My daughter, an American history expert, was sifting through and watching some home-made history videos at a history website. She texted me and said "Oh MY GOSH! Look at this! Watch the end!"

I watched, and the very last photo in the video is... MY KIDS! MY PHOTO! We took that when we visited the Oriskany Battlefield. I took a snapshot of the video here:

Here's my original photo. It looks like the folks erased my watermark.


I contacted the guy who made the video (I think he/she is just a kid) and he said he found my photo from a Google search.

Well, that's swell... but my watermark is CLEARLY on the photo... and my photos are copyrighted. And I didn't give permission to allow the use of my photo. :( I don't appreciate having my photo on YouTube without my permission, especially if there are crappy advertisements for testosterone booster or whatever else goes through YouTube. :-p

But I was a nice guy-- I allowed him to use the photo.. but this should be a heads up for all you photographers and all you photo-"borrowers." Your watermarks can be erased, which is unacceptable!! You photo-thieves should ALWAYS ask first and not remove the watermarks witout proper permission. Some of the folks out there will not be so nice, and you may find yourself in court. It cannot hurt to ASK if you can use the photo first, especially if the url is so clearly watermarked onto the photo already. :-p