Watermarking Content You Didn't Create...
13This is universally accepted as unethical and firmly in the “not okay” category of things to do, right?
I mean, we all know that 9gag will watermark anything they can get to hold still for half a second, but beyond that…
Most of us web-dwellers have accepted that content will be shared and shared and shared. At some point the origins of the content will likely be lost. While frustrating, this is the nature of easy share sites (cough - pinterest) and social media. Is it too much to expect people to not put their name on someone else’s work? Especially without any credit to the original artist? What would you do if you found that someone took your work and watermarked it?
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I license (almost) all of my photography under CC-BY-NC. I use Flickr extensively, which is a great place for people to steal shit from. It’s not the end of the world, but a lot of my stuff does get spam-lifted. I generally reach out to the content ‘creator’, as well as their host or the social media service they’re using. Hosts tend to be responsive, the spammers occasionally are, and social media companies are too busy swimming in their pools of money to give a fuck, I guess.
/giphy scrooge mcduck money
What really entertains me is when some asshole hotlinks to a photo on my Flickr account. Because I am absolutely not above losing my comments and faves and replacing the photo with one of a big hairy dick so that’s the new face of your pencil subscription box or whatever shit idea you couldn’t afford to license photos for.
That is not ‘scrooge mcduck money’ by any means, but I dig it.
@brhfl actually, those robots are from DuckTails.
@Thumperchick Tell that to giphy…
@thismyusername I like the touch where you put your username at the top. 10/10 would steal.
@thismyusername Looks legit.
@thismyusername I love you.
I particularly enjoy the way Nedroid put this.
I don’t know how to photoshop or put a watermark on or take one off. I try really hard to find the photographer of the pics. that I post and then I give them credit. In social media sites I will comment on other peoples posts to give out the correct info. It’s the right thing to do.
Yeah that sounds pretty horrible, @Thumperchick… Deplorable even.
@PoopFeast420
/giphy basket of deplorables
You mean like the Facebook page of "Shannon Mayer, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR where she shares a shit ton of pictures that she’s found on the interwebz?
What I find really interesting is how pretty much EVERY picture she shares somehow has her watermark (“www.shannonmayer.com”) splatted across the bottom of it but she pretty much never gives any attribution to the artist or photographer from whom she’s stol… er… shared the image.
Given that her watermark is splatted across these pix, it is clear that she’s not merely sharing them: she’s copying them, hacking them into ads for herself, and then posting them on Facebook, and all this without giving any credit to the person who actually created the work.
BTW- folks, part of my ire at Shannon stems from the fact that she stole artwork of a friend of mine and branded it as her own with no credit at all to @marcee.
I’m sure Shannon would be upset (and rightly so) if I were to post links to free downloads of all the books she’s written, but with her name replaced by mine. (I’d have to craft some story about how I live on the far western shore of outer Mongolia with my cats and drones and a goat or three so that no one would be able to tell it was her work, but I’m sure I can come up with something.*)</rant>
Sorry. I’m really not sure why this has angered me so.
*Read Shannon’s bio and this will make more sense.
Why, @baqui63! That’s exactly what I mean. Though, the offending author has since deleted their stolen image from our beloved @marcee, and hidden several other posts where the artists were notified of the issue.
@baqui63
I understand. Now I’m pissed too, I don’t know her, am assuming she is a total thief here. She she has $, and a rep she can lose with the public at large, why hasn’t someone gone after her?
@Thumperchick But not this one:
Original pic from here: http://shirleysstudio.deviantart.com/art/Tobias-382331527
(Was easy to find with a Google image search.)
I’ll grant that Shannon didn’t remove the artist’s signature from the pic in the lower right. And maybe she has permission to post it. I’m going to ask ShirleyStudio in a moment.
I do know for a fact that a bunch of “shared” pictures from Shannon’s page have been taken down in the last few hours, after artists were informed of her practice and started complaining.
@f00l the issue was just noticed today. There has been a bit of a hard push to tag/notify/link back to the artists who’ve had their images altered.
Even if it hadn’t been @marcee, it would have pissed me off. It’s a jerk move to slap your name on something you didn’t make.
@Thumperchick If you hadn’t brought it to my attention, it would’ve gone unchecked foreva and a day. A couple of the vendors I tagged reached out to me to personally thank me and were equally flabbergasted by her audacity.
Back in my Creative Services life I used to hide my name at the pixel level in any graphics I created. Easy enough to do. A certain cable owned production house had a nasty habit of lifting graphics from others.
@Mehrocco_Mole If they’re still in business, they most likely still do.
I knew a photographer who shot a series for a local rich monster hospital advertising run. Perhaps 25 years ago?
Shortly afterwards, he and his wife welcomed a child with severe probs, including a need for heart surgeries. The child was in the Infant ICU for months. Numerous surgeries.
The photographer and his wife had budgeted for a child, including the delivery. Not for half a million in medical bills. They had no insurance - both free lance.
Shortly after that, the hospital re-used the first series of photos he had shot, plus a bunch of other photos they originally rejected, in a new ad and marketing campaign. Without authorization. And not covered by the original contract. He had retained ownership.
The hospital kept going. Whoever authorized the use seemed not to realize the hospital had not bought all the photo rights. Friend was busy with his family and had no idea until a photog buddy pointed it out. After lawyers, and years, the hospital settled for far more than the medical bills he was still making payments on.
I guess he was lucky in that a rich hospital was the thief.
It’s theft/lying. But no one is likely to notice, repercussions are unlikely, and lots of people have no morals.
There is an interesting documentary on Netflix about why people lie. Still its pretty easy to not lie. Fuck people who do.
@unksol you’ll get awful tired…
Most communications majors wouldn’t graduate if they didn’t steal.
I too hate it when people watermark other people’s “adult images” on imagefap and put the watermark in a REALLY bad spot on the photo.
or isn’t that what we’re talking about?
you guys should really stay off douchebook if it bothers you that much.