INDUSTRY:
Intellectual property law exists to protect creative work — copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, all built on the principle that original work belongs to its creator and can’t be used without permission. Which made it particularly remarkable that this firm’s own website was built using unlicensed stock photography throughout. Some images still carried visible watermarks, placed just carefully enough that a casual visitor wouldn’t notice. The firm had no idea. Like most clients in the same situation, they’d hired a developer, the site went live, and they assumed everything had been handled properly. That’s a reasonable assumption. It just wasn’t true.
The engagement didn’t start as a site audit — it started with a request for a new landing page tied to a specific lead-generation project. Reviewing the existing site to understand its structure and brand is where the problem surfaced. Several images still carried visible stock-library watermarks. Others looked clean at first glance, but a closer look at the file names told a different story: the previous developer had downloaded preview images directly from a stock library and uploaded them to the live site without ever purchasing a license — or even renaming the files. The word “preview” was sitting right there in the file name of images on a public, professional website.
A thorough review of the full site cataloged every affected image. We tracked down the original source for each one, helped the client purchase the correct licenses, and replaced every unlicensed image with properly licensed versions — all while completing the landing page that had started the engagement in the first place. The license issue was out of scope, unbillable, and never requested. It simply needed to be flagged and fixed.
Once the immediate issue was resolved, the firm expressed interest in continuing to develop their website with us. They’re currently revising their existing content, and we’re continuing that work together as they’re ready to take the next steps. It’s often how the best client relationships develop — not from a grand proposal, but from a smaller engagement handled well enough that the next one follows naturally.
If your website was built by someone else, there’s no guarantee everything was handled correctly — even the things that seem straightforward. Image licensing is one example. Heading structure is another. Security settings, SEO foundations, accessibility requirements — the list is longer than most business owners realize. A fresh set of eyes on an existing site isn’t always about redesign. Sometimes it’s simply about making sure what’s already there is actually working, and not quietly creating a liability.