Hi everyone!

Just a little reminder that Eric Smith is a professional photographer who very generously donates his time to SAG cycling events, including rides hosted by Planet Ultra. He comes out at his own expense to drive SAG and to photograph riders. The photos are a service he provides; and we appreciate this a lot - since most riders like having a memento of their experience - and we couldn't possibly provide anything even close to the incredibly awesome shots he takes.

Eric offers the photos on his website for SALE, not for FREE. Sales help cover the costs of coming out to the events.

His website is supposed to be protected against people lifting photographs off the site; but apparently there's a glitch in whatever program he's using.

I'm sure all of you work for a living; and so does he. His photos are his work product, and he ought to be paid for them. So please respect his talent and his efforts and do NOT copy photographs from his website without paying for them. It's stealing, really.

Enough said.
:-)
Deb

i plan on buying my ES photo....i actually like it!!

i plan on buying my ES photo....i actually like it!!

I'm buying your photo, too!

I'm buying your photo, too!

Hey...me too. Everyone should have one :p

Actually, I'm buying mine. I'm just bummed that my Gatorade loogie that I spit on my shoe didn't show up.

I'm buying your photo, too!


i am suitable for framing!!!

i am suitable for framing!!!

It is a good shot.

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r143/Indolent58/bill-1.jpg

Good point, Deb, but please note that everyone on here post pics all the time of all events organized or not. So, when folks have copied and pasted photos on this site in the threads it has been in excitement over the events and seeing the members of this community who have ridden them, and NOT in an effort to steal the photos. Likewise, and in numerous ways, our threads (with reports, photos and the like) about Planet Ulta and other organizations' events is absolutely free advertisement! But we don't ask for advertising fees :p Needless to say, though, the pics shouldn't be copied and pasted here if they are for sale individually.

Just a little reminder that Eric Smith is a professional photographer who very generously donates his time to SAG cycling events, including rides hosted by Planet Ultra. He comes out at his own expense to drive SAG and to photograph riders. The photos are a service he provides; and we appreciate this a lot - since most riders like having a memento of their experience - and we couldn't possibly provide anything even close to the incredibly awesome shots he takes.

Eric offers the photos on his website for SALE, not for FREE. Sales help cover the costs of coming out to the events.

His website is supposed to be protected against people lifting photographs off the site; but apparently there's a glitch in whatever program he's using.

I'm sure all of you work for a living; and so does he. His photos are his work product, and he ought to be paid for them. So please respect his talent and his efforts and do NOT copy photographs from his website without paying for them. It's stealing, really.

I am going to take an interesting position on this, and I feel I have a unique right to do so since I am also an event photographer (gymnastics mostly). I do not believe that using pictures from the site is "stealing".

First, you put the pictures in the wild and people will do with them what they want. Second, there is nothing you can do really to stop people from "taking" them. A little bit of javascript or whatever won't stop anybody, you can always disable it. I don't remember his specific countermeasures, but for example a lot of sites just prevent right-clicking, but in IE you can just hover over a picture and a little toolbar pops up with a save button. Third, they are a low resolution version that you can't do much with. If this becomes a big issue, he should just lower the resoution or use a watermark.

I am never happy when people take the pictures I put on my site for sale but I know that they are low resolution and have a copyright watermark. The people that really care about getting a high quality product will pay for it, and the people that are just using the picture casually wouldn't have bought it anyway so there really is no sale lost.

As an aside, although it does not affect how I feel about the issue in general, nor Eric in particular, he totally missed me when I went by on the Solvang Double. All I got was part of my arm!

http://redbikephoto.com/2007_solvang_double_century/thumbs/ot175.jpg (http://redbikephoto.com/2007_solvang_double_century/photos/r175.jpg)

I am going to take an interesting position on this, and I feel I have a unique right to do so since I am also an event photographer (gymnastics mostly). I do not believe that using pictures from the site is "stealing".

First, you put the pictures in the wild and people will do with them what they want. Second, there is nothing you can do really to stop people from "taking" them. A little bit of javascript or whatever won't stop anybody, you can always disable it. I don't remember his specific countermeasures, but for example a lot of sites just prevent right-clicking, but in IE you can just hover over a picture and a little toolbar pops up with a save button. Third, they are a low resolution version that you can't do much with. If this becomes a big issue, he should just lower the resoution or use a watermark.

I am never happy when people take the pictures I put on my site for sale but I know that they are low resolution and have a copyright watermark. The people that really care about getting a high quality product will pay for it, and the people that are just using the picture casually wouldn't have bought it anyway so there really is no sale lost.

As an aside, although it does not affect how I feel about the issue in general, nor Eric in particular, he totally missed me when I went by on the Solvang Double. All I got was part of my arm!

So if I use this analogy and you leave your house unlocked or a window open and I take your TV or bike, its not stealing. I won’t take the expensive TV or bike that way you won’t be that unhappy. Stealing is stealing.

