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As per the US copyright act, section 1202, removing a watermark without the official owner's consent is illegal.

Are watermarks legally binding? A watermark serves the purpose of informing a potential infringer that you own the copyright to your work and intend to enforce it, which may discourage infringement. It also prevents the infringer from being able to claim that they did not know the work was copyrighted.

Understandably, artists have resorted to “watermarking” their images online to prevent others from stealing their work. While watermarking can be a great deterrent, it's not the same thing as a copyright, nor is it a substitute for officially obtaining copyright protection from the US Copyright Office.

No. Not only are you committing copyright infringement, by cropping out the watermark you are commiting willful copyright infringement, which triggers enhanced damages. Instead of maximum statutory damages of $35,000 you're now looking at up to $150,000 in damages per infringing act.

If there's a faint watermark across the image, that means it's copyrighted. Usually watermarks will be repeated multiple times across the image so are hard to miss (and make them unsuitable for use anyway), but look carefully in case it's not been made obvious.

In confidential documents, a watermark adds to their status or importance. It also implies an extra layer of protection. For example, a paper with a “draft” watermark would prevent people from interpreting it as the final copy.

As per the US copyright act, section 1202, removing a watermark without the official owner's consent is illegal.

Are watermarks legally binding? A watermark serves the purpose of informing a potential infringer that you own the copyright to your work and intend to enforce it, which may discourage infringement. It also prevents the infringer from being able to claim that they did not know the work was copyrighted.

Understandably, artists have resorted to “watermarking” their images online to prevent others from stealing their work. While watermarking can be a great deterrent, it's not the same thing as a copyright, nor is it a substitute for officially obtaining copyright protection from the US Copyright Office.

No. Not only are you committing copyright infringement, by cropping out the watermark you are commiting willful copyright infringement, which triggers enhanced damages. Instead of maximum statutory damages of $35,000 you're now looking at up to $150,000 in damages per infringing act.

If there's a faint watermark across the image, that means it's copyrighted. Usually watermarks will be repeated multiple times across the image so are hard to miss (and make them unsuitable for use anyway), but look carefully in case it's not been made obvious.

In confidential documents, a watermark adds to their status or importance. It also implies an extra layer of protection. For example, a paper with a “draft” watermark would prevent people from interpreting it as the final copy.