A copyright quandry

[Longshots]

On the issue of pedantics:

In the OP the Commissioning Agent was the "mate".
The "mate" on passed the images (or files) to a third party, the Real Estate Agent.
It was the Third Party who manipulated the images and etc.: not the Commissioning Agent.

The issue of licensing for use and etc., is between the Photographer and the Commissioning Agent.

That is not legal advice, simply an expression of how I understand it.

WW

You're assuming something I'm afraid.

And that is that the people out there actually understand the issue of licensing, or respect copyright.

My bet is that there would be a significant number of people (because statistics prove this - no offence to anyone) on this forum who have an illegally copied film/music/software. So why would you assume that everyone is a) eductated about copyright, or b) honest ? Sorry to be blunt.

And while there may be a confusion or lack of knowledge about usage, and licensing; I can assure you that there is even more confusion about copyright and moral rights.

I lose count of the number of people who expect me to hand them a copy of my images to them for nothing. Forget the "value" of the images, they're not even thinking about the value of the "time" it takes to email or burn and post. No they all want it for/ or expect it for, free.

Just because you own the copyright of an original image - unless you specifically state both in writing to your commissioning client that you dont accept any further work or manipulation - ie covered under moral rights, then you are pretty much opening yourself up to the incredibly grey area of who is stamping their copyright symbol on your work.

And for whats its worth, the RE who stamped the copyright symbol on the shots is in some small way doing the OP a small favour because the purpose for doing that is to stop other RE companies useing the same images, when the person who is selling the house/property loses faith in that RE mob ever selling the property and the images then just get nicked and used by a different RE mob.

Its a grey and tricky area, and I totally understand where the OP is coming from and support that viewpoint, but the RE company does have a right in a small way to put their copyright symbol on it in the abscence of anything in writing - OR AND THIS IS important, in the abscence of a visible watermark from the OP, or more discretely a copyright and usage agreement electronically imbedded within the image - ie within the Metadata - which begs the question to the OP - do you do that ? And if not - because I suspect you dont, as most people dont - then why not - takes literally seconds to accomplish !!

[Sezzy]

Thanks again Longshots - I have my name embedded in metadata (at least I think it's embedded - it's one of my automatic import settings in lightroom), which begs a question from me...how can I be sure that it can't be removed after the fact?

I have a visible watermark, but I didn't put them on these photo's - I'm kicking myself now that I didn't, and will make it an automatic addition in future when I export from lightroom. I think I'm going to start doing the faint watermark in the middle and then said 'customer' can pick photo's they want and i'll send them jpeg's with the 'no reproduction or manipulation' - for the most part I've never had to worry about anyone 'poaching' photographs as their own...I'm still trying to get back into the swing of photography after an 8 year 'rest'...