Rights and usage

The free, simple edition of the program, Genus ViewMinder, has no features for managing property rights.

To be able to mark your pictures with copyright and contact information, please upgrade.

Expert ViewMinder allows you to store information about copyright and other limitations on use of individual pictures. This information is included with the rest of the description when you export your pictures.

Another important part of the description is information about you as picture author - name, address, url, phone and preferred language of communications.

You can provide the same information about your distributor if any,  the company that handles sales of your pictures.

Expert ViewMinder allows you to add this information to every picture you export. When another ViewMinder user imports your pictures, he also imports your picture description, including information about copyright, limitations, author and distributor.

It's an ideal way of labeling pictures.

In the same way, when you import pictures from other photographers, Expert ViewMinder stores details about them. It can manage contact information for an unlimited number of authors and distributors.

Expert ViewMinder can also record information about copyright and other limitations on use of individual pictures.

And it can monitor the way you use each picture. This helps you avoid excess repetition and see which pictures are in heaviest demand.

Author information

If you sell or give your pictures to others, you may like to mark them as yours. This is not a system of control - author information can be falsified, removed or ignored - but correct information may be useful to others.

There are two stages to recording your author information. Both stages are handled in Settings (Menu - Edit - Settings or Ctrl+G)

First activate the fields that you want to display. Click the Fields tab. Then click on the node of "Author". Put a check in the checkbox of every field you need. When you're ready, click the Apply button.

Now to fill these fields. Click the Author tab and type in the information. Fields that are not activated will not be accessible.

(If your pictures circulate very widely, giving your e-mail address may generate more mail and spam than you want.)

Expert ViewMinder users

You can edit the profiles of an unlimited number of authors. You can create these yourself or you can just use the growing list that is created every time you import a new author's pictures.

If the list contains the same author twice, it is probably because he or she has changed part of his or her description. The author may have moved and is now at a new address, or is now using a slightly different name - say "Sue Morton" instead of " Susan G. Morton."

Only you know if this is the same person. When part of the author information changes, ViewMinder assumes that it is a different person. It's safer that way.

You can see the difference by selecting each name in Settings - Authors and then clicking Edit".

Distributor information

If some organization or company is responsible for distributing your pictures, you can give information about it, too, in addition to your own author information.

To create distributor information, follow the same steps as for creating author information.

Limits

You may want to tell other people how and when your pictures may be used, or to place reminders about the permitted use of pictures in your own collection.

A picture can be marked with these limits in the Data editor. You can give a picture any number of limits.

Remember: this is not a system of control - limits can be falsified, removed or ignored.

Copyright / public domain

The most common limitation on use is copyright. The law on copyright is complex and changing, but the author of a photograph can decide whether to claim his rights in full.

Even if your copyright extends far into the future, you could decide to make a picture freely available at an earlier date. In the example at right, copyright is claimed for just two years, from 1998-2000, and then the picture is placed in the public domain.

When you choose Copyright or Public Domain limits, the text field is disabled and you cannot add anything apart from dates. The terms copyright and public domain are explicit in themselves.

If you wish to grant limited exemptions to your copyright, such as free use for educational purposes, use an <<Other>> limit to do this. See below.)

ViewMinder is not responsible for picture misuse, malevolent or benign.

Be aware that the limits shown for any picture may have been written, removed or changed by someone who is not entitled to do so. ViewMinder data is not a substitute for a formal agreement between picture author and picture user.

Embargos

When the limit type is set as <<Other>> you can use the text field to describe it.

Even though a picture is subject to copyright, the author can still permit its use subject to certain conditions.

Of course, if you describe the conditions in an unusual language or in an unclear way, they may have little effect.

One common limit type is the embargo. This is useful for photographs distributed together with press releases. In the example at right, the copyright holder is allowing free publication of the picture but not before or after the given dates.

Usage

Expert ViewMinder only

By recording when and how pictures are used, you can avoid using the same picture again and againin the same publication, or sending a picture to someone who has already received it. Or you can make sure that a certain image is used again and again.

Usages can be added to images in the data editor, but it can also be done when you are exporting an image. The Export wizard asks if you want to add "usage" to the exported pictures.

If you answer yes, a  form opens. The default day and time is the present day and time but you can change this if actual use will take place at another date.

This usage information is added to all of the pictures being exported together. If you later discover that one or several of them were not used after all, you can delete their usage information with the data editor.

By adding this line to an advanced search, you can look for pictures that have not been used too much already (fewer than 5 times).