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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: fotomy on January 28, 2009, 04:57

Title: watermarks on fotolia comping size images
Post by: fotomy on January 28, 2009, 04:57

recently found a website called snaparazzi.eu that is a long time partner of fotolia and offer the 4.8m fotolia images for sending to mobile phones with a small payment. i am all for this as its another income generator for fotolia and its submitters. what i am concerned about is that when you click on the send to mobile phone button a 512 pixel unwatermark image comping image appears this is very easily saved to your hard drive by right clicking the unwatermarked image and saving the background image.
i posted my concerns about this in the fotolia forum and to cut a long story short the post was locked by the moderator.
my question to you guys, is a 512 pixel image usable for web use and should i be concerned that these comping images are so easy to download and use without needing to sign up for an account at either snaparazzi or fotolia and have no right click protection.
do other stock libraries add watermarks to comping images?
is there any sort of industry standard size for unwatermarked images or why cant fotolia just add a small watermark to comping images?
would really appreciate any advice on this.

Title: Re: watermarks on fotolia comping size images
Post by: madelaide on January 28, 2009, 10:02

I am really surprised that they don't.  I haven't checked it in any site other than Shutterpoint, in which they apply the same wm we create for our images.

Regards,
Adelaide

Title: Re: watermarks on fotolia comping size images
Post by: hali on January 28, 2009, 10:05

the watermark for Fotolia is pretty simple to clone off, unlike Shutterstock .
so really it isn't much of an issue.  like they say in another topic regarding theft,
if someone is intent on stealing, wm or not, they will.
that said, there are enough free images all over, some like BigStock are even starting one, so i don't see why the panic.

Title: Re: watermarks on fotolia comping size images
Post by: madelaide on January 28, 2009, 15:02

Hali,

I agree that FT wm is horrible, and brought this again in the forum this week (http://www.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16945).  I also agree that most watermarks, FT especially, are easy to clone out in most images.

However, I think they should at least try to protect the images.

Regards,
Adelaide

Title: Re: watermarks on fotolia comping size images
Post by: fotomy on January 28, 2009, 17:31

thanks for the replies, guess nothing will happen at FT can't see them reconsidering their watermarking policy, any attempt to bring this subject up in their forums gets the thread locked, checking around a bit,
havn't found a stock library that gives away comp images without a watermark unless you are registered, makes sense to them to make an effort to protect their contributors images but not to FT.