Watermarks and People Stealing your pictures

[Big Mike]

ROTFLOL, I honestly don't know if this was meant seriously or not but it so made me laugh, the idea of someone sitting there very carefully registering each and every one of all their photos just so they can potentially sue people, thanks!

:er:

if anyone is going to register their images with the US copyright office, you pay the same price for one image, as you do for a whole disc of images. So for (I think it's $20) you can fill a DVD with images and have them registered.

 

[edouble]

I like to watermark simply to show who had taken the photo - me.

 

[Newnan3]

I can understand wanting credit for your artistic work but sometimes it seems to me that people sometimes put more work into creating/placing their watermark than they did in taking/processing the picture.

I guess what made me think of this was a few months ago when someone posted a pic of a moldy gutter in the general photos section with their giant watermark in the middle of the pic. Someone commented that the watermark was a bit distracting and he/she responded that they didnt want someone to steal their pic.

My thoughts were, "Wow, really? You really think someone is gonna steal your picture of a moldy gutter? I got at least two moldy gutters outside my house that I could take pictures of if I really wanted moldy-gutter pictures......"

 

[zoogirlbc]

Watermarks don't really help from having your photos used. I see photos with them all the time on other people's sites or Facebook page, including my own. They are often easily enough removed in PS. I do use them though, I think they help somewhat.

 

[Mustlovedragons]

I pretty much stopped posting online because it seemed like weekly my pix were popping up somewhere. I even had a newspaper steal my images and run them without credit! I even found my eBay pix (which for what I sell are better than the competition) were being stolen and used to promote my competition. What have I found out? Well, there really isn't much to do about it, that's what I found out. Even if copyrighted (brother is a copyright and patent attorney), if the person isn't A) making money off the image and B) making a LOT of money, no one is really going to do a thing if the person doesn't voluntarily stop. That's been my experience, anyway.

 

[Cstone]

I watermark because I'm paranoid. If someone MIGHT steal my photos, that's reason enough for me to watermark. But, that's just me. It doesn't bother me if other people do or don't watermark. Personal preference, really.

 

[zoogirlbc]

Just curious why people would be FLATTERED if someone stole their pics? If someone was impressed with how I trained my dog and stole HIM I'd be pissed.... just sayin.

 

[mrmacedonian]

I don't watermark very much from time to time I'll put my name on a photo. Honestly, posting a photo on TPF I wouldn't bother, there are so many better photos to steal if you're going to steal

Sites like Facebook just lower the res to **** or just upload and the site will do it for you.

I have a few different types and if I were posting it somewhere sketch I suppose I would plaster it just to be obnoxious.

I actually recently had a newspaper publish a photograph of mine with no credit. Made me feel really good then sad they didn't bother to just print my name next to it :-\ oh well, least I'm improving.

 

[mrsmacdeezy]

Just curious why people would be FLATTERED if someone stole their pics? If someone was impressed with how I trained my dog and stole HIM I'd be pissed.... just sayin.

That made me laugh at first... and then I thought ab someone stealing my dog and it made me kinda sad, lol.

 

[Buckster]

When someone steals your dog, you no longer have it at all to look at or to sell clones of it to a hundred other people while still keeping the original to enjoy for yourself.

When someone violates your copyright, it's a little different.

 

[Newnan3]

Just curious why people would be FLATTERED if someone stole their pics? If someone was impressed with how I trained my dog and stole HIM I'd be pissed.... just sayin.

I don't understand that either... I would just be flat out pissed, not flattered. I would be FLATTERED if they offered to BUY a print... THEN I'd be flattered.

People desiring your pictures enough to steal them sure beats not having anyone desiring your pictures enough to steal them......:thumbup:

 

[zoogirlbc]

Yes I understand it is not the same as having a photo stolen, it was just an example that stealing IS stealing no matter what it is.

Good post, I've just recently started selling photos and have been slowly working on a watermark that I like. I started out without one, just my name in the corner but when I saw someone using my photo for their profile I got annoyed and started stamping PROOF annoyingly across them. It didn't affect the number of orders I got but people still used them and cropped my name off.... so I'm happy to just stamp my name on them for now so at least I get credit for it. I liked and went with the suggestion of putting it where they would have to cut off a head to crop it out lol.Free advertising never hurt anyone.

 

[Dominantly]

Just curious why people would be FLATTERED if someone stole their pics? If someone was impressed with how I trained my dog and stole HIM I'd be pissed.... just sayin.

I don't understand that either... I would just be flat out pissed, not flattered. I would be FLATTERED if they offered to BUY a print... THEN I'd be flattered.

I steal your prints all the time.

I have them all taped to the wall in my garage.


Thanks, and please keep shooting. I still have wall space to cover.

 

[Dominantly]

I'm pretty happy with my new watermark.

I like the way artists will put their initials on a painting in the lower right (along with a date sometimes). So I signed my initials on a PS document and saved it as a .png file, then imported that as my watermark in LR.

I'm happy with it because it's my hand writing, it's simple, and not too intrusive.

 

[Scatterbrained]

I don't sell my work so I don't watermark any of my photos, I guess if someone out there really wants to steal pics of my 1yr old I've got bigger issues than copyright infringement. :er: If you are paranoid about having your images stolen and don't like obtrusive watermarks you can always go with Digimarc. Their software embeds data into your image and then scours the interwebs for stolen photos.