While some fellow parents were concerned (including that the kids’ images could be used for AI training), others supported her idea: “Tell me why it cost me over $100 for my 3 kids,” one wrote. Another said she pays “just under $170 for all four digital files.” On the surface, Bond’s approach of taking her own photos, skipping the sitting fee and getting a similar result seems harmless enough.
But with that comes something less legally defensible: Multiple TikTok users shared they use ChatGPT to erase watermarks from professional photo proofs, essentially obtaining high-resolution images without paying for them. One post (that’s been removed from TikTok) garnered more than a million likes, Fast Company notes.
The legal exposure and risk
Removing a copyright watermark from an image you haven’t paid for could be found to be copyright infringement under federal law.
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, “Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each,” and up to $150,000 per work if willful infringement is proven. The minimum, even for innocent infringement, is $750 per image, according to 17 U.S.C. § 504. There’s no blanket exception for personal use.
Watermark removal may also trigger a separate legal exposure within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Under Section 1202, removing copyright management information — which includes watermarks — carries civil damages of $2,500-$25,000 per violation.
That’s likely on top of any copyright infringement claim, lawyer Mickey Osterreicher of Finnerty Osterreicher & Abdulla, and general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association, told Moneywise: “That separate claim doesn’t require copyright registration, and removal alone doesn’t automatically establish every element of that claim.”
He notes, for a U.S. image, the photographer generally must have registered the work with the U.S. Copyright Office before bringing a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court.
And registration timing matters too: “Statutory damages and attorney’s fees generally require registration before infringement began or within three months after first publication,” or recovery for infringement is often limited to damages and any attributable profits, Osterreicher says.
But he stresses the importance of distinguishing people editing photographs they took themselves from people using AI to copy a professional photographer’s proof and remove its watermark without permission.
