Hey You Guys! on Flickr.

I took this photo, in April 2011. I had a great day then, and was thrilled with the huge reaction to it online.

Recently, I used Google Image Search to see if it was being used elsewhere online. I wasn’t too surprised to see that it was, but I was surprised to see the shear quantity of results. This photo has now been used and re-blogged by hundreds of people. It’s staggering. It’s a nice compliment, but also a scary reminder that what you post online, will soon have a life of it’s own.

I do ask on Flickr, that people don’t use my photos without permission, but I understand people may want to link to them in blogs and suchlike. However, a large proportion of the copies of this photo online, don’t even contain a link or reference to me or my photos. This is pretty unfair. I wouldn’t mind it being used on blogs and not-for-profit sites, but with no reference or acknowledgement, that’s really unfair to the photographer.

So I’m sad to have to take the step of adding a watermark to it. This is something I don’t like to see from other Flickr users, so it pains me to do it myself. I’m going to resist adding the watermark to all my photos. Just this one to start with. But it’s a real shame people can’t be trusted to link back to a source, or give any credit to the photographer that took that shot they like.