but there are two separate photographers using that business name, and since I haven't seen the video, I'm not sure which one it is.
Exactly. And they have extremely similar logos. And it's even more complicated because the younger of the two uses a different last name on her About page then she does as the title of her business & website URL. And that other name is also the name of yet a third professional wedding photog. I would hate to see any innocent parties here suffer negative consequences, bad reviews, loss of business, dings to their rep, etc ... because their name got them tangled up in this. Since noone reading this thread (which was already turning up on Google yesterday when searching the name in the URL) can see the vid and know for sure which person is the brazen thief here, it might be best if a mod could remove the name from the URL in the original post.
I like this suggestion. We can't stop all forms of image theft, but I don't think it would hurt to have a few deterrents in place. I also hope this person thinks twice before attempting to publicly promote blatant art theft in the future. What nerve and really infuriating.
I am against watermarking our images or design composite images anywhere on Z unless it is optional so that each designer can choose for themselves whether it is something they want. I think we all have our own pros & cons list re watermarking and a big con on mine is that watermarks would prevent designers themselves from being able to conveniently grab useful images for use in promoting or in their store design.
I am against a pop-up in the design tool as that would be a big headache when designing. Even if they made it so that it only appears for everyone except the original designer, it would be annoying for customers who just want a clear view of their overall design before going ahead with their order. And the design tool can be intimidating enough for customers without them having to pan/zoom around an obstruction to their view.
There are ways to get a design composite image of much better quality than a screenshot. I hadn't thought to try until reading this thread but once I thought about it, it turned out to be rather easy. I'm thinking this is going to be quite useful as one can use the image to promote a general design rather than the design on a specific product. Could also use it for category or collection covers. If you look at the properties of such image after downloading/saving it, under Comments it says "Image licensed to Zazzle Inc. All unauthorized use is prohibited." Not going to deter your average thief too dumb to know how to or to care to check such things, but enough to prevent a reputable printer who might check for such data that wasn't removed by the client first.
Back to screenshots that pretty much everyone knows how to do: There are ways to interfere with the average person getting a good one (disabling right-click on a page, watermarks, pop-up message ...) but they would also hinder the designer from being able to use them too.
Thieves will be thieves, cheaters will cheat; if they're determined enough they'll get your image/design one way or another. I hate to say it but I think the best recourse is to go after them full-tilt afterwards. If one is able to steal an image and get 500 copies printed by a very well-known company no-questions-asked, then you go after both and if it happens enough maybe the concept spreads that there could be serious real-world consequences to such activity even if the plaintiff isn't Disney or whatever big-name.
