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 may be 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 image on your site.
Come back tomorrow to read what to do once your work has been stolen.
I've got a friend who is going through the trauma of having to defend her copyright. It's no fun. Anything you can do to make it less likely that someone pirates your materials is good.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Cyndi. I hope your friend is successful in her fight.
ReplyDelete