08/10/2026
🚨 A VERY important word about AI and photographers’ watermarks.
I’m seeing more and more people proudly showing off how they’ve used AI to remove photographers’ watermarks from images.
Let me make this VERY clear:
Being able to remove a watermark does NOT mean you have permission to use the photograph.
The photograph is still copyrighted. It still belongs to the photographer. Removing the watermark, saving the image and using it without purchasing it is unauthorised use and can constitute copyright infringement.
AI does not give you a magic loophole around copyright.
And before anyone thinks “it’s only one photo”…
It isn’t.
We spend hours at shows photographing classes, often in all weather, carrying thousands of pounds worth of equipment, editing thousands of images and then spending hours uploading and sorting them afterwards.
We don’t get paid for standing ringside.
We get paid when you buy the photographs.
For me, some images are £4.50.
£4.50.
That is the price of a photograph that someone has spent their time, money, skill and equipment creating.
So when someone deliberately removes my watermark with AI instead of spending £4.50, they aren’t being clever. They’re taking something that isn’t theirs.
And if people continue doing this, photographers are eventually going to have to change how we operate.
I may have to start taking payment before images can be viewed or stop putting full galleries online for people to choose from.
You’d be buying photographs without being able to properly look through them first.
And I really don’t want it to come to that.
I want people to be able to browse their galleries, find their favourite moments and buy the photographs they love. That’s how this is supposed to work.
But I will not sit back and watch people deliberately remove my watermark and use my work for free.
If I find one of my images has been deliberately altered to remove my watermark and then used without being purchased, I will be contacting the person responsible and seeking payment for the unauthorised use accordingly.
So please, before you reach for the AI tool…
Just buy the bloody photograph.
It’s £4.50.
Support the photographer who was actually there taking it.
And please don’t confuse “I can remove the watermark” with “I am allowed to remove the watermark.”
They are two VERY different things.
