You will all be aware that I use instagram and facebook amongst others as sharing platforms. Over the last few months all free to use services have slowly changed their terms of use. Whilst I'm ok with them using an image for advertising I'm not so happy with them selling an image to a third party. As it turns out this was the result of a badly written paragraph in the tos, but it could happen so I'm future proofing somewhat.
After considering my position on how best to move forward I've decided to mark my images.
Watermarking photos is something I've avoided, because I prefer the honour system of life, and except that although some people will rip you off, most are genuine and can be trusted.
I find myself adding them in an attempt to protect my work from misuse by individuals re-posting the work without any credit to myself, which I'd say is at least as bad (if not worse) as the free sites changing the terms so they can sell an image to a third party.
I hope that this wont detract too much from the enjoyment of looking at my artwork, but I'm getting really fed up with seeing my images on different sites without getting any credit for the hours of effort I put into my tattoos, drawings etc.
Whilst thinking about all the discussion/hype around the issue on instagram's new terms of service it dawned on me that I and others have become lazy and far too relient on free services for promoting our work. I suspect alongside the ease of use the allure of hits, likes and positive comments help fuel the ego and the whole thing becomes slightly addictive.
Although it's a pleasurable experience I've found that updating several social networks eats into my time and the subsequent follow up further adds to the time 'needed'. All this means less focus on projects that could be done quicker, or having actual free time for sitting around thinking or writing for this blog.
In the short term I'm going to carry on posting on Instagram, Facebook etc. However over time I would love this blog/website to be the only source for my images online. Weather that will become the case largely depends on feedback from customers and how the other sites intend on using the images I post on their services.
On to the last seven days work. Only a couple are watermarked this time and I'd be interested in hearing any feedback about the watermarks.
Cheers and Happy Christmas to those of you that celebrate it.
