9 Ways to Avoid Image Based Abuse
Janaya Jensen • October 23, 2019
Posting your pictures on the internet comes with the associated risk that someone will inevitably take them without your permission, and there’s no telling what they might do once they have a copy of your pictures.
Some people with bad intentions could very well use post processing software like Photoshop to create something truly unsettling and use them for revenge porn. Then there is the fear of deep fake which uses AI to superimpose the picture of the victim over that of another person in a video.
Using a person’s images without their consent is known copyright infringement and the perpetrator can be heavily fined with jail time if the owner decides to seek help using the court of law.
This is of course incredibly time consuming, costs a lot of money, and there is no sure way of guaranteeing success. In many cases, the copycat could get away with a simple slap on the wrist or even worse, steal your picture ‘legally’ under fair use.
We’re not saying it doesn’t work, but the success ratio of the legal system hardly justifies the hard work (and money) you put into it.
A much easier way to protect you from image abuse is to discourage someone from stealing it altogether.
While implementing measures to protect your pictures might sound overly complicated, all you have to do is do your due diligence and use the right tactics.
What Image Abuse Looks Like
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Taking a sexually explicit or nude picture of someone without their permission.
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Sharing a sexually explicit or nude picture of someone without their permission.
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Uploading a sexually explicit or nude picture of someone to another website without their permission.
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Taking a photograph of women’s breasts, cleavage (also known as down blousing) and other areas of their body without their permission.
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Secretly making a video of sexual activity without consent from those concerned.
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Filming sexual assault, sharing it and uploading it.
The safety of your images is only as good as the weakest security link in your overall strategy to safeguard them. At the end of the day, image security is a multilayered process that requires you to implement several methods, which we will discuss in detail below.
But First: Going Through the Terms of Use/Service
It is definitely worth your while to go through the terms of use before clicking on that upload icon. Most people simply gloss over the giant walls of text because it’s either too intimidating to read or they just don’t have the time for it. When you click the ‘accept’ button, you automatically agree to all the legal information contained in there. If you don’t want to read it, at least try to skim through the ‘terms of use’ and ‘agreement’ sections and get a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into.
The agreement portion explains how the sharing service works in plain English. Some services clearly state that by clicking accept, you automatically grant them a royalty-free license that gives them the legal authority to do whatever they want. Other services will declare that all rights still belong to you and they will not use the images without your consent.
This wasn’t the case when sharing sites were still in their infancy. Their terms of use were worded such that it gave them full legal permission to use them as they wanted. A lot of public backlash and voluminous amounts of complaints later, the sharing services changed their terms of use. But even then, it still pays to go through the terms of use in detail to avoid grievances later.
1) Using Copyright to Discourage Creeps and Thieves Alike
The first layer of projection for your photos is to get the law to do all the heavy lifting for you, in other words, using copyright. Put simply, a simple copyright claim near or your picture can be enough to discourage a good number of thieves and creeps.
For them, it is much easier to target a victim who isn’t yet privy to their intention, so when you show you are alert to their motives, they will simply move on to the next person who isn’t.
While some people who are in the habit of downloading random pictures from the internet aren’t aware that what they’re doing is crime, a simple copyright statement will alert them that they are in fact committing an offence.
Here’s how your copyright claim should look:
“©” and its alternatives, recognisable abbreviates along with the year the content was published and additional information that could be used to identify you (this could be your name, website or company logo).
However if you want your copyright claim to stand up in court – which is one of the best means of defense against intentional theft – it is definitely worth your while to register your copyright claim with the government.
This will give you the ability to pursue a lawsuit against someone who steals your picture and even get financially compensated for it.
The compensation might just be enough to cover your licensing fee, miscellaneous fees charged by the lawyer for going to court, and other legally identifiable damages.
Even if you believe it isn’t financially worth it to pursue a lawsuit, you can still ask a good solicitor to draft a cease and desist letter. This could be all you need to convince skittish thieves and creeps to stop dead right in their tracks.
2) Disabling Right Click
If you have your own dedicated blogs for pictures and videos to provide customers or family members with content that showcases your abilities as a professional photographer, then it pays to disable the Right Click option.
Depending on your choice of CMS (WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal), you might have to follow different steps. For WordPress, all you really need is to install a simple plugin that disables the context menu.
Do keep in mind that disabling the right click option only deters less motivated users. All the content thief needs is to disable JavaScript and they will gain access to the content. Yet another easy option is to simply take a snapshot of the picture and save it in .JPEG format.
