World Book and Copyright Day

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://gloda.net/pb/20080423_uk_cazz/pb.swf” height=”529″ width=”720″ wmode=”transparent”/]
These are some older pictures from a shooting with Cazz Walker in the University of Kent Library. The shooting was aimed at the DPChallenge.com photo contest ‘Books Smarts’ where the first picture posted here got second place. There’s something in this photo that adds further interest to it for me. The half a dozen black volumes in the upper right hand corner are copies of Bennett and Royle’s Introduction to Critical Theory, a work that has simplified and simultaneously complicated my life as student of English and American Literature for some years now.
For the copyrigth part of this UNESCO organized international day, this may be a good point to explain why all of my new images that ever see the internet, and most others, are watermarked. One reason is that some of my pictures have been taken from this website and different photo communities and have re-appeared on sites with a somewhat dubitable reputation. Other instances include publicity managers ‘forgetting’ about the payment part of non-use agreements, or even big organizations like the ‘Lëtzebuerger Guiden an Scouten’ printing a book with one of my photographs on its cover without asking permission or giving credit.
So, yes, the watermarks are a necessary evil. It doesn’t make the images theft-proof, but makes stealing them more difficult. [Rant over.]