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Comment by DavidVoid | Hacker News Reader

Honest question, is there even a legitimate use for this specific tech?

The legitimate uses feel kind of rare. Maybe there's some stock photo abandonware out there (questionable "legitimacy", but it's not so out there)? Maybe someone bought stock photos from a company that went bankrupt and never downloaded the non-watermarked version, and somehow that company's IP isn't accessible now? Feels like a stretch.

Upscaling old purchased images feels like a more common need.

Removing watermarks from works that have since fallen into the public domain, or were to begin with when a service debased it with their logo.

Removing the annoying watermarks that some TV stations put in the corner of their shows...

removing the annoying "shot with x phone"

It's not illegal to remove watermarks from photos. Ethics is another thing.

Incorrect. Removing the watermark constitutes a derivative work. To distribute this work you need permission from the copyright owner to be legal. This you will almost certainly not get since the point of watermarks is to keep people from stealing copyrighted material.

When in the process of removing the watermark do I distribute the work?

You're correct, making a derivative work isn't automatically "illegal". But what can you do with the de-watermarked image?

You have a picture of yourself or a friend, with a watermark on it. You remove the watermark. Now the picture looks nicer when you look at it. Why's this difficult?

It's difficult because people are trying to figure out where you obtained this hypothetical watermarked image from (that you can't get a non-watermarked version of) and what you plan on doing with it after besides looking at it yourself, and how this becomes something for sale to "enterprise-level clients".

From their website:

> The features your business needs to eliminate watermarks for good.

> Whether you're a photographer or a social media manager, let our AI handle the cleanup so you can focus on creativity.

They seem to think that this is a need businesses have.

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