You're a Thief

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 28. February 2012 - 7:27

I'm in the process of creating a new web site for my commercial photography. I have most of the content, the photography and much of the text. So I decided to look around. I'm not looking to steal anybody else's web site. I'm just looking to see how other commercial photographers integrate their photography with a blog. As I was looking around, I found that some commercial photographers do not want anybody to come to their web sites. These are exact quotes, including the formatting and the capitalization.

You are not allowed to reproduce, print or copy any of the photos on this site without written permission from ... All rights reserved.

If you agree to these terms and conditions, please enter the site:

I AGREE (click on the “I Agree” link)

and

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS SITE ARE PROTECTED BY THE COPYRIGHT LAW
AND ARE THE EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY OF ...
THESE IMAGES MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, REPRODUCED, STORED OR DISTRIBUTED
IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM ...

VIEWER AGREES (click on the “VIEWER AGREES” link)

Almost every photographer, that has images on the Internet, has some kind of wording similar to these including mine at: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms. The huge difference is that instead of doing those claims on a web page and/or a footer, these 2 photographers are doing it on their home page. It's not a footer, this is the whole and complete home page.

These people are wrong on so many points:

  1. Technical wise: As soon as somebody enters the web site with a browser, that person automatically breaks the policy. The Internet only works on copying. You do not view web pages/images from a web site. The whole web page is downloaded to your computer by the browser, then the browser interprets and displays that web page. The images, to be viewed in the browser, must be copied to your computer where they are stored until either you clean the cache or exceed the space allocated at the cache, in a first in first out (FIFO) manner.

  2. Business wise: Both guys assume that anybody that comes to their web site is a thief. “You came to my website only to steal my photos.” You didn't come to my web site to look at my photos, you didn't come to my web site to see if you want to hire me… Isn't it good to insult your potential customers?

    They are also completely missing the boat with Google. Instead of using their home page to attract viewers, there's nothing. As far as Google knows, they don't even exist, since Google and the other search engine spiders can't agree to these terms.

    As far as Google/Bing are concerned, the home page is the most important page on a web site.