How to Protect Your Work from Copyright Infringement

If your work appears on the Internet, you need to now how to protect it from theft.

I’ve written many articles about honoring other artists’ copyrights. Now here’s one from the other side of the table. What can you do to protect your work from copyright infringement if you craft for profit?

Since you’re reading The Artful Crafter – “All you need to know to craft for fun and profit” – you’re likely a small businessperson like Angelique or me and don’t have a team of lawyers at your beck and call.

Angelique wrote from Belgium to relate her Internet experience of having her content pirated by other sites. You can read her letter and my full response here, but the most important part of my advice follows.

Protecting Your Original Content on the Internet
There are things you can do to protect your original work.

1. Have a copyright statement on your website like we have at the bottom of every page of The Artful Crafter.

2. Put a copyright watermark on every photo like you can see on the Scrap Girls products here. Just click for an enlarged version of a product. You'll see “Scrap Girls” lightly embossed all across it. Legitimate customers can still see the product clearly but no one can steal the graphic design or photo and claim it as their own.

Come back tomorrow to read what to do once your work has been stolen.

Tags: Internet theft, copyright protection, copyright infringement, protect your work from theft, watermark protection, copyright statement