option, another is marking the pics with watermarks.

Usually the Exif date from the image can be retrieved - unless they have been stripped from the image. Usually the person "using" your images would remove them when contacted about using them illegally (best case scenario).

Are you afraid somebody might be using your images?

Paulw

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

That's true, easy enough to fake it though with the right tools. In 99% of cases though I guess that would be enough.

Easy enough to change, but there will be markers in the EXIf that it has changed (I think).

Yes, ultimately, having a raw file is much better than the original jpg, and nothing is ever 100% sure.

sNarah

padocon wrote: »

@Paul Do you know where I can find this?

Never used any of them before - perhaps one of these links might be succesfull?

padocon

sNarah wrote: »

For facebook I *think* they have right to use your photos - I believe it's said in the terms and conditions you agree upon whe signing up... I could be mistaken but I think that's how it works. Not posting on FB is one option, another is marking the pics with watermarks.

Usually the Exif date from the image can be retrieved - unless they have been stripped from the image. Usually the person "using" your images would remove them when contacted about using them illegally (best case scenario).

Are you afraid somebody might be using your images?

It would seem they do have rights:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

NothingMan

In facebooks t&c's they have a license to use your photos. You still own the copyright and can do what you want with the picture. As far as I can se Facebook do strip the EXIF data.

You can view your EXIF data on Google Picassa by right clicking the photo and going to properties.

I have never seen my camera serial number anywhere though. Does anyone know where you'd find this?

Nisio

Shooting in raw format and uploading only jpg files maybe?

padocon

Nisio wrote: »

Shooting in raw format and uploading only jpg files maybe?

Far as I can see this is the only way to go really.

BaZmO*

I was only a talking about the Facebook rights issue with a mate the other day. They certainly do own the rights and I'd imagine that they rely on people not reading the terms and conditions.

The mate made a good point that it'll be interesting enough in future when some uber famous person realises that every photo that they ever uploaded as a buck or buckette is now the property of Facebook Inc.

Paulw

BaZmO* wrote: »

I was only a talking about the Facebook rights issue with a mate the other day. They certainly do own the rights and I'd imagine that they rely on people not reading the terms and conditions.

Maybe it would help to read the actual terms and conditions. They have the right to use your image, while you are a member and while the image is on facebook. If you delete your image, they don't have the right to use it.

The don't own the rights, but by uploading you are granting them some usage rights. You still retain copyright on the image.

sunny2004

The Facebook point is not really an issue, people need to stop listening to gossip and actually investigate the matter themselves, they will never breech it as the backlash would be worldwide.. Facebook are a lot of things but they are not stupid...

Back on topic, I would assume if your image was robbed, online, and they couldnt produce even a file of higher quality than 72dpi then you would have a strong case, in addition, most pro's have the raws, use copyright notices and embed them into the photos.. in addition they would also have a series of images taken before and after the frame.. No judge in his right mind would overlook this...

For me, its always blown out of all proportion, as it seldom happens, and most people who worry about it dont have an image worth robbing not the op

pixbyjohn

This is what Flickr shows in more properties on my photo
Camera: Nikon D700
Exposure: 1/3200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 70 mm
Focal Length: 71.3 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

