After seeing several of my images used without permission, notification or credit on separate platforms in recent weeks, I’m seriously considering watermarking anything I share or post in the future. 
For quite some time now, I’ve been frustrated by the fact that individuals see no fault in taking and using someone’s work or personal property without at the very least, asking. For whatever reason, this has always been a music related issue for me. Bands, record labels, magazines and the what not perhaps thinking that someone else’s work is public domain. While it was a personal friend and professional photographer who, years ago, convinced me to stop watermarking my work, it was another who upon relaying my frustrations, asked me, why on earth I wasn’t.
Upon sharing some new watermarks with a friend and my ideas with my wife, I was told that someone might crop out my watermark if it was perhaps placed incorrectly, or that I might consider sharing small, grainy ones instead. Needless to say, it’s frustrating. While this could take some time, I feel that with some time and patient research, I’ll be using more watermarks to both protect my work and piss off the mother fuckers who take without asking. Below are some links to my recent discoveries.
A personal picture appears on the inlet.
Live shot used without my knowlege,
Another one of my images taken without permision.
A watermark I’ve used in the past.
Photogeek Blog 
It has always left me feeling a little queasy- that frustrating, sinister bargain, i.e., the risk of leaving ourselves wide open to co-optation or exploitation versus the potential reward of connecting/sharing through a medium such as journaling (and/or photography) online. I’ve gotten around this by piping an infinitesimally small amount of traffic across my site but I must say it’s not the most satisfying strategy (although it’s not as counterintuitive as it seems). To tell the truth, I’m surprised I haven’t happened across your site before! It seems like you’ve left plenty of breadcrumbs over time (found you in the WordPress reader this week). Really enjoyed perusing some of your wonderful images the other night, a pleasure seeing your talented work (including music journalism) combined with thoughtful, personal observations. Just a lowly pseudo dad blogger here but I feel tremendously inspired to get myself out and shoot more after seeing your stuff (both here and east coast). This image from Aberdeen takes me to last weekend (passed through that town on our way to the coast). Love the bascule bridges. Good luck deciding on the watermark thing. Haven’t to my knowledge had the distinction of being ripped off myself and kinda just throw my hands up about it. But certainly understand the rage/desire to prevent it. Perhaps the key will be to find balance between a tasteful yet effective watermark?
-Jason (in Seattle)