I finally saw what a year of stolen photography did to my portfolio

I used to think watermarking was overkill until I found 30 of my nature shots on a travel site without credit. Over 12 months, that site made over 200 posts using work they swiped from freelancers like me. I spent 4 hours filing DMCA takedowns last week and only got 12 of them removed. Has anyone else had luck with automated tools for tracking image theft?

3 comments

3 Comments

rowanr8823h ago

Did you check if those 12 that got removed actually stayed down? I've heard stories where sites take content down for a few weeks then quietly repost it, especially if they're outside US jurisdiction. What specific search tools did you try - like, were you running reverse image searches manually or using something that crawls for you? And how did you even find the original 30 photos in the first place? Was it a random check or did someone tip you off?

charlie19822h ago

Buddy of mine found his landscape shots on a foreign travel blog. Took him 6 months of emailing host providers to get most down. The 30 bucks a month for a tracking service was worth it just for the peace of mind.

kellyallen21h ago

Thirty bucks a month is cheaper than the therapy bills I'd rack up checking my own photos every day.