Then educate your "friends" to the fact that they are indeed stealing someone else's intellectual property and taking away their livelihood.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

Devils advocate:

I do not think it is technically illegal to take a screen shot and post that. Now if they were to remove the copyright tag and post it as their own, I believe that is illegal....

(We are not speaking morally or ethically here - rather technically)

I am still surprised that races aren't including the photography with the price of the race. It just feels like a total lost opportunity for the race directors/promotors.

It is clear people want the photos (enough to steal them) in order to put them on social media. So why not give the people what they want? By paying the photographer upfront the RD can then stick their branding on all those photos and make sure they get the exposure. You can also get away with obnoxiously large and in your face branding on the photos as it helps people validate how hard core they feel. I have been told by more than one RD that for they believe they get a far better return for the money on the photos than finishing medals, T-shirts etc. Its also true that most people at satisfied with average quality pictures so you don't need to hire a team of top quality photographers.

I know that not providing t-shirts, medals, paper weights... has proven an very sticky issue in the past so it may not be an easy either or. However I would seriously encourage any RD to include photos with the race (even if the extra cost has to be covered by increasing the entrance fee) as part of the wider scale promotion efforts.

still technically illegal.

I concur! If you can afford the registration, you can at least pay for that one picture.

For the first few tri’s I competed in years ago I did this (and feel shitty for it). I realized i was just being a dick and stealing from the someone , local races photographers or WTC’s finisher pixs... If one has the cash to shell out for a race and wants to splash the pictures around then pay up.... I do now, it’s just the right thing to do.

My personal favorite is someone I used to follow on the instgram who bought a P5-X and used the copyrighted finisher images...wow....

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Taylor Rogers

2024: IM Hamburg

Now may I ask how? I am actually curious. There is no monetary gain from the person posting and he did not claim it as his own. It is also on the internet for all to see. Albeit there is a loss of potential money for the holder of said copyright. Shed some light?


also note: I would never pay a photog of a race day photo - why pay for a pic of yourself sweating and suffering? I could just look at myself in the mirror taking a dump

Yeah no worries.

AT VERY HIGH LEVEL, the creator of the work (camera man taking the picture) owns the right to the work). Reproducing or displaying (the facebook reposting would qualify) would likely constitute infringement. 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). The owner of the work has said it is ok for him to display it on his website for other to see. This is different from the owner of the work granting you access to post wherever YOU want to see.

Now would a cameraman take someone to court over this, probably not. He wont be able to recover much, the court fees would be higher than recover, he is suing his potential customers, the race director probably doesnt want to put up with this, etc. BUT still technically illegal.

Now if works are over 100 years old (rough estimate), you are good to reproduce as you see fit. This is why any old book publisher can sell copies of the famous books. So if you save the pictures for 100 years, you can reproduce them then "technically" legally.

I don't think it's stealing to screen shot that super-low-res 'nintendo-64 resolution' finisher pic with their waterstamp across it. They want to give you access to preview that, it feels fine to screenshot it. I didn't make them go out there and take my photo.

If I didn't ask them to take my pic, and the low-res photos are out in public, I should be able to screengrab it if they intentionally put it up there in public.

Similarly, if they intentionally put the entire hi-res version of it up in public on a public link, watermark or not, I also believe I have the right to screengrab it, as the entire world can do the same.

Now it's stealing if I hack into their computers and take the hi-res photos that they are charging money for. I would also not download them if they inadvertently left the images public-accessible for a short time but clearly didn't mean to, that would also be not cool.

I also think the photog would have grounds to sue if I was some high-profile for-profit blogger that makes money of my FB posts, and I used that low-res image an a post of mine. Then I'm profiting off their work, and that seems like grounds of infringement. But that's a different issue than Mr. Joe AGer posting on his FB to his friends about the local triathlon.

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.

You sweat and suffer whilst dumping?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I'm not an attorney, but I seriously question if this 'copyright ownership' could even be realistically contested in court for what we're talking about, which is a non-pro AGer screen grabbing the picture and posting it on their facebook or social media where they aren't earning any money off it.

I get the point about the copyright issue of created works, but to me, this seems like the fair play use even of copyrighted works.

So the model of the photograph is "working" for free?

I am still surprised that races aren't including the photography with the price of the race. It just feels like a total lost opportunity for the race directors/promotors.


Yes this is the new business model for this - the pictures are "free" to the competitors either paid for by the race itself (as a value added service) or, by a sponsor, and then the sponsors logo will appear on the digital image.

The out-right buying of pictures now is really only happening at those truly marquee, or ounce-in-a-lifetime races/events - Boston Marathon, Ironman World Championships etc . .

To the OP, yes I do see people posting up picture via their social streams with the copy-write watermark on the picture, that just screams, "I'm cheap" to me! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

100% agreed there could be arguments for fair use. Not sure if a court would agree. I also assume that in my terms of service for signing up for a race, I agree that I can be photographed (so that argument would go out the window, if so).

