The internet can help you display your artwork to a massive audience. Doing so also increases the risk of infringement of your copyright. If you decide the benefits outweigh the risks, why not deter infringers by using some of the following tips?
Tip 1: Visible watermarking
Adding a visible watermark to your images before uploading them to the internet can take as little as two minutes. Such a watermark will impede an infringer from using your image without your authorisation. Attempting to remove a watermark will cost an infringer time and in many instances reduce image quality.
Before adding a watermark to your image, make a copy of your original image to avoid altering the original. Using an image editing program such as Photoshop, Photo-Paint, PaintShop or a free program, you will be able to add a semi-transparent watermark to your image which can be as simple as the © symbol.1 Try to display your watermark as prominently as possible and, if appropriate, display it over a central part of your work. If you have a lot of images you want to protect, you may want to 'batch process' your images which enables you to apply watermarks to many images at the same time.2
Tip 2: Metadata
You can add invisible information (metadata) to your photos and artworks online. The simplest way to do this is to right-click (or control-click using Mac) the file location of your image without actually opening your image. Choose 'Properties.' Then, click on the 'Summary' tab. You can add information such as your name, your contact details, the date you created the image and that the image is copyrighted. Finally, select 'Apply' or 'Okay.' While this does not protect the file from being copied, it can help you to identify future unauthorised copies. Such invisible information provides contact details for those who want to contact you for permission to legally use your work.
Additionally, programs are available to help you add what is known as a 'digital watermark.' Many of these programs will enable you to embed information into your image that is generally undetectable to unauthorised users.3 These digital watermarks will enable you to search for and detect unauthorised copies of your images.
Tip 3: Low-resolution images
Another simple way to protect your images is to only post low-quality versions on the internet. While it may be true that no version of your art is aesthetically low quality, in computer terms, an image is considered 'low quality' or 'low resolution' if it has less than 80 dots per inch.
Tip 4: Disable 'right clicking'
Many of the images you see on the internet can be copied quickly and easily by 'right-clicking' (or control-clicking) on the image. To make it harder to steal an image, disable such clicking by adding the following line of code to your website:
<body oncontextmenu="alert('Copyrighted'); return false;"> .
Tip 5: Providing contact details & purchasing information
You can assist people to get in touch with you by accompanying your image with your name, your contact details and information about how to purchase or license your image. You may want to also add this information to your watermark (see Tip 1).
Tip 6: How to protect sold and licensed copies
You may want to repeat visible watermarking, adding invisible information and providing contact details and purchasing information for each image copy that you sell or license. This time, also note to whom your image has been sold or licensed.
With the peace of mind you will gain by protecting your artwork online, you can get back to something you truly enjoy, like creating art.
James Heller was a daytime volunteer at Arts Law, a student of arts at NIDA and a student of law at Sydney University.
Footnotes
1 Many free image editing programs can be found on the internet. You could try finding one at www.download.com. Search this site for ‘image editing.’ Narrow your search results using the ‘Free’ button on the left of the screen.
2 To find out more about batch processing see http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/batchwatermarking/Batch_Watermarking_for_Copyright_Protection_and_Image_Identification.htm.
3 One program, Digimarc, which will help you add a digital watermark to your image is available at www.digimarc.com.