Hello. I have an empty shop at the moment.
While I am photographing my latest designs, I was wondering if having my shop name on my photos as a watermark to deter internet pirates, would be allowed?
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Yes it is allowed, as long as it’s just your shop name.
Not sure how much it deters the pirates though, as they seem to steal watermarked images just as freely.
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Watermarks are allowed but do little to deter internet pirates. Watermarks are surprisingly easy to remove and in some cases they will just crop the watermark out. (As a customer i dislike when watermarks go over the product as it obscures the very thing i want to see!)
Another option to a watermark would be to use something branded (eg a gift box) in the photo. That is much harder to crop out/ remove.
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How many internet pirates are you expecting. I’ve been selling here since 2009 and as far as I am aware there has been very little copying of my designs and I have sold 1000s.
I personally would not dream of spoiling my photoso with a watermark. I think it is absolutely unnecessary and yes they do put me off when i see them.
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Thank you for your replies, they are appreciated.
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Photos of my original paintings have been used by pirates to put on gift items and tshirts.
Pretty nasty, however also amazing to think my art is good enough to steal!
Not much I can do to stop them.
Here are some examples of cloned items:
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Lovely pics but I note you don’t watermark them even so and you are an established artist
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As Pete has emptied his shop we have no way of seeing what he sells so not easy to advise him
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I’ve been watermarking my images for years (using photoshop) although lately I haven’t been bothering as much only because I don’t know how to do it on my i-phone!
My initial reason for watermarking was because about 12 years ago I had a few people copying my ceramic designs, so much so, that other artists were contacting me to let me know about it. I thought by watermarking my work with the copyright symbol, it may make them think twice about copying (I’m sure a lot of people don’t even realise about intellectual copyright)
Then, I had images used on the Ali express website and I had to prove to them that I owned the images in order for them to remove them. Watermarking did actually help with that.
Then I had my photographs used at least 3 times in other people’s promotional material for their own courses or workshops. Again, I was contacted by other people that had recognised my work to let me know. The last time, the lady that contacted me to let me know my images were being used had realised because my watermark was on the image.
So, I know some people may find them ugly and it is possible to crop them out in some instances, I think if the watermark is discreet, it can be very useful.
I did ask Folksy years ago if having a watermark would put them off of using the image in their promotions and they said it wouldn’t.
I sometimes actually look up people’s shops if I see a product I like through images or pinterest and I can identify where it’s from through the watermark.
I do like the idea of using a product with a logo on in the background too - I may try that in the future.
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@dotterypottery I know it’s probably no consolation but clearly your work is so outstanding that people want to use your images. You do some lovely work. I’m not put off by a watermark so long as it doesn’t cover the whole image. Large obscuring watermarks are a bit off putting. And watermarks are very easy to remove so that makes them pointless as far as I’m concerned. But as a copyright thing, if its useful to have some kind of logo or name on an image then sometimes I do that in a bottom corner. More so that folks can know who made the item for say, images I put on Pinterest.
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He hasn’t emptied it - he said in his original post that his shop is empty at the moment as he’s just doing his product photography.
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Yesi know that. I said his shop is empty at the moment because it is 
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For those who want to know why my shop is empty, it’s simply because I found 6 digital pieces for sale elsewhere. Would you believe I found them on eBay at a price I couldn’t even print them for? I presume they were printed on plain paper rather than canvas and have no idea how they could offer free postage. Goodness knows where else they would pop up. Anyway, I am done with artwork and am concentrating on jewellery. I’m 74 now and just need to top up my pension.
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I’m pretty sure they won’t be selling them at all Pete, just conning people out of money, which makes it even worse, I know!
Sorry this has happened to you.
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I’m not at all sure that there are too many con sales running via Ebay as Ebay buyers have pretty good protection. On the one occasion I didn’t receive an Ebay purchase I complained to Ebay and got my money back.
BUT
Out of curiosity I just entered "digital prints’ into the search bar of Ebay. If you try that for yourselves then be aware that you will be presented with a lot of photos which would certainly not be allowed on Facebook !!
When I was a picture framer, I had examples of my work on my website, I had a section showing framed sports shirts, one day I had an email from someone who told me check out a sports equipment seller’s website, they were selling very inferior frames to put sports shirts in, but the main images of framed shirts were mine. This was around 7am, so I sent them an emil to tell them take my images down by 10am the same day, or my solicitor will be taking action,mthey were taken down, they replied saying it was a mistake andthey had done a Google search for research and were used by mistake, I replied that was a lie as they had changed the file names, and I would be checking their website in future to make sure they are not using them again and I would get my solicitor to act straway.
They person who contacted me in the first place worked for a company that trawls the internet looking for copied images , he said I could engage them to do further checks, I declined as I was only a small concern, a ‘one man band’
I did start watermarking my images from then on, its quite easy in Photoshop, first creat an image , name or logo, I did it as black on white, select the black, in the edit menu, choose creat brush, it is then stored in your brushes, when your ready to watermark your image, choose brush, select your watermark brush, select colour, then just click on your image where you want it to appear, click, and there it is, save as a jpg or png to flatten the image.
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Another tip is to reduce the resolution of the images. To view on screen you only need 72dpi. Those images then won’t be high enough quality for anyone to print from do hopefully they wont bother trying.
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Yes my otems have been stolen a few times as well, my kits are apparantly available on at least 10 other selling sites, all overseas which I can do nothing about and were also used on Etsy along with other items by a scam shop.,
I did start putting watermarks on my images saying ‘only available on folksy’ but disliked the look so no longer do it.
I do like the idea of using my logo as mentioned by others and might actually try that.
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