Are you helping to kill Photography as a profession?

Do you take photographs and give them away for free by posting them onto websites and social networking sites?

Do you enter competitions that state that once the image has been submitted, the organisers are free to use the image as they please by assuming rights to it or through some form of collective licensing?  You won't know unless you read the small print.

Are you a keen photographer or photography student that attends events and hands the images from the day over to the organiser in exchange for free entrance or the promise of paid work in the future?

Are you a business that wants good quality, creative images but refuse to pay for them?

Are you a new presence on the photography scene and looking to get yourself 'known' and allowing businesses to use your images for free?

Are you a photography student that allows your academic facility use of your images without being consulted on your Intellectual Property rights?

If you are identified in any of the above groups, not only are you killing the profession of photography but you're also taking bread off the table of people trying to earn an honest crust.

If you want to get into photography as a profession:
Learn about your Intellectual Property rights.
Never give your images away for free, sell prints or license the images for publications and/or web usage.
Only enter photography competitions that respect your Intellectual Property rights (see ABoR).
As a Photography Student be aware that your images are covered by copyright as soon as you create them and no one can use them without YOUR permission - including your educational establishments.

If you're not interested in photography as a profession and just like the kudos:
Please stop killing photography as a profession by flooding websites with free imagesIf you're not interested in earning money for yourself,  use the image to generate funds for your favourite charity, educational fund for your children, holiday funds for a trip around the world or a chastitly belt for your Aunt Flo ... just please stop destroying photography as a profession?

RespectIP is a free resource provided by Wolf Photography.  Its purpose is to enable photographers and other creatives to learn the basics about their Intellectual Property rights and to provide some practical guides and forms that are necessary in some areas of photography (eg draft licence and model/property release forms).  There is also a section on how to protect your images online and a safe and easy way to promote your images on your own website with a view to selling them as prints or making them available for viewing in order to secure licensing contracts.

Keep your work protected, keep the profession alive and know your Intellectual Property rights.

Happy Sunday.

PS If you're worried about your images being used elsewhere on Facebook, go to 'Account Settings' and click on 'Facebook Adverts' - Where it says 'If we allow this in the future, show my information to' - Select 'No one'.  Also set your images so that they can only be seen by 'Friends' and not 'Public'.