Protect your digital rights before the economy comes back

Photography News that's Fit to Blog (This Week)
by Kerry Raminiak


Is the economy really getting better?
According to PMA’s Monthly Printing Camera Trends Report, “camera sales [are] inching back upward,” but what we are finding a bit more interesting in the article are the printing statistics. According to their research, online ordering is the fastest growing method of printing growing “at a rate of 19 percent in February of 2009, compared to a rate of 51 percent in 2008.” All methods of printing are seeing figures of modest growth but no where near that of last year’s percentages. Read the full article here.


We never want to have to say we told you so…
The Professional Photographers of America have published advice on educating yourself and your clients on copyright infringement of your photography. They give pretty good tips as primers such as getting in touch with local retailers about your policies as well as educating your clients after obtaining an understanding of their intentions. At the end they mention that PPA members can call their Copyright Defense Department for support and advice and have also linked to a previous article about defending your work when found online. We agree this is a VERY important topic –- especially considering the recent craziness with Facebook –- which is why we initiated a discussion about selling digital rights last year. Read the full article here (but you’ll have to register which is free).


Free service gives you 2GB account to store your digital files and manage via mobile phone
SugarSync has just announced a free version of their service that will allow you 2GB storage that can be accessed from two computers (or cell phones with free apps for BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Windows). Their pay per versions expound upon options and functions dramatically but free is free and 2GB (if not dealing solely in RAW) is as much as the flash drive I cannot leave home without. But all this begs two questions in my opinion? For one, how comfortable are we just sending all our files to some random website despite their assurances? And, for another, is a “free” introductory product line the only way companies can introduce you to their latest and greatest work –- is the equivalent of a free sample mandatory these days? If you have an opinion on either question, post a comment. I want to know your thoughts on the matter, for sure. Read about the announcement from SugarSync themselves, here.


Hey, that’s our idea! Panasonic giving away 30 HD cameras in 30 days
To announce their “social networking site designed to demystify high-definition technology,” www.LivingInHD.com will give away one HD product each day for 30 days (through the month of May) including two LUMIX digital cameras with HD video recording and the HDC-TM20 HD camcorder with 16GB internal memory. We will never admit that we came up with the idea (except in our attempt to create attention-grabbing headlines) but we are celebrating our new website for DARKROOM with social networking contests as well. Click here to read about ExpressDigital’s DARKROOM contest.


Our favorite Twitter find of the week: The Windy Pixel
Beautiful work from Mike Boehmer are posted on his picture blog. Although I am biased about Chicago (the windy city holds a special place in my heart), I believe anyone can find the awe in his most recent post taken from Lake Street Bridge. Who says Twitter will suck inspiration out of you? Quite the contrary today.