Most of the times for fair use you look at a couple different factors, 1) purpose of use (for athlete, not for profit), 2) nature of use (the work is for sale, if you post to your parents social media so other can buy then different story, favor of cameraman), 3) amount of use (entire work, favor the cameraman), 4) effect of value (for cameraman, you dont buy picture because you are screen grabbing).

https://www.runnersworld.com/fun/photo-sharing-what-the-law-says


Hey look someone posted on this before! (from the article)


Fair use is the "loophole" of copyright law. The reader quotes the law mostly correctly, but I would have to respectfully disagree with their analysis of this situation. The factor they are quoting is whether or not the use of the work (potential infringement) deprives the owner of income. I think in this situation it clearly does. If someone chooses to copy and paste the low-res proof photo because they don't want to pay the large sticker price for the high-res photo, I think there is no question that they are depriving income to the author. What I think is interesting for you is that I would argue that the photo you posted at the top of your blog would actually probably qualify as fair use and you would not have had to purchase it. If you use a portion of a work for criticism or to illustrate a comment, then you are permitted to do so without permission from the author. However, you did use the entire work, which is another factor in determining fair use. I think you are beginning to see that it's all gray!

Yup, as soon as they click "I agree" on registration.

Well I am a lawyer and I can tell you, categorically, that it is copyright infringement to do this. Slam dunk 100%. It's both a legal and a moral wrong.

Just because it's not tangible (i.e. something that can be grabbed) doesn't mean it's not theft. It's still theft. The photographer has taken time, effort and spent money (lots of it, travelling and on very expensive equipment) taking those photographs with a view to making money out of them. It is their property. No less than if I owned land, spent time and money growing vegetables on it with a view to selling them. If they're crap vegetables they either don't sell, or I get a low price for them. If the photos are rubbish then they don't sell, or I don't get the money I want for them.

And they way a court would look at this is that if a person goes to the effort of using the photo on Facebook, for example, they clearly liked it enough that they saw some value in the photograph. The fact that that person may not want to pay the full price being asked is irrelevant. I don't want to pay the full price for an Aston Martin, doesn't mean I can just take it and then argue that I don't think it's worth what Aston Martin are asking for it. The photographer has lost the "fee" they would have received had the person paid for it normally. That is what the court would say.

So it is copyright infringement and is a really sh**ty thing to do.

Now, I will preface this with the fact that I am a lawyer in the UK, not the US. However, the law of copyright is as laid out in the Berne Convention so is largely the same the world over (well, those countries that are party to the Berne Convention). The difference, as I see it, is that the fair use exemption is there where you are criticising the work itself, not to raise a criticism in general. So it may be an argument in fair use to say the photo is poor because it is over exposed and out of focus and uses the wrong shutter speed, but putting a photo as a Facebook profile pic is clearly not doing this. I don't see that for a banner in a blog either, you are not criticising the work itself, or using it to illustrate a point. I don't see that you could use it as a means of criticising the race, for example. The only time, maybe, this wouldn't be the case is if the photo showed something that was worthy of criticism (i.e. look at the state of the roads, the organiser was out of their mind using these roads). Even then, I would suggest only using the part of the photo that shows the state of the roads, and not the whole photo.

Thanks for this. As a photographer I'm amazed at how many feel they can just use it as they see fit. You'd be shocked at how many pros and companies have tried to use my images for no fee. Funny that when I ask, they don't want to do anything for me for no compensation. One way street....

My pleasure. It's something that really bothers me. We suffer from a similar thing as lawyers (I can hear the violins from here). Because I don't sell anything tangible people think it doesn't cost anything to do what I do. It costs LOTS of money and I will not give away knowledge, skill and expertise that have taken me years to develop and tens of thousands of £s/$s in my own money, for free (I am very aware of the irony of this statement having just done this).

As I see it, the "tester" photo that is published is like me giving some initial outline advice. Do you like the look of the photo enough to go ahead and buy/do you like me/my advice enough to pay me to give you the full advice?

If people don't like my fees that's fine, there are two choices: 1. Don't use my services; or 2. Ask me to reduce them.

Same with photographs. If people don't like the cost either: 1. Lump it and don't use the photo; or 2. Email the photographer and see if a deal can be struck. You never know...

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.

As has been pointed out above (just saying it again,..,...since clearly people continue to think otherwise... a la fake news), regardless of what you think, the law provides differently. It is copyright infringement, slam dunk guaranteed, Copyright attaches at the moment of creation. and using it - whether as a screenshot or with the copyright watermark included or deleted - without permission is per se infringement.

Whether there are any damages associated can be argued, but the basic law cannot be argued.

If you disagree because you "don't think" it should be that way, contact your local representative and try to the the U.S.C. changed *uhhhh, pink. sorta....*

Runner's World did a few stories on this [back when sharing PROOF photos was a bigger deal than Kip Litton/Mike Rossi, or bib swapping]

https://www.runnersworld.com/...ring-proof-photos-ok

https://www.runnersworld.com/...ing-what-ive-learned

https://www.runnersworld.com/...ng-what-the-law-says

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

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.