I think low res is the way to go if the photographer is concerned. This is somewhat analogous to thumbing through and reading an article in a magazine at the news stand without purchase. Since they're not physical property, these things are sometimes just plain unavoidable.

So if I use this analogy and you leave your house unlocked or a window open and I take your TV or bike, its not stealing. I won’t take the expensive TV or bike that way you won’t be that unhappy. Stealing is stealing.

I hate that argument. Its not the same thing. If you take my bike, I no longer have it. If you copy a picture off my website, you only deprived me of potential income. It would be like if I was selling my bike at a garage sale, and you came up and used a star trek replicator on it and made yourself a copy. I still have my bike, and now you have it too. But I didn't get your money. If you put a photograph on the web and it has no visible copyright or watermark on it, EXPECT it to be copied.

I hate that argument. Its not the same thing. If you take my bike, I no longer have it. If you copy a picture off my website, you only deprived me of potential income. It would be like if I was selling my bike at a garage sale, and you came up and used a star trek replicator on it and made yourself a copy. I still have my bike, and now you have it too. But I didn't get your money. If you put a photograph on the web and it has no visible copyright or watermark on it, EXPECT it to be copied.
I agree. Although even the replicator analogy isn't quite right. You are not making a full scale copy of the bike but a small, low quality facsimile of the bike. If the potential buyer is happy with that but unwilling to pay full price for the actual working bike then they probably wouldn't have bought the bike in the first place, at least at the asking price. I have occasionally saved a copy of the low-res ride photos off of event photographer's sites to stash away in my photo library as a memento , and I don't much care if they are watermarked or not. If I actually wanted the high resolution jpeg to print, I think Eric's $10.95 price is quite reasonable and I would gladly pay it (if I ever do one of the events he is covering :p )

However, the business models for some other event photographers, like Photocrazy are out of whack, but that is more an economic issue than an ethical one. Their strategy seems to be based on a very low percentage of event participants being willing to pay high prices for high quality finished prints. Photocrazy actually charges more ($45.00 :eek: ) for the emailed image file than they do for large prints.

Can you imagine if they were still shooting on film?

Can you imagine if they were still shooting on film?

Then we wouldn't be talking about this. Although it would be hard for the photographers to reach their customers after the events. :rolleyes:

Then we wouldn't be talking about this. Although it would be hard for the photographers to reach their customers after the events. :rolleyes:

It definitely would have been a hassle processing & scanning negatives and posting them on websites.

It definitely would have been a hassle processing & scanning negatives and posting them on websites.

Um, there wouldn't be websites either. :D

Um, there wouldn't be websites either. :D

Weren't there websites during the film to digital transitional period where a lot of professional studios were making this transition? I remember visiting a few studio websites where they have not yet made changes and were still shooting film. :)

Weren't there websites during the film to digital transitional period where a lot of professional studios were making this transition? I remember visiting a few studio websites where they have not yet made changes and were still shooting film. :)
There was a transition, but were people doing this kind of shotgun-style event photography then? Film is expensive. If only a small percentage of people buy the photos that's a lot of wasted film. Now the incremental cost of one more shot is near zero.

So if I use this analogy and you leave your house unlocked or a window open and I take your TV or bike, its not stealing. I won’t take the expensive TV or bike that way you won’t be that unhappy. Stealing is stealing.
\


If it's a 13" lo res TV, well it saves me the effort of throwing it out!!
The same goes for the Huffy.....

Just sayin'....

Well, my last two cents on this - REGARDLESS of where one stands on whether or not it is stealing, I think it is a more important point that those on here who copied and pasted the pics were NOT trying to steal. The intent was not to take the livelihood of the photographer but more to simply post pictures from these events here just as we do when we each take pics with our own cameras and post them. We are a "lookie-lou" community. We like photos of others as well as ourselves on bikes and the more the merrier from any camera. So, right or wrong, let's make sure we are careful not to accuse those members of stealing photos that, to UMD's point, are out there for ANYONE to copy (perhaps Mr. Smith, who is a very talented photographer IMO, will read this thread and change his site to what UMD is suggesting). There may very well be people stealing the jpegs and not buying pics, but I don't believe for one minute that was the intent on here by the So Cal members.

Well, my last two cents on this - REGARDLESS of where one stands on whether or not it is stealing, I think it is a more imporant point that those on here who copied and pasted the pics were NOT trying to steal. The intent was not to take the livelihood of the photographer but more to simply post pictures from these events here just as we do when we each take pics with our own cameras and post them.I agree. :)

They were simply posting the IMG URL to where the jpg file is. Is that greek enough to everyone?

They were simply posting the IMG URL to where the jpg file is. Is that greek enough to everyone?


Make sperfect sense..
It's analogous to posting a link to a web site.

...the business models for some other event photographers, like Photocrazy are out of whack...

I couldn't agree more. I really wanted some of my pics from the Honu Half IM last year but I couldn't justify shelling out that much jing. I think a lot more people would buy them if they weren't so freakin' expensive.