General orientation, not legal advice. The short answer: usually yes, when the image isn't yours — and often as a distinct violation on top of infringement.

Why It's a Separate Offence

A watermark, credit line or embedded copyright notice is copyright management information (CMI). Many legal systems protect CMI specifically:

  • In the US, the DMCA prohibits intentionally removing or altering CMI, or distributing works knowing CMI has been removed, with the intent to enable or conceal infringement. Statutory damages apply — separately from damages for the underlying infringement.
  • The EU and many other jurisdictions have equivalent provisions implementing international treaty obligations on rights-management information.

The practical consequence: removing a watermark and using the image can expose you to two claims, not one. This surprises people who assume the only risk is ordinary infringement.

The Common Misconceptions

  • "I'll credit the photographer instead." Attribution is not a licence. It doesn't authorize use, and removing the watermark remains a problem.
  • "It's only a small watermark." Size is irrelevant; the legal question is whether rights information was removed.
  • "It was on a free wallpaper site." Those sites are full of unlicensed uploads. The watermark is often evidence of the real owner.
  • "I'm not making money from it." Non-commercial use is still infringement in most cases, and CMI provisions don't require commercial gain.
  • "An AI tool did it." Using a tool doesn't change responsibility for the result.

The Legitimate Cases

  • Your own images. You can remove your own watermark from your own work freely.
  • You have a licence to the clean version. Stock libraries watermark previews; when you license the image, you download an unwatermarked file. Removing the preview's watermark instead of licensing is precisely what the law targets.
  • The rights holder gave permission — get it in writing.
  • The watermark belongs to someone with no rights — for example, a site that watermarked an image it doesn't own, or a public-domain work watermarked by a scanner. This is genuinely contested territory; jurisdictions differ on watermarking public-domain reproductions, so tread carefully.
  • Narrow research, commentary or restoration contexts may be defensible, but "fair use / fair dealing" is a fact-specific analysis, not a general permission.

What to Do Instead

When you need an image without a watermark:

  1. License it. Stock images are usually inexpensive relative to the cost of a claim, and rights-managed images come with clear terms.
  2. Use a free-licence source — CC0 and permissive libraries provide clean files legitimately.
  3. Contact the creator. Many independent photographers licence directly, often affordably, and appreciate being asked.
  4. Create it yourself. For product and business imagery, your own photo is legally bulletproof and usually more distinctive.
  5. Use AI generation, understanding its own limitations around copyright and disclosure.

If You Publish Watermarked Images

Watermarks are worth using, but they're a deterrent rather than protection. Combine them with practical measures: keep originals archived, register copyright where your jurisdiction offers it, embed IPTC/XMP credit and copyright metadata, consider Content Credentials, and search periodically for unauthorized copies. And place the watermark where cropping can't simply remove it — a corner mark takes ten seconds to defeat.