Two Part Question

[a01020304]

Question 1:

If someone lives opposite a building that's being redeveloped and takes regular images from their window of the site, is this illegal?
Basically you would be taking photographs of what you can see with your naked eye, so no illegal entry to the site.

Also, can images be taken of this building from the public road?, the site also has viewing holes in the fence is taking images through that illegal?

The building is NOT goverment and just a normal residential tower block building thats laid derelict for several years thats being converted, so nothing sinister about it

Question 2:

With old fashioned 35mm film you could prove you owned/took the images as you still had the negatives, but in the modern day with digital cameras how can you prove you own and took the image.

If someone placed an image on a image website and someone else was to download it, and both claim they took it how can you prove who's it is?
Its possible to change the exif so in theory the camera model could be changed to yours so without watermarking the image how can authenticity and ownership be proved?

 

[yoby]

I'm not an expert on this and sure that you'll get better advice than mine, but for my tuppenceworth...

1) No, it isn't illegal it's public domain and you're in a public place (or in your house).
2) The software that comes with your camera should allow you to add your name etc. so that it's in the exif information. Other processing softwarte also allows you to add additional information (Photoshop, Capture 1 to name but two). However, this can still be stripped out by unscrupulous others at any point. The only way to really prove that you own the photo is to keep the original RAW files for comparison if any dispute arose.

 

[Arkady]

1. No it's not illegal to shoot from your premises or from a public highway or area, providing there are no security risks entailed - i.e. Government building, military installations etc. This only applies to the UK - other countries even in the EU differ...

2. Shoot RAW and keep copies.
Only some of the Exif data can be changed - not all of it.

 

[photon]

A hidden watermark may be added with steganography, though it probably wouldn't survive further editing and saving of the image.

If you don't want the image used in the first place, use a conventional watermark.

If you don't want to use a watermark, include some non-repeatable aspects e.g. clouds and make sure the Exif and IPTC data are embedded.