Watermarks Added to Photos Uploaded to Meetup
Greetings fellow APC Members!
Recently we had a few inquiries from members regarding a new practice introduced by Meetup, our collaboration app. They started adding watermarks to photos we would upload to Meetup, raising some questions around ownership and use of photos. We inquired into the practice with Meetup and wanted to share their response with all:
“When members use the “Share” button in the Meetup app to save or share photos to social media, Meetup adds a watermark/logo overlay. This creates a branded social media share card for easy sharing with attribution.
However:
- Direct downloads of photos from the event page DO NOT have watermarks
- To download without watermarks: Open the photo, then download it directly (don’t use the share button)
- On desktop: Right-click and save the image
About ownership – This is very important: Meetup does NOT claim ownership of photos uploaded by members. According to Meetup’s Terms of Service, you retain full ownership of your content. The watermark on shared images is only for social media attribution, not an ownership claim.
Your members’ photos remain their intellectual property. The watermark feature is optional (only appears when using the share button) and doesn’t transfer any rights to Meetup.
For your photography club: I recommend informing members to:
- Download photos directly instead of using the share button
- If they want to share on social media, download first and share from their camera roll”
Bottom line: there is no claim to ownership on Meetup’s part and photos can be downloaded watermark-free, following the instructions above. Feel free to reach out to any board member for questions or concerns.