Just a quick one today but something I’ve been thinking about recently.
I make a conscious decision not to watermark the images I put online. Firstly I should probably say that I generally licence all of the photos I put online under Creative Commons agreement, so I generally don’t mind people using my images provided that they give me a credit. So perhaps this attitude goes some way toward shaping my perspective on this matter.
I often find watermarks on images to be unsightly and actually detract from the photography I’m looking at. I find them to be a distraction and often a barrier preventing me from being able to fully enjoy the work. Now, I will agree that some watermarks are placed with care and more subtly than others but often the very fact that the watermark is there seems to spoil an otherwise great shot.
I guess there are a couple of main reasons that people add them to their work. Initially I guess the addition of a watermark probably gives some sense of protection or ownership over the image and another reason is an attempt to ensure that the photographer responsible for the work is given the credit they deserve. Through my personal experience of providing images under the Creative Commons agreement I have found that people generally have given me credit when using my images (not always but mostly that I am aware of), I certainly can’t complain – but who knows, perhaps I’ve just been rather lucky. But secondly I imagine that the type of people who will use an image without giving credit are probably the same people who will think nothing of cropping a photo to remove a watermark they don’t particularly like. When you put images online you have to be aware of the risk that your work will be stolen, this may not be a very pleasant prospect and I certainly hope that this doesn’t happen but the only way to truly keep your images safe is to never put them online, but then wouldn’t it be a terrible shame not to share your work with the world at all?
I think that from a copyright point of view it’s rather difficult to protect images online. Sure you can add a watermark, lots of metadata and keep the original RAW files safe but the photos you put online can potentially be used anywhere if someone is determined and having given this some thought I think this risk is an acceptable one. If you want to give people an opportunity to actually see and enjoy your work then these risks are worthwhile in my opinion. If it comes to making money from the work then big companies don’t generally use images without permission (there are of course going to be some high profile exceptions) and then you are left with the companies/individuals who would probably never choose to pay for any work anyway.
I just can’t help thinking that by making great photographs available under the Creative Commons agreement you give your work the maximum chance of exposure without too many downsides. If you become aware of your work being used without permission then you can deal with it on a case by case basis but I would argue that the pros of this approach far outweigh the cons. There are of course steps you can take to make your images less appealing to potential thieves, you could for example avoid making full size versions of images available online and ensure images are always a medium jpg quality rather than high quality. These steps may go some way towards reducing the usefulness of the images offline.
Having considered the items mentioned above I chose not to watermark my online images and hope that when people decide to use my images they will be kind enough to give me a credit as required by the Creative Commons agreement. I would certainly be interested to hear what you think. Am I naive and misguided? Is it foolish for me to believe in good karma with regard to the sharing of photography? Why not let me know your thoughts?
Happy shooting!
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