There has been a recent norm where media houses tend to deface videos and pictures with their logos or watermarks.
This mostly places their logos and watermarks at the centre of these contents, which makes it difficult for other media houses or international bodies to use them.
It’s really normal and okay for media houses to tag their pictures and videos. This should be done at the top or bottom corner and not the middle of these pictures and videos.
Adding his voice to this issue is Manasseh Azuri Awuni.
He started:
“Ghanaian media, why do we take photographs and decide to deface them with our logos and watermarks in the middle of the photographs? The international media whose photographs we take without crediting don’t tag their photos and videos in the middle of the photograph or video.
Sometimes we destroy our own photos. It’s fine to tag our photos or videos. Do that at the top or bottom left or right. That’s the standard practice. But to tag, a photograph with all the brands in your media conglomerate and sometimes in the middle of it doesn’t help your audience either.
There are some bloggers who will use our images no matter what we do. But aren’t we all guilty of this?
It’s worrying when you tag or watermark photographs that aren’t really exclusive to you in a way that makes your audience difficult to engage.”