Last month, as some of you may know, I started working with a girl from Etsy. Photographing my daughters with her hats so she can show photos on Etsy, ect. I had submitted a photo months ago for her to use, ect. I was doing a fair amount of hats and using my daughters as models and watermarking them, ect. I even was going to try to get some friends to help model (and for those who wonder what happened to that modeling gig here is why!)
Anyways, last week I got a e-mail from Shauna from that her whole IDEA of hats, images, detail descriptions and photos from other photos were stolen and put on this Chinese site where they are selling her hats in bulk for $6 each!!! OMG- I went to the site and saw a photo of my little Bree with their watermark all over! They even watermarked other photogs watermarked photos! It was insane! I won't post the link as I don't want to be connected at all with that site...
She was notified by Etsy and now she has to video tape herself making the hats. I have to admit I think it was good that ETSY follows up on this stuff and deletes users who are not following policy, however it has been alot of work for Shauna.
It was super scary :( Lesson learned!
Etsy sellers: WATERMARK like crazy all over the image!
Photogs: don't be afraid to watermark right thru your images. I know it takes way from the photo a bit, but it provides a little bit of security in this insane world! The other site actually cropped out my watermark to show the hat!
My origianl photo that was stolen and watermark cropped out
So if you wonder why I watermark my photos, even my personal Facebook photos you now know it is to give a little more protection to my clients, me and my family!
This was minor for me as I have heard crazy horror stories about stolen images, fake Facebook pages and even people having fake babies using other peoples photos! Just watermark your photos!
Noel - Oh no! That is totally scary. On the bright side, however, the hats (and your baby girl) are adorable!
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