When I started my fight against plagiarism specifically with Central Philippine University’s The Central Echo, a couple of responses were ” Why didn’t you put watermarks on your photos?. Here’s why:
“What’s the point?”
That was my initial reaction to those comments about my complaint against Reyshimar Arguelles and the rest of CPU’s The Central Echo. Don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally. Most of my friends are not hard-core bloggers like me 🙂 I know better that watermarks can’t guarantee that your photos are safe.
Yes, I did some watermarks using Picasa before. Here’s one post to prove that.
Then I started reading how others steal watermarked photos from cropping them to screwed editing “skills. Panay News is notorious when it comes to stealing photos. I can’t find that link where they tried to hid the watermark by placing another photo on top of the other.
I myself was sort of a victim. Though they placed my site’s url, they didn’t ask my permission. Hello!!!! It’s not an honor to have my photo in their newspaper. I don’t read Panay News and never will ( a separate post on this).
So what’s the catch? If people really want to be unethical where their values have to be dug up 6 feet below the ground, they can steal your photos if they want to. Sadly, as your site gets a high ranking, its like being thrown in an open water with sharks around you. Ugly truth.
In my case, it is disgusting because I’m not even a photographer. What you see here are just products of “point and shoot”. I am a freelance writer and my main focus is content, photos are for visual effects only.
Watermarks can be distracting
Some watermarks can be an eye sore, killing the real motive of sharing. I know a lot of travel bloggers agree to that.
Just take this photo for example.
Compared to the usual watermark on the corner or no watermark alone..
See the difference? Like most travel writers and bloggers, the main purpose of this blog is to SHARE. And we want to post photos just it is, without us posing as if we are celebrities.
Before I close this post for you to comment ( mentally or better yet, in words here ), I use Flickr for my photos. I like it when posting high resolution photos and uploading is fast for the benefit of my readers. With Flickr, I reserve all copyrights of my photos.
To those internet piranhas please have the decency. Don’t steal, your Mama should have taught you that.
Thanks for reading!
Related Article:
Not Just one: The Central Echo Plagiarism
