The other day, a very sweet and well-meaning person made a meme for the Survivor series. It included the covers for Aaron, Spencer, and Painting Fire with an image of Jake Bass kissing another model (obviously a Cockyboys image). My first thought – wow, fan art! That’s so cool! My second thought? Wait… That’s going to get me sued. The image had the covers, my name, and the unlicensed image stripped of its usual red and blue Cockyboys watermark.

In other words, it was a copyright infringement.

Images on the internet belong to someone. Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, and other social media sites take image sharing to a whole new level, but even when a company (like Cockyboys) puts those images on the internet to promote their business and their models, they still own them. You cannot use them without their expressed consent. If you do not get permission from the photographer, or pay for the image from a stock site, you can’t use it. This is especially true for anyone using that image in a way that would generate revenue – blogs, authors, publishers. You are using someone else’s copyrighted work to make money. It would be like someone stripping your name off your cover and using it on a T-shirt. It doesn’t work that way.

For years, I have used porn images in my promotion – ads, covers, etc., the difference is that I have expressed written consent from Cockyboys, Falcon Studios, Raging Stallion Studios, and High Performance Men to use those images. Each and every one of them. You will never see me use an ad or a cover without an agreement with the photographer.

One final note – if do you share images from a photographer, never EVER crop the watermark. Photographers work hard and take hundreds of thousands of images for those few hundred that are perfect. They don’t deserve to have their name taken off their work. If you license an image from a photographer, they will send you a high-resolution image without a watermark. Don’t assume and don’t ever share their proofs.

XOXO,

JP Barnaby