Microstock Photography Forum - General > Image Sleuth
"Professional" site using all stolen watermarked images
namussi:
--- Quote from: SuperPhoto on March 30, 2018, 09:15 ---lol, don't worry about it.
a) It's probably a placeholder. ANY professional (real) site would not get business if they had 'shutterstock' all watermarked over it.
b) If they ARE a real site trying to get busienss, they probably don't have the money anyways to pay for it - and it is advertising for you.
c) Also - asfaik, they aren't "stolen" either. Pretty much every stock site lets you download preview/watermarked images/video/etc.
--- End quote ---
Advertising?!!
Good grief.
Shelma1:
I've noticed since the Google change in image search a lot more people are now going to the stock sites and stealing the images from there. I've seen a lot more watermarks floating around. I've had a few arguments with people on Facebook...all of whom seem to believe that leaving the watermark on means the image is ok to steal because it's "fair use" or as long as they give the photographer credit it's perfectly legal. The most recent was Ricky Gervais...he stole an image from Alamy. And certainly he can afford to pay to license something.
cathyslife:
--- Quote from: Shelma1 on April 02, 2018, 06:33 ---I've noticed since the Google change in image search a lot more people are now going to the stock sites and stealing the images from there. I've seen a lot more watermarks floating around. I've had a few arguments with people on Facebook...all of whom seem to believe that leaving the watermark on means the image is ok to steal because it's "fair use" or as long as they give the photographer credit it's perfectly legal. The most recent was Ricky Gervais...he stole an image from Alamy. And certainly he can afford to pay to license something.
--- End quote ---
Even here people tout this “fair use” bull$hit as being ok to do. And no, I am not going to argue that it’s “legal”. There are a whole lot of things that are “legal” that are certainly not ethical. Why on earth would we have our images on sites to sell, if we were ok with this “fair use” crap? I am sure some lowlife attorney came up with that nonsense so he/she could use whatever images they wanted to.
If contributors don’t stop publicizing and touting “fair use” as a legitimate thing, more and more watermarks are going to be showing. And I don’t believe using watermarked images is any kind of advertising for me to sell more images. It is only advertising for people to grab and steal more images. :( >:(
obj owl:
--- Quote from: SuperPhoto on March 30, 2018, 09:15 ---lol, don't worry about it.
a) It's probably a placeholder. ANY professional (real) site would not get business if they had 'shutterstock' all watermarked over it.
b) If they ARE a real site trying to get busienss, they probably don't have the money anyways to pay for it - and it is advertising for you.
c) Also - asfaik, they aren't "stolen" either. Pretty much every stock site lets you download preview/watermarked images/video/etc.
--- End quote ---
If you could PM me with your portfolio I'm sure I could put some free advertising your way.
SuperPhoto:
Interesting comments.
Re: watermarks/"stolen"
Watermarks are designed to provide an incentive for people to actually purchase the 'real' image, free of watermarks. When selling images online, that is one effective way to make people decide to purchase. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have to watermark images, and people would just purchase it if they wanted to use it, but that's not how things work.
The images with watermarks were not "stolen", they were made publicly available in one or more stock sites, and someone simply decided to download the preview images, and include them on the site.
Re: advertising
It actually *is* free advertising - because if that company actually does get views/eyeballs - people will know to go to shutterstock
to purchase the image without the watermark. And to objowl - if you are sincere and it's not just a snide remark - and you could
actually get a significant people viewing my portfolio - I would be happy to send you my portfolio with watermarked images.
The majority of people don't like watermarked images, and some would actually purchase, which would make me very happy.
Re: fair use
As for the comments about "fair use", if people are actually making comments like that on facebook, they have no clue
what they are talking about. Fair use is usually applied to text or video, and it is usually a 'portion' of that text or video. (Not
images). "Fair use" means when you can take copyrighted content that is *not* watermarked - and incorporate it into other
content. And it is usually USA based (other countries may or may not observe that themselves). It is usually acceptable for purposes
of teaching/news reporting/critisism/research/etc.
If someone is talking about "fair use" for "watermarked images" - it makes no sense. Because the images are made publicly
available for the purpose of evaluating/previewing, with the hope that the desire to remove the watermark is incentive enough
to purchase the final content. (It's also why you get smaller previews too, for both images & video).
The only context in which fair use makes sense if someone was using 'unwatermarked' images. In that case - then fair use would
apply only if they had content/footage in which they were critisizing something, research/news/etc. If they were using it for
commercial purposes (i.e., to sell something online) - then fair use does *not* apply.
conclusion
Anyways, for the "watermarked" images - don't worry about it. There really isn't much you can do except drive yourself nuts
trying to chase after every person who uses a 'watermarked' image. Professional sites/etc do not use watermarked images -
because their is a stigma associated with that (i.e., it is a cheap site/unprofessional/etc). If I went to a website to purchase something, and then I saw watermarks plastered all over the images on their site - I wouldn't purchase from them, because I'd
figure it was some kid in his moms basement that spent 5 minutes putting together a website. I'd say most people would be
the same. And as for the watermarked images - it is indeed free advertising. Most people prefer non watermarked images - so
if they saw something they liked - they now know where to go purchase it free of watermarks.
Now if it was "unwatermarked" - AND the FULL image - and somehow someone was using those images, unlicensed (and you
could prove that) - then yes, those would be "stolen" images, and you would have recourse & means to do something about it.
And in that case, I would definitely recommend doing what you could to protect your copyrights/etc.
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