while in the traditional art scene, copying and faking art is a norm. sales of fake artworks from master artists to simple housewives works go up to ten of millions each year. these significantly increased when artworks started to be published in the internet as electronic data is making the art fraud and theft market much simpler.
personally, i’m used to downloading great images by local and international photographers from the internet. i use these to teach myself and as basis for my photography. but lately, i found out that a lot of photos are being stolen or used by people other than the photographer. a bad case happened wherein the original photographer was the one sued by another using his own photo! research led me to conclude the following:
- exif data can easily be changed or manipulated
- electronic watermarks can be deleted or changed
- photos as low res as 300 x 300 pixels can still be printed in books or magazines, small posters, cards and small prints.
- photos 500 x 500 pixels and larger can be interpolated and sold as original photos or used as personal folios by new or unscrupulous photographers
if you have experiences or ideas regarding this matter, please post here. this topic is very interesting.
thanks