File Size: 8.8 MB
File Type: JPEG
MIME Type: image/jpeg
Image Width: 4256
Image Height: 2832
Encoding Process: Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample: 8
Color Components: 3
Orientation: Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution: 300 dpi
Y-Resolution: 300 dpi
Software: Ver.1.02
Date and Time (Modified): 2010:03:17 12:51:18
Artist: John Mc Gowan
YCbCr Positioning: Co-sited
Copyright: J.Mc Gowan
Exposure Program: Aperture-priority AE
Date and Time (Original): 2010:03:17 12:51:18
Date and Time (Digitized): 2010:03:17 12:51:18
Compressed Bits Per Pixel: 4
Max Aperture Value: 2.8
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Light Source: Unknown
Sub Sec Time: 07
Sub Sec Time Original: 07
Sub Sec Time Digitized: 07
Color Space: sRGB
Sensing Method: One-chip color area
CFAPattern: [Red,Green][Green,Blue]
Custom Rendered: Normal
Exposure Mode: Auto
White Balance: Auto
Digital Zoom Ratio: 1
Focal Length In35mm Format: 70 mm
Scene Capture Type: Standard
Gain Control: Low gain up
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Hard
Subject Distance Range: Unknown
Maker Note Version: 2.10
ISO: 800
Quality: Fine
White Balance: Auto
Focus Mode: AF-C
Flash Setting: Rear Slow
White Balance Fine Tune: 0 0
WB_ RBLevels: 1.765625 1.37890625 1 1
Program Shift: 0
Exposure Difference: 0
Flash Exposure Comp: 0
ISOSetting: 800
Image Boundary: 0 0 4256 2832
Flash Exposure Bracket Value: 0.0
Exposure Bracket Value: 0
Crop Hi Speed: Off (4288x2844 cropped to 4288x2844 at pixel 0,0)
Serial Number: 2119152
Color Space: sRGB
VRInfo Version: 0100
Vibration Reduction: Off
Image Authentication: On
Active D- Lighting: Off
Picture Control Version: 0100
Picture Control Name: Vivid
Picture Control Base: Vivid
Picture Control Adjust: Full Control
Picture Control Quick Adjust: Normal
Sharpness: 9
Contrast: +1
Brightness: Normal
Saturation: Normal
Hue Adjustment: None
Filter Effect: n/a
Toning Effect: n/a
Toning Saturation: n/a
Timezone: +00:00
Daylight Savings: Yes
Date Display Format: D/M/Y
ISOExpansion: Off
ISO2: 800
ISOExpansion2: Off
Vignette Control: Normal
Lens Type: G
Lens: 24-70mm f/2.8
Flash Mode: Did Not Fire
Shooting Mode: Continuous
Auto Bracket Release: Auto Release
Lens FStops: 6.00
Shot Info Version: 0212
Noise Reduction: Off
WB_ GRBGLevels: 256 452 353 256
Lens Data Version: 0203
Exit Pupil Position: 97.5 mm
AFAperture: 2.8
Focus Position: 0x04
Focus Distance: 6.68 m
Lens IDNumber: 147
Min Focal Length: 24.5 mm
Max Focal Length: 71.3 mm
Max Aperture At Min Focal: 2.8
Max Aperture At Max Focal: 2.8
MCUVersion: 149
Effective Max Aperture: 2.8
Retouch History: None
Image Data Size: 9144138
Shutter Count: 5400
Flash Info Version: 0103
External Flash Firmware: n/a
External Flash Flags: (none)
Flash Commander Mode: Off
Flash Control Mode: Off
Flash Group AControl Mode: Off
Flash Group BControl Mode: Off
Flash Group CControl Mode: Off
Flash Group AExposure Comp: 0
Flash Group BExposure Comp: 0
Flash Group CExposure Comp: 0
Multi Exposure Version: 0100
Multi Exposure Mode: Off
Multi Exposure Shots: 0
Multi Exposure Auto Gain: Off
High ISONoise Reduction: Off
AFInfo2 Version: 0100
AFArea Mode: Dynamic Area (3D-tracking)
Auto Focus: On
Primary AFPoint: C9
AFPoints Used: C9
File Info Version: 0100
Directory Number: 100
File Number: 5308
Compression: JPEG (old-style)
XResolution: 300
YResolution: 300
Resolution Unit: inches
Preview Image Start: 9148
Preview Image Length: 24050
YCb Cr Positioning: Co-sited
Compression: JPEG (old-style)

sunny2004

I rip all the exif data out of my images and simply replace it with a copyright..

NothingMan

pixbyjohn wrote: »

This is what Flickr shows in more properties on my photo

I use the EXIF viewer add on in Firefox and I never saw the serial number. But just looking at it there if I click "Show XMP Source" It gives me all the details including lens type and camera serial number.

hbr

padocon wrote: »

I know if you have the raw image you can prove you own the image. But what if there is no raw file?

Traditionally you would put a copy in a sealed envelope and post it
to yourself. Having a raw image or EXIF tags proves nothing. It is
easy to manipulate this data by editing the file or simply exporting
it to another format.

I ask because with internet sites like facebook ect claiming rights to photos people upload then how can you say "thats my photo and you don't have rights"

Do I make since?

Don't ever give your pictures or data to anyone without giving careful
consideration to any terms & conditions in the small print.

