I sympathize with the photogs doing their work, but sorry, I still can't go so far as to say people are stealing by grabbing those low-res screenshots.

To make an extreme example, I could self-setup as a pro photog, take hi-res photos of everyone out there, put out they hi-res pictures FOR FREE on my website but still have the disclaimers that people need to pay for these if they are using them for blogs, screengrabs, etc. Legally, that would be within my rights, but practically it's totally unrealistic. I similarly think it's totally unrealistic and even unfair for photogs to call race participants 'stealers' when they choose to screenshot their public personal pictures of their races - that's just NORMAL behavior, and I would expect everyone to do it.

The critique of my self-setup hi-res pro photog freepic setup is rightfully, 'well if you're not making any money of that business model, you need to find a new business model!" The answer is NOT to demonize the normal (and perfectly ethical) racers who are just doing normal behavior which includes the occasional screengrab for a social media photo op - I feel that even though legally I'd be in the right for saying 'everyone's stealing from me!", I'd be ethically wrong as a photog to start saying "everyone of you folks are good for nothing greedy stealers!" - I brought that upon myself, no different as if I laid out a $100 bill on the sidewalk with a sign next to it "please don't take me." Good luck with that.

If you photogs are so unhappy with the revenue stream via this low-res photo teaser model, then go find a new payment model. One of the small local races I did had a great one - the hi-res photos were included in your race fee - I'm sure they paid the photog up front.

Yes, but there are lot of things that are clearly ILLEGAL, but totally not prosecuted in the VAST majority of circumstances (seatbelts, no cell phone talking without handset while driving, staying under the posted speed limit, jaywalking, etc.)

Sure, you can be that nutty lawyer that actually does go and sue every case of those petty cases they can find, but the hard reality is that these types of infringements are NOT prosecuted, and in most situations that's pretty telling regarding the public opinion and ethics of such behavior in that they're tacitly allowed.

Note that I don't think such tacit approval of illegal behavior is necessarily good - a fine example of such tacit allowance but with horrible outcome is cases of drivers who hit cyclists but are pretty much never imprisoned let alone penalized, even in utterly egregious cases. It's just the unfortunate reality that the bulk of public opinion with juries will side with the driver rather than the cyclist, even if the driver has illegally hit the cyclist by crossing the line.

You sweat and suffer whilst dumping?

People that do this, are the same people with handicap parking spot placards....who don't need them. The karma train is on an express route with these people.

Someone needs to come up with a witty name for these people...so it spreads across the tri community and these people are forever know as "insert witty, shaming name here"

Derivative works (taking off the watermark, or just changing to product to look different) would constitute infringement if the modifications are just slightly different (there are rules that parody is ok).

Someone needs to come up with a witty name for these people...so it spreads across the tri community and these people are forever know as "insert witty, shaming name here"

LOL you gotta be kidding me. Not even comparable in even with the worst of the patent troll lawyers at your side!

You all may not be aware that Finisherpix now offers a free service whereby you connect their app to your Facebook account, tell them the race you're doing and your bib number, and then they automatically post a swim, bike and run picture (as well as a link to buy all of the pictures). You don't get to choose which photos they select, so be aware that it could be one of you walking. Not that that's happened to me... :-)

So some watermarked photos are legit, at least from Finisherpix.

Ian

LOL, so educating the misinformed makes one a troll. Got it. It is the era of fake news and "i believe what i believe damn the truth" after all.

This seems to me to be just another example of the entitlement problem in today's society. People feel entitled to do what they want because it makes them feel good, and get butthurt when called out.

And point of order, Patent lawyers (who have a separate bar) prosecute patent claims, not copyrights. Different beast altogether.

Not condoning the action nor debating the legality of using the pictures. But $30 for one digital image? GMAFB. Lower the price, make up for it in volume, and people will be way less inclined to steal.

This seems to me to be just another example of the entitlement problem in today's society. People feel entitled to do what they want because it makes them feel good, and get butthurt when called out.

Yeah, I got piled on elsewhere today when I called out that [confessed] bib-swapper

Ask Virginia Plain; it was not pretty [I got called a sexist for saying "girls" and "ponytails"]

I propose that watermarked pix posted on social media be called "Proofies"

"Did you see the Proofies so & so posted from the Such & Such Marathon?"

Carry on

Still illegal at least from a quick google search. The fact that you are using the image, can be inferred that you want the image but aren’t willing to pay therefore depriving the person who took the image the income that the image would have produced.

This who situation would be allieviated if 1- like some have suggested it’s included in registration fees or 2- the photographers stop charging 30 dollars a photo for a crappy picture that my wife could take a better one of using her iPhone.

If your effort is at the level of Nick (tririg) sure your pictures are worth some money. If you don’t even know how to set a camera shutter speed so that the bike wheels aren’t blurry your pictures aren’t worth that much. So people do what the OP said and just use the water marked ones.

It’s still stealing however.

If you photogs are so unhappy with the revenue stream via this low-res photo teaser model, then go find a new payment model. One of the small local races I did had a great one - the hi-res photos were included in your race fee - I'm sure they paid the photog up front.

What you keep repeating here over and over is both wrong and illegal. You seem to understand that but still think it is ok. I really don't get that. I assume you justify drafting, floaty shorts under your swimskin, banditing races, and any sort of petty theft that is not economically feasible to prosecute. Your arguments really make no logical sense . . . "If people steal something too small to pursue we should not call them unethical, we should change the law to make stealing below a certain level legal and therefore ethical." That wouldn't even make sense to my high school daughter and her Ethics Bowl teammates, or her the sophomoric underclasspersons.

If, on the other hand you are advocating that folks are just so inherently bad that we should accept that infringement is the new moral standard, then we are all in a heap of trouble trying to live in a civilized society.

Personally I appreciate the hard work and efforts of race photographers. I don't think it is their business model that is the problem.