Guard your pixels

Found an article which provided me with a very interesting read today and which I thought deserves a much wider audience (not that my blog reaches the hundredth hit per day but anyway...). It mainly deals with an everyday threat for photographers, digital graphic designers and writers alike:

Well, everyone that submits his work on-line should be aware that someone else could easily download his submitted file and do something with it, without his permission. That’s a risk we all should accept living in this era of WorldWideWeb.

So, what can they do with your file?

1. Make a wonderful Power point show called “The best of 2006” or “Summer collection” or even “Pictures I ripped” and send it all over the globe, with no credit to you as the creator of the file. Usually this is not done with bad intentions, but it’s still is being dome with no permission.

2. Print a small print in a home printer and place it on the wall next to the computer. Again, no harm intended but it’s just like ripping an original CD to MP3. We all do it, but it’s illegal to do. Still ripping the artist.

3. Use the file as stock and place it inside an “Original” piece of manipulation. In a way that’s making your piece into theirs. It’s like buying a takeout, adding a bit of salt, and telling your date you are the cook.

4. Place the piece on a web page, just to make a blog or a personal page look nice, with no regards to the fact that this is someone’s art, and he has to give permission to use.

5. Submitting your file as someone else’s. No, that really sucks since it’s bold and clear theft. If the others can be considered as mistakes or non-intentional rips, this is trying to benefit from your work, as their own.

What can you do?

1. Place a watermark in your file. I would suggest a small one, don’t let it take over the image. Just so it would alert the rippers they can’t benefit from this piece. Place your watermark on a part of the picture that can’t be easily cloned out.

2. Try uploading a file with no EXIF data (if it’s a photograph). Having the original EXIF on your file would always be a proof that you have the original (if someone will be as stupid to say it’s his after ripping).

3. Put a small signature in the corner, but know that it can be cloned or cropped. Still, it’s better to have one than not.

4. Never upload the original High-res and never send it through mail. If you decide to sell the piece to someone, make sure you sell it as print, or you sign the buyer on a selling paper with the name of the piece (a little visual would be best , and make sure the file you sold is only a copy with no EXIF of the original.

5. Try to keep your files up to 900 pixels on the longer side. Lower the DPI of the file to 72 (you don’t need anything more since the computer screen can’t show more than that).

6. Be kind but don’t send wallpaper sizes of 1600 pixels to people that ask you to.. you are making yourselves very vulnerable.

Or else read the full original article.