The best way to prove ownership is to save the files in a non-lossy
format like raw or tiff, and cryptographically sign them. Show the
pictures in a public forum like boards.ie to establish the date.

charybdis

Paulw wrote: »

Maybe it would help to read the actual terms and conditions. They have the right to use your image, while you are a member and while the image is on facebook. If you delete your image, they don't have the right to use it.

Actually, in the terms & conditions they state that under certain circumstances they retain the right to use your images as they please even if you "delete" them or choose to leave Facebook.

I'm also fairly certain that Facbook strips all EXIF data from images uploaded to it when it resizes and heavily compresses them.

To the original question, Facebook will never claim an image is theirs, but by uploading it the owner of the image grants Facebook a fairly exhaustive license for use of the image.

If you want to avoid any of this, don't use Facebook.

sunny2004 wrote: »

I rip all the exif data out of my images and simply replace it with a copyright..

Why? You don't have to strip all the other EXIF data to add a copyright statement.

sNarah

Nisio wrote: »

Shooting in raw format and uploading only jpg files maybe?

I presume your normal Point & Shoot doesn't have RAW settings though?

Anyway - when the point comes where you nééd to prove the images are yours, I hope that there are enough facts available to stand your case. (generally speaking for everyone). It seems that the "bigger online community" has started to be carefull with copyright and images now, which I find is a good evolution, i.e. people starting to second guess photogs credibility and doing a bit of a background search on them.

Being aware like that and checking facts, has lead to at least 3 "revelations" on Boards in the last couple of weeks of photogs using differents peoples work and so on.

trican

The issue of digital media ownership is only going to become a bigger and bigger problem - photographs are crying out for something like encrypted steganography ( embed a signature without visibly altering the digital image) and/or digital signatures. Watermarks are straightforward to remove


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

Nisio

sNarah wrote: »

I presume your normal Point & Shoot doesn't have RAW settings though?

[tongue in cheek]why whould you want to protect anything taken with a normal P&S?![/tongue in cheek]

I guess youre into the land of semi-transparent watermarks accross the subject in that case

sNarah

Nisio wrote: »

[tongue in cheek]why whould you want to protect anything taken with a normal P&S?![/tongue in cheek]

I guess youre into the land of semi-transparent watermarks accross the subject in that case

Hehe... indeed.

I just presumed that when posting pics on FB they mightn't neccessarily be "DSRL" material - but then again - be it PS or DSRL, copyright issues remain the same and there is no excuse for using other peoples work.

Whether it is a crappy snapshot or an artfull masterpiece.

Cameraman

In the US there's a formal method for registering copyright. Many professional photographers send off their DVDs of images regularly to register them.

An idea of the fees here :

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html

In the UK, a commercial service has started offering to register copyright for a fee - I have no idea how well it works.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/register/

sunny2004 wrote: »

and they couldnt produce even a file of higher quality than 72dpi then you would have a strong case,

The 72DPI value is meaningless for online images, so this wouldn't make any difference. The JPEG compression quality might though.

sunny2004

Cameraman wrote: »

The 72DPI value is meaningless for online images, so this wouldn't make any difference. The JPEG compression quality might though.

can you explain this in detail for me please ?

charybdis

sunny2004 wrote: »

can you explain this in detail for me please ?

DPI only has meaning in terms of print resolution, it has no meaning in digitally-viewed images.

An image has a given spatial resolution (e.g.: 3000x2000 pixels), when it is printed at a certain DPI (e.g.: 100 DPI) the amount of pixels specified by the DPI are printed for every physical inch of the page; in our example, a 3000x2000 pixel image printed at 100 DPI would have a physical size of 30x20 inches on the page, if it was printed at 250 DPI, it would have a physical size of 12x8 inches.

In short, DPI is only relevant to print resolution. Changing a file's DPI only makes a change to its default DPI metadata, it does not affect the file any further than this.

If you wish to render you images as unusable mush so you can post said unusable mush on Facebook, you can compress the hell out of them using aggressive JPEG compression that throws away information for the sake of smaller file sizes. Facebook will then further compress your unusable mush and still retain all kinds of rights to use it.

Cameraman

sunny2004 wrote: »

can you explain this in detail for me please ?

"72DPI is meaningless for online images"

For images viewed online i.e. in a browser, there is no meaning to the oft-quoted 72DPI - or any other DPI value. What matters is the image dimensions e.g. 800 x 600 pixels. The image will be displayed on the screen at a size dependent on the physical screen resolution and size.

