Removing a photo watermark: flattering, but still stealing

We as photographers take risks whenever we share our work with the world online.  Copy and pasting runs rampant and between illegally downloading music, illegally stealing and modifying copyrighted images, and illegally downloading/viewing/uploading copyrighted material on youtube - we live in a culture that values a creative's hard work enough to collect it and surround oneself with it, but not enough to pay them or credit them for their work and to really just steal it.  So why do people do that at all?  They're just cheap, most the time, and don't want to pay for the full image, some going so far as to even poll the web to find out the best way to steal it.

When I upload anything to the web, I place my logo on my work which also includes the (C) copyright embedded in it.  That means that I own the image, you do not.  Don't steal it.  That also means that if you are going to take it and put/post it somewhere else, do not alter the image unless you communicate with the photographer (me) about that first.  If it is an image that he or she wants to share but may choose to enter into a contest or publish somewhere else and now you have done your fancy work and removed their watermark and reposted the image, regardless of how you decided to credit the photographer.... that is 10x not cool.  Now what you've done is just helped put the photographer's work in a vulnerable position.  Whether it's an image of something you like or even you at a festival, party, or club event: the decision of the photographer and/or event coordinator to place those watermarks on those images is usually for promotional reasons and cropping the credit out is a pretty heavy slap in the face.  That's like me going to write an awesome article that everybody loves and becomes the talk of the town, but you whited my name out of the "author" line because you felt the piece looked better without it.  So now I did the work and get no credit.  That's kinda f***ed up.

But you may say, ok then - if you're that worried about it, don't post the images at all!  I totally agree and keep a good amount of my work offline and shared only in print because of that.  It's a tough balance trying to share your ability with your community as an advertising tool and not being taken advantage of.  At the end of the day, don't steal someone else's work and just be nice.  :)