How can I stop people stealing my photos?

[Jonathan]

I work in restaurants and during my work I take pictured of all my dishes as a record and to help show what I can produce to help future job prospects. I store all my photos on social media sites because it's free storage and it's nice to have people comment on them. Recently I've noticed that 2 previous employers have taken my photos and copied then to their internet sites. I don't mind but nobody ever asked me and I don't really want to help a previous employer when they havnt helped me. Do I have any rights to these pictures? They're all mine and they've all come from my camera but I don't know how to stop people using them.

[siamesedharma]

Your previous employers haven't helped you? You mean you had your own restaurant, bought your own ingredients, etc. to produce those dishes? And you didn't get paid for working in those restaurants?

[Dylan]

What media sites do you use? Because there may be a report for copy rights. If you own those pictures then you can contact administers of the sites and ask them to delete the picture.

[philospher77]

This is a grey area. They are your photos, but it's the restaurant's food product, so they may legally own the rights to the photos. The legal idea is that without their food, you wouldn't have had anything to photograph, so it's "work product" and belongs to them. If you make pictures with your own food on your own time, that's a different issue.

[Dumdedum]

If you view photographs taken from professional photographers they are 'watermarked' in a manner that means until you have purchased them the copy write mark remains in place.
This is what you need to learnt to do to yours but as others have stated if the dishes were produced in a working environment under an employer you would need to work out an agreement with your employer to be able to copy write them.

[Andi]

If you put them in a public place....
what do you expect

in fact, many of the T&C's of these sites
say that by publishing them on their site, THEY own the image (by your consent and action)

If you wanted them private,
and to preserve the Copyright, you should have kept them private
and when sharing them, remind people that they were yours and not to be shared beyond the people you were sharing them with.

In theory,
the Photographer is considered the Artist, and owns the copyright.

But if you are photographing another Art work,
then you are breaching their copyright.
It could be argued that the creating of the dish (that you photographed) is the original artwork.

Likewise, that you took the photos while an employee, of work items, means that they belong to your employer anyway (as part of being employed).

The situation you describe has many wrinkles
not helped by your public publication.
Your employers could also come after you...