Obviously a screen itself is composed of pixels, with a pixel size - but this is a technical screen characteristic, not directly relevant to the viewer. In the past, a common screen resolution was 72PPI hence the origin of the "save at 72DPI" myth.

This was discussed before on this forum, and eas/savo did a test to confirm the truth of this (thread here : http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055533095) :

---

well, I'll be.

I tested the theory - ppi makes absolutely no difference, not even in the amount of data in the file. Amazing.

http://www.savo.ie/misc/restest/

---

If you look at this example, you will see the 3 images are exactly the same.
The DPI, or more correctly PPI value used is meaningless, not used and of no relevance. This applies, as I said, to screen/web images only.
DPI does have a meaning for prints.

Hope that part is clear.

"The JPEG compression quality might though."

JPEG files use 'lossy' compression. The higher the degree of compression, the more data is lost and the poorer the image will look. At low compression levels, the difference from the original is very hard to distinguish. At higher compression levels visible differences can be seen (e.g. lack of detail, 'haloing' etc).

So, in relation to ownership - if the image is displaying signs of being highly-compressed, if you have the original you can show that it actually is the original, by dint of its higher quality.

Saint_Mel

Facabook also have a report function for images used in breech of copyright

http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php?copyright_notice=1&type=2&uid=1403406238&cid=1195305&cid2=125486497467838&h=04aa819d17

sheesh

RobBaxter wrote: »

But can that not be tampered with/edited by a computer nerd?

it can and it cannot jpeg is a compressed file type most exif editors open the file for writing edit the info then put the image through the jpeg compression algorithm again this would lead to some slight loss in the quality of the image (not a noticable amount i'd imagine but probably measurable)

/nerdtasticness

look really most p+s cameras these days produce quiet large images just make sure that you only put a max imagesize of 800 px on the longest side and that will reduce the size enough that you have the highest quality version of the image image

DaireQuinlan

sheesh wrote: »

it can and it cannot jpeg is a compressed file type most exif editors open the file for writing edit the info then put the image through the jpeg compression algorithm again this would lead to some slight loss in the quality of the image (not a noticable amount i'd imagine but probably measurable

The EXIF metadata is entirely indpendent of the image data, changing the EXIF isn't going to affect the image.

sheesh

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

The EXIF metadata is entirely indpendent of the image data, changing the EXIF isn't going to affect the image.

I'm sorry my understanding of the jpeg file standard and binary files in general is different to yours. I'm not sure its correct but my personal efforts of creating an application that edits the exif data lead me to believe that the file is opened for editing you edit the file to save changes you need to reapply the jpeg compression algorithm. perhaps I'm incorrect. ah well.

DaireQuinlan

sheesh wrote: »

I'm sorry my understanding of the jpeg file standard and binary files in general is different to yours.

Evidently

Like most other image formats, JPEGs are comprised of chunks of fairly discrete data. The image data is contained in a chunk of its own, the META data in another chunk. The (from the JPG spec) APP1 chunk contains EXIF data (and possibly a thumbnail).
IPTC data resides in another chunk. Crucially, the image data is in yet another chunk, and can be read and written without any unencoding or re-encoding. So as long as you're not interested in the actual image data you can just re-write it as-is.

Just as an example I've included something I stuck together in java that rather cheekily sticks my name in to the EXIF as the copyright holder on the image (although in the wrong place so it comes up as an 'unknown tag', it probably has to be a child of another tag or something, I don't know).

package com.daire.image;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import org.apache.sanselan.Sanselan;
import org.apache.sanselan.common.IImageMetadata;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.jpeg.JpegImageMetadata;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.jpeg.exifRewrite.ExifRewriter;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.TiffContents;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.TiffField;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.TiffImageMetadata;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.constants.ExifTagConstants;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.constants.TiffConstants;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.constants.TiffFieldTypeConstants;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.write.TiffOutputDirectory;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.write.TiffOutputField;
import org.apache.sanselan.formats.tiff.write.TiffOutputSet;

public class MetaUpdater 
{
	private String imageName = null;
	
	public void updateDPI(TiffImageMetadata tim) throws Exception
	{
		TiffOutputSet timOutput = tim.getOutputSet();

		if (timOutput != null) 
		{         
			TiffField tif = tim.findField(TiffConstants.EXIF_TAG_COPYRIGHT);
			if(tif != null)
			{
				System.out.println("Existing copyright is: "+tif.getStringValue());
				timOutput.removeField(TiffConstants.EXIF_TAG_COPYRIGHT);	
			}