3) Watermarking
The easiest way to deter the casual image thief or creep is to add a layer of watermark. This could be a small section of text, website logo, or your name. You could choose to cover a longer percentage of the picture with the watermark or a small corner of it so.
Do keep in mind that watermarks could significantly decrease the overall quality of your photos, and while that will make them less desirable for thieves, they could do the same for your brand.
Note: Once again, if someone has the skills and is motivated enough to not allow the watermark to detract them from taking your picture, they will go ahead and steal the picture anyway.
It is not uncommon for image thieves to spend a few minutes of their time (or a few hours depending on how skilled they are) using post-processing software like Photoshop to remove the watermark.
4) Using Low Resolution Pictures
This option is good for professional photographers who only want to show a tutorial of their work to potential clients. A low resolution image is visually worthless, but does give insights into what the final, unfiltered product will look like.
5) Tiling
Tiling is very effective at preventing image thieves from stealing your work. It works because when you break up your pictures into tiny pieces, it is too time consuming for thieves to bother stealing multiple pictures and then assembling it back together.
6) Embedding in CSS
A good idea is to embed your pictures with the CSS code of the website. You can then superimpose a clear picture over the top. This way, if someone tries to save that area of the site, they will only get a blank square.
7) Using Advanced Barcoding
Digimarc is a service that invented the idea of ‘invisible Barcoding’ for pictures. It works by adding a little digital noise to your pictures which creates an identifiable pattern unique for your pictures.
The digital fingerprint allows your pictures to travel through the far reaches of the internet, while still being yours.
Digimarc will crawl the internet in search of the digital fingerprint and alerts you when unauthorised people steal your content without your consent. It also gives you proof of ownership of a photo, which could prove to be useful if you decide to take things to court.
Digimarc currently charges around $119 to protect 2,000 pictures.
8) Including Copyright Details into the Metadata
Another important step to protect your pictures is by embedding your copyright details right into the JPEG file. Any basic photo editing software will allow you to do this by making changes to the metadata. In Photoshop you can browse to “File info” and make adjustments there.
Do keep in mind that some websites like Facebook will clean out the metadata details anyway. If you are uploading the picture to your own blog, do remember to allow the preservation of the met details in the options menu.
9) Best Practices for Social Media
How people view your social media pages is entirely up to you. In the case of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, you can control who sees your content.
If you’re afraid someone will use your pictures without your consent, it is a good idea to make your social media pages completely private, or upload selective pictures which you are not afraid to share with potential creeps online.
10) Using Reverse Image Search to Find Stolen Photos
If you have used Digimarc to protect your images, the service will immediately alert you when if and when someone has stolen your picture. Another alternative is to simply use Google’s “ Search by Image ” function. You can also use Bing for this operation.
The process is fairly simple. Head over to Google images by clicking here
. Next to the normal search bar, you will notice a small camera icon snugly sitting in the corner, next to the microphone icon.
Clicking this button will reveal different options to search by image. You can either paste the image of the URL under the “ Paste image URL ” section or upload a copy from your hard drive under the “ Upload an image ” option.
If the photo has been used elsewhere on the internet, it will appear. If someone has recently uploaded the picture, it will take a few days or weeks for Google to index the new links.
What to Do If Someone Steals Your Picture Anyway?
This can be extremely frustrating, especially when you’ve gone through all the above steps to implement a multilayered system for better image protection. You have two options in this case:
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Contact an online reputation management firm to do the deleting for you. These professionals use advanced methods and software, and pull the right ‘strings’ to get your pictures removed from undesirable areas of the internet.
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Take things into your own hands, make contact with the thief/creep and ask them to remove the content. Depending on what their intentions are, it can be a hair-raising ordeal, or a breeze. Sometimes a light hearted reminder can put some sense into people.
Once you have found the websites violating your copyright, try to fish out the details of the webmaster. A good option is to use whois.com to reveal the names and addresses of the people behind the website.
It is time to draft a letter or email. Remember to keep calm, professional, and most importantly polite. You don’t want to come across as overly aggressive with a strongly worded letter.
Introduce yourself as the owner of the picture and attach any evidence, if possible. Explain to them in clear terms that their actions have infringed your copyright, which is illegal.
This is also applicable in the case of revenge porn, where a person has uploaded sexually explicit pictures belonging to you without your consent.
If you don’t get a response within two weeks, you should prepare to take things one step further by involving professional reputation management firms to remove the picture for you. If you want our help with this please click here
