I somewhat agree that putting the copyright info across the entire image in bands is probably the best way to stop image thieves, but even that's not foolproof (you've probably all run into images from Alamy showing that method). If you have the time and patience, you can manually do a pretty good job of getting rid of the copyright banners. Even though I don't want my images used elsewhere, I don't like ruining the image with copyright info on it.
It's too easy to just do a screen capture with the Prt Scr key on every keyboard, then paste it into any image editing software, edit away the copyright info, save it, and you've bypassed any and all safeguards. There's really nothing Dave can do to stop that.