			String copyrightTag = "C. Daire Quinlan 2010";
            TiffOutputField copyrightOutput = new TiffOutputField(
            		ExifTagConstants.EXIF_TAG_COPYRIGHT,
            		TiffFieldTypeConstants.FIELD_TYPE_ASCII, 
                    copyrightTag.length(), 
                    copyrightTag.getBytes());
             
            TiffOutputDirectory exifDirectory = timOutput.getOrCreateExifDirectory();
            exifDirectory.add(copyrightOutput);
		}
    
		InputStream source = new FileInputStream(imageName);
		OutputStream target = new FileOutputStream("NEW"+imageName);
		
		new ExifRewriter().updateExifMetadataLossy(source,target, timOutput);
		target.flush();
		target.close();
	}

	public MetaUpdater(String imageName)
	{
		this.imageName = imageName;
	}
	
	TiffImageMetadata getMetaData() throws Exception
	{
		TiffImageMetadata tiffMetaData = null;
		
		InputStream imageInputStream = new FileInputStream(imageName);
		IImageMetadata metaData = Sanselan.getMetadata(imageInputStream, null);
		System.out.println(metaData.getClass());
		if(metaData instanceof JpegImageMetadata)
		{
			JpegImageMetadata jim = (JpegImageMetadata)metaData;
			jim.dump();
			tiffMetaData = jim.getExif();
			List<TiffField> exifFields = tiffMetaData.getAllFields();
			Iterator<TiffField> iter = exifFields.iterator();
			while(iter.hasNext())
			{
				TiffField tiffField = iter.next();
				System.out.println(tiffField.toString()); 
			}
		}
		imageInputStream.close();
		
		return tiffMetaData;
	}
	
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		MetaUpdater updater = new MetaUpdater(args[0]);
		
		try
		{
			TiffImageMetadata tim = updater.getMetaData();
			if(tim != null)
			{
				updater.updateDPI(tim);
			}
		}
		catch(Exception e)
		{
			System.out.println(e.toString());
			e.printStackTrace(System.out);
		}

	}
}

This, for convenience sakes, uses sanselan, an OS java library for image handling.

D.

charybdis

You can open a JPEG in a hex editor (or text editor) and edit the metadata by hand and resave it without any sort of recompression being applied to the binary image data.

Same thing, I guess.

sunny2004

So I take a Raw file open it in photoshop

resize it to say 9in on its longest side and change the ppi? to 72...
it clearly shrinks on the screen ...

Now I save it using the Save for the web option in PS. what is this last function doing that I have not already done above ?

charybdis

sunny2004 wrote: »

So I take a Raw file open it in photoshop

resize it to say 9in on its longest side and change the ppi? to 72...
it clearly shrinks on the screen ...

Now I save it using the Save for the web option in PS. what is this last function doing that I have not already done above ?

Terms relating to physical dimensions such as "inches" or "DPI" have no direct meaning to digital files. A digital image file only has one spatial size: its dimensions in pixels. The physical size of the file depends on the size of the pixels (or dots) used to create it.

Photoshop understands that if you want a file to be physically represented 9 inches long on its longest size at 72 DPI, it has to resize its pixel dimension on its longest side to 648 pixels (9*72). What you are effectively doing is resizing the pixel dimensions of a file by providing Photoshop with your desired output parameters.

"Saving for web" does any number of things, probably resizing the image, more heavily compressing it, sharpening it for screen use, and possibly embedding a colour profile.

Cameraman

sunny2004 wrote: »

So I take a Raw file open it in photoshop

resize it to say 9in on its longest side and change the ppi? to 72...
it clearly shrinks on the screen ...

Now I save it using the Save for the web option in PS. what is this last function doing that I have not already done above ?

If you want to make it smaller (in bytes) - reduce the number of pixels, and reduce the save quality level. 9in or ppi/dpi of 72 have no meaning on a screen.

JuliePhotoArt

BTW you can edit EXIF data from Windows Explorer, just go to file properties dialog window and then Details tab. This is available in Windows Vista and 7.