Imagine browsing your favorite site, blog, or user group, and finding one of your photographs, or an article you wrote, posted with someone else taking credit for your work. Although its great to see your work in print or even published, its a bit of an uneasy feeling mixed with shock and some anger. Unfortunately in today's digital world, this happens all too frequently.
Anyone with some very basic knowledge can copy and paste your work and claim it as their own. It is wrong and it is illegal. There are several paths to recourse but they are expensive and difficult to enforce.
The best initial response is a simple request to fix the problem by giving the proper credit. It does help to have the documentation as to the creation of the photograph or the document. Today's software has embedded features that record this information for identification and retrieval when necessary. MS Word is probably the most common writing software in the market as Adobe Photoshop is for image editing. Both have embedded information regarding date of creation, author, and any special notes or copyright attached to the file. This information is automatically transmitted along with the file whenever it is emailed, burned to a CD or DVD, or placed on a jump drive. Using one of these is a huge help in verifying that you are the author and deserve the proper credit for yur work. Consider using Digital watermarks on your images and ALWAYS include your copyright notice on anything you print or distribute.
I sincerely hope that this never happens to you, but if you take a few of these precautions you may be able to eliminate some future headaches and heartaches.
Keep Shooting!
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