Photographer Speaks Up After Pro Soccer Player Erases Photo Watermark

A sports photographer was praised for speaking up after a pro soccer player removed his photo watermark and shared the image with his huge Instagram following.

Photographer David Loché saw his post about the incident go viral on X (formerly known as Twitter), amassing more than 1.8 million views within a few days.

“This cannot be like this. All the hours of work that we photographers put in for clubs, players, to see ourselves rewarded like this,” Loché writes in the widely-shared tweet. “One of the most exposed soccer players in semi-professional soccer erasing a watermark with AI, depriving us of a real media impact.”

Loché, a sports photographer who covers soccer in Spain, took the photograph during a game between Marino de Luanco and SD Sarriana back in November. The image featured Mexican professional soccer player Miguel Leyva, who plays for Marino de Luanco.

Loché’s images usually include his watermark, and he says he often reposts photos to his Instagram Story when soccer players share his work. However, when Leyva posted the image to his 100,000 followers on Instagram without tagging him, Loché says several photographer friends immediately contacted him to say his watermark appeared to have been erased.

“Quickly, some friends and colleagues warned me that the photo looked like it had been altered, removing my watermark in a pretty sketchy way,” Loché tells PetaPixel. “To be fair, I felt somewhat, a little betrayed, as this is a footballer that I had a good relationship with up until this point, having exchanged messages, and he also had reposted some of my posts.

“I have had players crop out my watermark before, but usually it’s players who have a private profile and just want to share the photos with their close ones, so I don’t usually mind it,” he adds. “Usually, players with more recognition or exposure contact me directly to pay for the unmarked photos or post them directly with the watermark, so this really caught me by surprise.”

Speaking Out

Loché decided to speak out about the experience on X, and to his surprise, his tweet about the watermark removal quickly went viral. Photographers and social media users rallied behind him, saying they understood his frustration. Some called the watermark removal “outrageous” and agreed that a photographer’s work should be “recognized.”

But while many of the responses were supportive, Loché says that some social media users assumed that because the soccer player appeared in the image, he had the right to use the photographer’s picture however he wanted.

“I didn’t expect the tweet to reach this level of virality,” Loché explains. “Regarding the responses, I got all kinds of them, a lot of people supporting me, both publicly and through private messages. Also, I got some responses questioning whether the footballer, as he is the one in the image, could do whatever he wanted with it.”

“Mostly, responses were positive all around, but it is frustrating seeing how much ignorance exists around the topic of intellectual property and photographs.”

It appears that since Loché’s post, the soccer player has now reshared the photographer’s image on Instagram with the watermark visible and tagged him in the post. Loché says he is glad he decided to speak up and hopes it encourages other photographers to stand up for their work when they feel it has been used unfairly.

“I would like to encourage every photographer out there to fight against this kind of situations, make them public and expose them,” he says. “At the end of the day, this is a crime and something that feels like our work, money, and time is being thrown down the drain.”

More of David Loché’s work can be seen on his website, Instagram, and Linkedin.

Image credits: All photos by David Loché.