I am not a photographer and I don't own a camera but I have to say that the continuing blather about someone using someone else's photos is ridiculous. I just went to the Brug Society website and they have no pictures and just words about the photos being hijacked blah, blah, blah....... I don't get the big deal, if you don't want the photos used by anyone else, don't post them to the internet.
Personally, I don't see why it is a problem if someone uses your photo of a specific plant to sell brug plants. I don't see any great damage being done.
Use of Brug Photos
As you say you are not a photographer and I am just geussing you do not grow and sell Brugs. You do not know how long it takes to grow a Brug long enough to get that just right picture so that everyone can see that you do have the Brug in question. Then to see someone using your picture to sell their Brugs, are they going to split their profit with you? Do they even have the Brug they are trying to sell? If so, why do they not just use their own picture? Because they probably do not have the Brug in question and they are fraud.
Actually, I have a large number of brugs and I will probably sell some of my cuttings and seedlings this summer at local farmers markets. I will in all likelyhood print some pictures off the internet and place them in a booklet for anyone to see that is interested in what the parents look like.
Furthermore it is ludicrous to think just because you don't have a picture of a particular plant that you don't in fact have that brug. As far as the picture being proof of your ownership, you could have snapped a picture anywhere.
Selling of anything on the web should be a matter of a person's integrity. I would never dream of doing a bait-&-switch because it is immoral and a picture is no guarantee of someone's morality.
It is all about money and again, if you don't want them used, don't post them to the internet - it is a public forum.
That is you opinion. Mine is that if you want to sell Brugs, get a camera and take your own pictures. When you take pictures off the internet, do you bother to get their permission? Just because it is on the internet does not mean it is yours. The internet is a public forum, to view, not to take, it's a mater of ethics.
This message was edited Jun 29, 2010 6:15 PM
Stealing someone's photo for commercial use without asking is unethical and in most cases illegal. Just because you find it on the web does not grant you free use of the image. Most websites and forums have disclaimers you agree to when you join, stating that the photos and content within cannot be used without written permission.
A photographer does not have to copyright a photograph to protect it. Thanks to the Berne Convention, at the moment of creation, when a photograph is "fixed" in some tangible form, a copyright applies automatically. For a photographer, when you press the shutter release you are making a photo and gaining copyright to that photo at the same time. You don't have to declare copyright or file any paperwork. It is yours to keep until you explicitly give it away or you die (copyright expires after you, the duration in the U.S. is the author's lifetime plus 70 years).
Here in the U.S. there is also a fair use doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research and teaching.
Stealing a photo to use to help you sell your plants is in no way "fair use".
Using your logic above, "I don't get the big deal, if you don't want the photos used by anyone else, don't post them to the internet", you should not have a problem then if someone stops by your yard one night and steals all the potted plants you have outside. Hey, if you don't want your plants stolen, don't leave them outside.
I sell lots of brugs on ebay and I will not even list a plant unless I have a photograph of the bloom that I have taken myself.
Fred
well said fred.
there's been lots of threads here about sellers who sell purple iris or ditchlily type daylilies with pictures of desirable plants lifted from someone else's website.
i prefer someone asks for my permission before lifting one of my pictures, just as i ask others for permission to use theirs. while that may be part of the copyright law, to me it is common courtesy and also an opportunity to meet another gardener/photographer/plant enthusiast.
Maybe it would be a good idea - to have a site to sell pictures of blooming brugs/flowers for people like me that don't own a camera or have the ability to use one, or they missed the blooming, etc. Charge so much to download the pictures - problem solved. I would buy them if I needed to use them and probably other people would too or maybe the Brugmansia Society could do it to raise funds.