People are often concerned with online art theft and it's usually one the main reason artists are nervous about posting their artwork online: "What if someone steals my work and claims it as their own?" Worse still, "What if they sell it and make money from my work?" Whether it’s for profit or not is beside the point; our hard work and creativity means a lot to all of us, and to have someone simply save our image and post it as their own work often feels like a slap in the face.

deviantART is a big place, and with nearly 45 million deviations (at the time this news article was posted), it’s an easy target for art theft. Often, you won’t know your work is stolen, and if you do it's often too late; sometimes still, there's little you can do about having it removed from the grips of whoever stole it. While it is your right to demand protection for your work and websites to remove illegally displayed art work, it’s also important to note that you have a responsibility to do your best to protect your work too; and that’s what I’d like to talk about today – some simple ways you can protect your work and prevent online art theft.

deviantART copyright watermark!

deviantART have added a great new watermark feature to the latest submission process, and really, for a serious artist there is no reason for you not to take advantage of this. Those of you who already use this funtion, feel free to comment below about the feedback you’ve had about it! For the rest of you, we all know that no one really enjoys placing large copyright signs over their work, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s the best safeguard you have against unwanted theft.

Sign your work..

If for any reason, you chose not to use the built in watermark feature deviantART now have on offer for you, then the next best thing you can do is watermark or sign your work through the use of software such as Photoshop or GIMP. If you already do post processing with your art work in one of these programs, then there is little reason to not take the extra step of adding a signature, or your own faded and well placed watermark or copyright sign.

Digital Watermarking..

If you’ve got the money and you’re not so keen on the idea of placing watermark or copyright images over your work, then digital watermarking might be right up your alley! Digimarc is one such program which allows users to embed into audio, images, video and printed documents an invisible digital code that is only readable by computers and software. This program for instance "provides security in multiple layers – digital watermarks, image linking and tracking, online backup, and visual watermarking. Working with major photo-editing tools like Adobe Photoshop, MyPictureMarc guards your collection from unlicensed use, on-location mishaps, or system errors back in the studio."

Reduce the size of your work..

One thing that makes work an easy target for art theft is the size of the work you post. The bigger it is and the better the quality of the image, the more attractive it is for stealing and using somewhere else illegally. In regards to size, I’d like to point out two optsions:

Firstly, deviantART now allow you to chose what size you want your work to be displayed, and whether or not you’d like to make it available for download (that means, you can post a large image, but set it to display at a smaller size, and should someone want to see it at full size, they can “download” it). This is a great solution for work such as wallpapers or stock images that are meant to be saved and used for free by others, but if your work is not for free use by anyone and everyone, then just don’t tick the download box, and simply select an more appropriate size for your work to be displayed at so it’s not big enough to steal and then use or sell.

Secondly, you could reduce the DPI of your image (using the previously mentioned Photoshop or GIMP software), which will in turn make your image less attractive to steal because the image won’t be good enough quality to enlarge or print. For the purposes of display on websites such as deviantART, a lower printing resolution (say 72 DPI), will still mean your work looks great on most monitors, but for the purposes of art theft and printing, it’s not worth the effort of the thief (printing quality is generally around ~300 DPI).

Community minded reporting!

It’s certainly a hot topic, and probably always will be, but I’d encourage anyone taking their art seriously to consider protecting you work in some way. There will always be the minority of people out there looking to do things the easy way and take advantage of others, so do your best to protect your own work and make it harder for them to steal.

The last thing I’d like to encourage you all to do is report any work you see displayed on deviantART which you believe is stolen. Under each deviation is the ”Report Policy Violation” button, and you should never be afraid to use it!

Cheers,
Cath