Reply To: Using other photographer's work to promote your business

[fstopper89]

Copyrights and fair use do confuse me a bit as well, because I have never myself thoroughly researched it. But in the most obvious, like others have stated, using any other photographer’s images on your own page, claiming they are part of your body of work (whether stated or not), especially when cropping or removing watermarks and replacing them with your own; using other photographs in any sort of advertising online or in print that you did not take yourself, unless there was a license purchased for their use for an educational manner (think, you’re hosting a posing workshop for models and you purchase licenses for images of other models posing).

I’ve seen fauxtographers post ads on their page for boudoir photo sessions, complete with images taken by other photographers. Hello! You’re directly advertising your photography, so why would you use false advertising? That’s where it’s illegal.

And yeah, all this copyright infringement stuff is just plain unethical. Any self-respecting photographer wouldn’t even dream of doing that. I do have several images of myself posted on my photography portfolio, which were shot by photographer friends. I have the images captioned with who shot them and that I did the editing and have posted them with permission from the photographer, as well as I have the original RAW files in my possession too. (In the case of some of my practice/fun shoots with a few friends, we each copy all the images from the CF cards to do our own editing etc.)