"Copyright exists once you have an original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium," says Ruth Carter, an internet lawyer who is an authority on online copyright law involving blog posts, image usage and trademarks as well Social media like Instagram and Facebook.

I had a busy week dealing with an image of High Water in Venice that was circulating on the internet with about 100,000 likes in total.

Ryan Vacca a professor and a member of the school’s Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property said that the goal of copyright law is to protect original creative expression and that images easily fall under this protection.

"For most pieces of creative work, it easily satisfies the minimally creative standard in – assuming they didn't rip it off from somebody else – the original creator is going to have some copyright protection in that image," he said.

If you download an image and post it, whether it be on your site, in a blog post, or on social media, you're likely committing copyright infringement. Copying any images or user-generated content without the creator's permission can constitute infringement, even if you link back to their website or original post.

1) I was tipped by one of my followers that one of my images was circulating on Social Media not with my name but a different one

2) I did several searches and posted for info on my channels and found more than 55 infringements.

3) I discovered it originated from a lady that saw the photograph on a UK newspaper, downloaded it, cropped, applied several filters and posted with her name. On her post she was already challenged by one of my followers asking if she was the photographer, she openly said no. She replied to my message straight away, and she apologised, told me she wanted to do something for Venice. I checked her profile, and she has no connection with photography, she had no photographs that could have been stolen. I decided to believe her and let her off the hook.

4) I wrote to all the perpetrators, with a formal Take Down Notice, giving them 4 hours to correct the situation and informing that an invoice was on its way.

5) Few owner or management of sites and channels contacted me promptly. With all of them I agreed to amend the original post, or rewrite it with the correct credits, These channels had in between 5000 to 35000 likes, and I demanded and obtained to do five posts during the year promoting some of my Venice activities. They all agreed. I did not charge any fee,

6) With some of the perpetrators, I decided for a reduced fee in exchange for a quick and prompt payment. I sent a total of 6 invoices, including two Italian celebrities that had used my image. I charged between 350 Euro and 1500 for a total of 3400 Euro. I gave them five days to send the payment before legal action and I have already received two payments.

7) I had no reply from one of them so I decided to file a Copyright complaint form on Instagram. It was easy and fast. After a few hours, I got a reply back, and as requested they removed my image.

If you are writing an email an idea of text can be

Your invoice should amount to your usual fees for such usage, plus a margin for ‘damages’. The latter is optional though, and remember that the more you charge, the less likely it is you’ll get the matter settled quickly. You can realistically add a margin of anything up to 50%. If you don’t know what the standard usage fee should be, head over to Alamy.com and search for any Rights Managed image. Click the calculator, and plug in the details of the use in question – you’ll then be given an industry standard price you can quote.

I tend to ask for the lowest fee and offer a 50% discount if paid promptly!

When all started, I knew that the nearly 50 cases I found were only the tip of the iceberg I did not want to waste my time or get too upset, I decided to see it as a commercial opportunity, so decided not to go after the private individuals, small groups etc but only celebs or companies. I opted for a robust approach and very fast action. I worked on hit 16h non stop.

For two days, I concentrated on this problem but overall, a positive experience that generated some extra cash!

NOTE The above image was taken from a website of a UK newspaper, and not from my site,. I am very careful on how I present and show my images

What to do to protect your images 5 STEPS I suggest

1 Add watermarks to your photos

This is the most obvious way to deter casual image theft. Adding a small section of text, or a logo, to the corner of a photo is a great way to stamp ownership onto your photos.

2. Never share a high-resolution file

Hopefully, you are already aware of this, but uploading high-resolution files online to display is a very bad idea. Should someone get hold of the high-resolution file, they can pretty much do what they want with it. It also makes it harder to prove you’re the original photographer, as they have the same file that you’d be using to prove you took the photo.

3. Compress photos you upload

Following on from the previous step, make sure that you compress photos you upload. Aside from the actual dimensions of the image, you can reduce the quality of the photo.

In Photoshop, head to the “File > Export” menu. You can select “Save for Web…” and comfortably export a photo at 60% JPEG quality. This still looks really good, and you can see in the preview that there’s not much difference between that and 90%. It creates smaller, more compressed files that further reduce what someone could do with your image should they get hold of it..

4. Add your copyright to the metadata

You can actually embed your copyright information straight into a JPEG file. You do this by modifying the metadata (some details and/or instructions that can be extracted from a file) using a photo-editing program.

You can do this in Photoshop by navigating to “File > File Info…” and adjusting it there.

5) Use Smartframe Technology

I use Smartframe technology and services to protect and share images. SmartFrame is the ultimate platform for optimizing, securing and presenting your online images, with enhanced tracking and monetization tools. Check here https://smartframe.io/