Watermarking your photos

The advice I always give in my Photography 101 class is, "Never post a photo online you're not willing to give up." As we've scene, watermarks and what-not are worthless. Same goes for text stuff on blogs. I've had some of my articles get copied word-for-word. Some people are just so talentless and desire so much to be cool they have to steal other peoples content. Should feel flattered I guess.
 
Dean said:
"Never post a photo online you're not willing to give up".
Click to expand...

While I can relate to the frustrations of photographers that get poached, and I have been one of them, this is the bottom line. You've posted it online. It's gone. Not yours anymore. And you can rage against the machine and wax eloquent all day long about ethics and law and whatever you choose. But your photo has been sucked up by Google Images and a host of other entities and that genie ain't going back in the bottle. Ever.

I for one don't think it's worth my time or anyone else's to agonize over it. It's just a photo after all. You/I/we chose to share it.

If your photo is really that valuable (UFO sighting, new species of never seen before animal etc) then you surely wouldn't post it online.
 
Dean said:
The advice I always give in my Photography 101 class is, "Never post a photo online you're not willing to give up." As we've scene, watermarks and what-not are worthless. Same goes for text stuff on blogs. I've had some of my articles get copied word-for-word. Some people are just so talentless and desire so much to be cool they have to steal other peoples content. Should feel flattered I guess.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much what it comes down to for me...I really do feel like watermarks only punish legit viewers. The lazy, the ignorant, and the scum will steal anyhow, and if they're going to drag it through the legal process you're now talking lawyers and proof (and no longer need a watermark to defend your rights).

Most of the time the person doing the taking is just a person, and doesn't have the means to buy. When that's the case and as long as it's shown in a good light I'll usually just hit them up to provide credit and let it slide (again, it's only giving me free promo, and not doing any harm). If it's a business or magazine, then they have a budget and it's pay to play.

If they're selling cheap knockoffs then no mercy, as they've made a business of ripping people off. Yes, I've had domains and servers shut down...both hosts and registrars take this stuff seriously. I've also done this over spam before... :D
 
Optimistic Paranoid said:
Watermarks don't have to be visible. And there are other steps you can take, if you choose to.

http://www.riecks.com/security/
Click to expand...

There are a few of those methods out there. The best I've seen so far is Binded. There is also SafeCreative and Myows. In the end, copyright is not sacred as it once was. Go back a couple of years and look up the high profile infringement cases from Getty Images. Yes, Getty sold works in their stock service without prior consent.

I've been in this business a long time. You're best defense is to register your images with the Copyright Office. When I was shooting for magazines, this was something I did every month. Now, roughly once a quarter. I would also recommend reading ASMP's copyright content. Always good stuff on their site.

As Chazz, Dave and others have stated, the watermark is not going to help you. If you are using Lightroom, set up the copyright metadata and have it embedded every time you import images. Then, if you want, register with the Copyright Office. Also, scale the images down before posting them. I usually stick to around 1000 pixels in the longest dimension and 72dpi. Yes, people could still use them and they'll scale up a little but they're aren't big enough at that resolution for magazine prints or larger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom