You’ve created an invention that the public loves. They buy your work and you are moderately successful. Your success grows every year. You can hold your head high in public. You’ve bettered the world and are respected and admired for it.
Now imagine that envious competitors begin to eye you. Except that they really aren’t competitors. They already have jobs and careers. What they’re really after is the fame and recognition you’ve rightfully gained as a result of your successful inventions. They move in on your work. Out of naivety or misplaced feelings of generosity, you have failed to adequately protect your intellectual property/designs. These competitors copy your work, in fact going out of their way to create exact duplicates. Subsidized by their comfortable day jobs, they sell copies of your work at or nearly at a loss. The only goal here is often recognition & celebrity. Money isn’t always important, especially at first. You are unable to effectively compete with your new foes. While their work is invariably of lower quality than your originals, the huge price difference convinces the public to purchase the fakes. You keep producing new inventions to stay a step ahead of the frauds, and they keep copying you and undermining your business. They even go as far as to say they are inspired by you, and they copy your bio and the honest words you used to describe your passion for your work. Sound implausible?
Happens every in the photography industry.
Losers who have comfortable jobs think they can now be “artists”, with the difficulty of working with film largely removed from the photography world, except in the realm of the true photographers. They swarm Best Buy and buy fancy Digital SLRs. They buy workshops from frauds like Marc Adamus, Ryan Dyar, Aaron Reed, Kevin Mcneal, Floris van Breugel, Steve Sieren, Adrian Klein, and others. This doesn’t give them artistic vision, of course. Artistic vision can’t be created with a fake workshop.
These bozos/frauds fill their “portfolio” with copies of the images of Art Wolfe, David Muench, Ansel Adams. They say they are “inspired” by the photographers they have stolen from. They constantly say their first “inspiration” to start stealing came from reading books such as Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light or Art Wolfe’s Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky. Most have never even read these books.
They create boastful, arrogant websites filled with self-praising & statements rhetoric about themselves. They set up fake, utterly meaningless groups such as Timecatcher, Mountain Trail Photo, and Photo Cascadia, because they are ineligible for real professional organizations such as Canon or Nikon Professional Services. They, incredibly, describe themselves as “the best of the best” or “some of the finest photographers in [whatever region they live in, usually west coast or Pacific NW]”. These statements are utterly preposterous and fraudulent.
They start offering workshops. This is a given, always. A fraud who tries going “full-time pro” can never make an honest living from selling prints and licensing images. These workshops are sold to additional bozos, increasing the ranks of frauds and imposters in the photography world. Meanwhile, real photographers close honest businesses and practices, unable to compete with Istockphoto losers and scum selling 20x30 prints of stolen compositions for 100 bucks.
-Do not buy images or prints from amateurs or frauds like Marc Adamus.
-Do not egg these losers on by commenting on their online portfolios.
-When you see copyright violation, call it out. Don’t be silent. These thieves operate without compunction because they are never chastised, and in fact, are often celebrated for their theft. If you saw someone stealing a car, you’d call the police. Give artistic professionals the same consideration.
-Consider your own financial implications. A stolen composition is worthless the moment you pay for it and receive it. A genuine print from a real photographer holds its value. A fraud’s copy of a composition ends up in the discount bin at Goodwill.
-Do not purchase workshops of any kind. If you are considering a photography workshop or photo tour, you do not have what it takes to be a professional and can only bring harm to the industry. If you are really just in it for fun, consider an enthusiast camera such as the Canon G12. It will give you all the creative abilities you need, and more. If you need something to shoot your kids, consider an affordable DSLR.
-If you see scenes such as the following, call it out. Call them LOSERS. They are! Ask them why they are stealing. Ask them to explain how they feel copyright law allows what they’re doing. They will not have an answer. They are cowards and intellectual midgets who will continue this terrorism until the public calls for it to end. Be brave. Speak out:
Can you please name the 4 people in this photo?
ReplyDeleteEasy! Poser 1, poser 2, poser 3...ohhh and poser4!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it looks like they took down the photo on Flickr, where they had proudly named every one of these losers. We do know that the bozo in the shorts is Miles Morgan, and apparently Ryan Dyar had been here earlier.
ReplyDelete