I provide stock shots to clients — picture of nearby parks, neighborhood signs, HOA community center, etc. Some I’ve been using for years, some I update fairly regularly. For example, I’m always in the Serrano subdivision so I often update my pictures of their parks.
Anyway, these stock images are my most stolen images. I own the copyright, I license them to agents to use for one listing, then other agents selling in the same area steal and use those images on their listings. This is theft — using property that isn’t yours.
Anyway, I often get “How do you know it’s your image?” as their defense for using images that aren’t theirs.
Map makers sometimes put flaws in their maps so that they can identify people stealing their work. If the same flaw is in another map they then know that the second map maker just copied their work rather than doing it themselves.
I do the same thing with stock images — there are errors I Photoshop in so that I can identify my work. Sometimes it’s my initials hidden in a bush. Sometimes I remove a shadow that should be there. Sometimes I add a shadow. Sometimes I remove something that should be there, making something else “float.” They’re not so obvious that the casual observer will see it, but I will.
It amuses me.
Item: One agent caught recently using my images said, “I found it online; here it is!” And the image he sent me had a filename of an MLS number that wasn’t his listing and was, in fact, a listing I’d shot for someone else about 3 blocks away. Pointing this out didn’t make them happy.