FYI - Photo Theft

Dave_W

The Dude
I found this website this morning while reading a thread on a photo contest site. A "photographer" posted a beautiful photo of kids playing with a can that ultimately won the contest. Days later it was pointed out the photo was stolen. It's hard to imagine someone entering a contest with a stolen image but I was doubly floored when I read this thread on the blatant theft of images by so-called "professional" photographers.

Photo Stealers

I have never been a fan of watermarks and just assume that posting a small pixel image will be enough to keep it from being stolen. I'm beginning to wonder whether I should revisit the idea of watermarking even with small images.
 

ohkphoto

Snow White
I also recently read and "apology blog post" by a photographer who did just that. Ruined her reputation and credit. It seems to be
prevalent among new wedding photographers. They need wedding photos to put on their site, but haven't done weddings so they start with stock photos and then decide why not steal. But entering a stolen photo in a contest is pretty outrageous.

This is the only forum on which I post photos and I make sure they are watermarked. On Facebook I only post photos that I don't mind will be "reshared", also watermarked. Mostly, I share photos via a link to my blog -- I use blog protector by PC Drome to disable all right-clicking for photos and for text (since I do a lot of writing) I also subscribe to DMCA with badges on every page . . . kind of like security signs for your home are supposed to deter burglars. This site will scan the internet for duplication of your content and will initiate a "takedown" at your request. For my best photos I use Tin-Eye.

This may not stop every thief, but I certainly try to make it a little more difficult for them. If you post anything on the internet, it's a risk you take, unfortunately.
 

Dooku77

Senior Member
This small gesture of taking someone else's hard work and claiming it as their own makes me very angry. I'm not a pro by any means, but I would be very upset to see my work passed off as someone else's. I just purchase a watermarking app on my phone and started to mark some of the things I post online.
 

AntrimHills

Senior Member
ohkphoto

Just thought I would mention; you may or may not be aware. I would still watermark all my pictures, whether PC Drome disallowed right-clicking or not. I thought it was safe running similar software until a friend told me, if you cant right click on the image, turn the screen to full screen (F11), use 'print screen', and copy the screen into photoshop, and crop the image to suit. Unless it's a tiny image, people could still be copying your work unknown to you!
 
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