Forum Features & Updates

The gallery is not to replace any previous things that we've done on the forum - the main Discussion Forum will remain the same - for all things Coventry related, including any relevant images we like to use to illustrate the various topics. The gallery is just that - a showcase for Forum Members to display various categories of photos, images, etc., separately from any current or previous discussions, although, of course, certain topics might be relevant to some gallery material, and no doubt discussions of gallery images will occur. Regarding public viewing, copyright, etc. - Yes, the gallery can currently be viewed by anyone online, not just members, but only members with a month's standing and at least 5 valid posts may create a gallery. So as usual, copyright must be respected and I'll add a help page to that effect when I get time. That is stated on the forum help page already, though. If the majority of the members think that "our" gallery should remain for "our eyes only" though, then I'll be more than happy to lock it and make it only available to view when members are signed into the forum. If you and others would prefer that, then please let me know.... it is "ours" after all! Right, I'm off here for tonight... back soon...

You said "The gallery is just that - a showcase for Forum Members to display various categories of photos, images, etc., separately from any current or previous discussions" If so, Rob, I don't think it should be accessible by the public, or else it shouldn't be possible to copy and paste or download anything on it, or would it be a problem to allow whoever uploads to lock what they upload, either as a 'not viewable if you're not a member' or as a 'non-copiable file'. Partly why I'm saying this is that I want to be able to send photos to Amateur Photographer for consideration for publication, but some of those might be of interest to some of our forum members. a) AP is fussy about copyright, and (b) if anything that you send to its publishers has been "shown" anywhere before, they won't even consider publishing it for any purpose. They've also carried a number of stories for some time about copyright infringement, and it's been a bit of a hot topic, especially as in most cases, what has been reported is internet-based infringement. It would be nice not to have to worry about the possibility. I'm not being difficult, just concerned that we don't create something that we might later regret.

As for the copyright bit you could always include this cw at the side of the photo if you wanted to, on garden sites they have the same problem of entering competitions, or placing on other forums of others photos, so the webmaster owner of the site puts on the site a message of anyone who recognises they're a photo which was taken by them and has been copied to alert the webmaster straight away and they then delete the photo, this happened on a garden site where their animated picture of a cottage garden had been used elsewhere. I do understand though your concern for publishing as yes they can be quite strict on this being published elsewhere even forums. As you know Keith yourself on Psilos photos of birds which I showed you, she too has had a lot of hers published from that site, so has others on there too, seems it doesn't affect them .

I agree entirely with the above as regards not allowing access to all and sundry, and denying the ability for images to be downloaded or copied in any form

The latter is impossible. Anything which can be displayed on a website can also be copied.

As a professional photographer I have to say that it's forever been an issue regarding what to display on a web site, and if it is shown, how to restrict any further use. How you display it will generally be governed by who you expect to view it, and the purpose of it being displayed. And I have to say, it's impossible to do any of the things you request (other than only allowing members to have viewing access). If an image is displayed on the internet, then it can be copied. Just by viewing it, your computer has already downloaded a copy of the image from the internet server to its own hard-drive. If you know where to look it's right there in your "Temporary Internet Files" folder, and can be copied from there quite easily. The only way you have a chance to restrict an images use is to... a) reduce its resolution to such an extent that any use is heavily restricted simply by its physical size. b) cover it with your (c)Copyright text. This is often done in the photographic world in varying degrees, either a simple (c) in a lower corner, or some put a huge semi-transparent symbol in the centre of an image - or what I do it place several (c)Copyright tags at an angle to the subject down the center of an image - this allows the image to be viewed but makes its re-use not impossible but certainly not worth the effort. But of course, if you do this, it reduces the enjoyment of an image considerably. Its up to you to decide which, if any, you want to use. Copyright will always remain with the person that pressed the shutter (unless this person explicitly signs that copyright over to another third party. If you supply images to a third party - if I took them for a client for instance - I would simply provide them with a "licence to publish" - not the copyright. If someone wanted the "copyright" I would either charge them an appropriate sum of money or not provide them with the image. When you say they (AP) are not happy if an image has been "shown" before, I think you may find that it only concerns them whether or not an image has been "published" before - i.e. used commercially in some way (irrespective of whether a fee was involved) or, whether an image has been submitted for consideration to another publication. However, if placing images on the internet causes anyone any issues, the only suggestion I can make, and their only option is - don't put them on the internet. Sorry, but there aren't too many options other than that.

Late night tonight... or is it early morning? Anyway, Tony has said above pretty much everything I can think of that covers the copying of images online, and I certainly bow to his experience as a 'proper' photographer! If anyone doubts how easy it is to copy what looks like a "protected" image on a webpage, then try this.... 1. Browse to any webpage with an image on it. 2. Press the "Print Scrn" key at the back of your keyboard. 3. Now open up a new document in something like Microsoft Word. 4. Press the [Ctrl] and [V] keys together (paste). The screen that you've just been viewing is now in your document! Any amount of protection by a webmaster cannot get around that I'm afraid. However.... and this is where the story really starts.... I've now added an extra function to the gallery, so anyone can select their public viewing option as 'Y' or 'N'. If set to No, then your own galleries will only become visible to forum members who are signed in. I hope this is useful. Night night!

The biggest threat to online image theft (I don't use that term lightly!) is the massive increase in the use of Social Networking sites, where people will think nothing of either copying any image they find online and using it on their own pages - or they will simply insert a "link" to an image that they have found on someone elses site so that the image is displayed as though it were their own on their page. This seems to be something that many of us have to live with unfortunately. However, a webmaster can certainly help with the latter option by disabling the ability of an external web site to be able to "link" to any image on their own site. Not sure whether Rob can do this - but if the consensus of this idea is favourable then maybe he can also have a look at that. As to someone "acquiring" an image to print, then this isn't such a threat as Rob has already thoughtfully put in place automatic resizing of images to a max of 700 pixels on the long side. This certainly limits anyones ability to print anything larger than maybe a 4 1/2 inches long photo (at a minimum of 150ppi - increase the ppi and the useable print size comes down even further) - which wouldn't be a lot of use to most people. Again though, if thats an issue then consider not placing the image online. Rob's post last night is a great idea, really giving members the opportunity to completely decide who they want to view their pics - brilliant idea Rob! Sorry, you've got me started and I could ramble on for hours (what do you mean I have already! ) If anyone would like to discuss anything regarding images further, please ask

Yes, it's a sad fact that to the modern generation the internet is so ubiquitous that most youngsters just assume anything online is free to copy. They don't appear to have any sense of privacy or ownership. I'd almost forgotten that I could do that!!! To that effect, please try this little webpage I've just knocked up to demonstrate what Tony has helpfully suggested above.... http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robert.orland/page2.html As you will notice, the first image shows OK, because it's from my own site and I've removed the general restrictions on Historic Coventry images - I just have specific "naughty" sites blocked. The second and third images, however, are ones I've picked at random that forum members have put onto the forum and gallery. If you right-click them and select "Properties" you'll see where they're from. These "warning" messages will appear in place of any forum or gallery image that any external site attempts to link to. (I've made one exception - Cliff's "coventryinphotographs" website will not incur such a penalty!) By the way, if any other member has a website on which they'd like to link to their own forum images, please let me know so I can except their site. Thanks again for the heads up Tony. I'm now going to expand that "privacy" idea so gallery owners can select individual categories or specific images for public / private viewing.

Blimey, I started something here!! Rob's idea could perhaps be even simpler. How about the gallery split into two areas, one that only "signed up" [private] and "signed in" members can access, and one that anyone [public] can access? The resolution in the members only part could stay with the 700 pixels, the other could be made smaller, say half that, for instance? I think this illustrates the issues we face, though: last September I took some photographs at a re-enactment that included demonstrations of musket firing. My camera takes fast multiple shots, so I could easily capture all the firing sequences. One of the re-enactors asked to have a look, and then said really great, and would I send some pics to their website. OK, no problem. I sent what was asked for, one frame, in which I had embedded a copyright statement. The site owner said thanks could he have some more. So I sent some more, copyright statements included, and asked if he was happy with them. Not another word, and they have never appeared on that website! Enough said, methinks? I looked at their website and saw that there are hundreds of shots on it, and they have "acknowledgements" to the photographers, but that is all. It's made me very nervous of posting anything anywhere that matters. {And Tony, I take AP's words literally; if you want to send them any galleries of your work, it's quite a lot of effort to comply with what they want, and I would be pretty annoyed to waste all the time involved if they rejected what was sent on such a technicality. (I'm sure you know, all the tech data, contact sheet, text, your own editing, etc)}

Rob: Just tried your little "test" and I must say I am very impressed. Normally one would simply get a tiny question mark, or a standard "image not available" - I've never seen it done that well before!!! (give yourself a pat on the back) Keith: Do you mean that this web-site was actually displaying the pics that YOU sent them - but without your permission?

Hi Tony. No - they didn't put them on their website, I thought maybe because they didn't like me putting my copyright statement on each one, embedded in the photo, in one corner. None of the others on their site had any form of copyright statement. One member sells photos from their website, but I haven't found any copyright statement! - LINK. The only copyright statement is apparently for the website's home page, which you can see if you have a look. I'll delete this post after you've had a look, if you let me know.

Hi Keith, these people obviously don't have issue with someone stealing their images! Looking more closely at a couple of the images, they haven't even left any embedded camera or copyright information inside the images Exif data! I would guess that, as you say, they didn't use yours because you had put a copyright tag on them. They could of course have simply re-cropped the images to remove your tag (I've seen that done before, more than once!!) but it could leave them open to further action. Whatever you do, don't remove your tag, it's your work, hang on to it!

Hello. I, the least of any of you here regards IT technology, realise that a picture can say a thousound words. We are so used to images in society, so much so that MacDonalds would not sell a hamburger if a an illuminated picture of the 'bun' was not on display. What I am more concerned about is abuse of the picture site by copyright infringements, or inappropriate (filthy) content. We as members I believe owe it to support Rob' in this picture venture to ensure that this site will remain inviting to all of our members so as to enjoy sharing their memories & associations with our city. Let's make it work.

Totally agree with you Philip. I think Rob has at least had the foresight to build in a pre-requisite period of membership and a minimum of 5 posts. That doesn't exclude someone from breaching someone's copyright, but its a good initial barrier to prevent someone joining just to make trouble!