Imitation is not always the highest form of flattery. Any creative individual will cringe at seeing his or her work displayed with another person's name in the credits. In the fast-paced field of graphic art, design the dilemma is even more prominent. Artists in all mediums are seeing their work knocked-off by less talented people.

Ideas are easy enough to steal when the advertisement you designed is circulated in an online publication, or when a popular web site features the logo you spent hours to perfect. While digital theft is most prevalent in the recording and visual arts, it permeates all creative realms. For writers, protecting words published on web sites and in emails remains a challenge.

Digital files and Copyright law

Since its inception in 1790, the Copyright law has undergone numerous amendments in order to adapt to the changing technologies. With one goal in mind, to protect the creator's original work, the law still struggles to guard the efforts of writers, photographers, graphic designers and other creative individuals. The advent of the internet and electronic mail has made protecting original material from theft an even more daunting task. In the digital world, stealing someone else's work is as easy as hitting "file, save" or using that handy right-click button on your mouse.

Though the Copyright law legally protects an author's original work, internet criminals still easily get away with theft of original content. Over the years, solutions have been innovated and adapted in order to provide protection for creative professionals in the realms of Internet and electronic mail.

Preventing unintended content theft and distribution

Discouraging and disabling theft of original work is vital for a writer's or a designer's success. In an effort to put a stop to copyright infringement, designers, writers and developers have devised several ways to help protect their creative efforts.

Though some methods might be industry specific, others can be layered for added protection. Because the copyright law can be easily ignored or bypassed, staying up to date on the latest ways to ward off thieves can be vital not only to your online presence, but also to your career.

Watermarks offer basic protection for visual art

Whether you are featuring graphics or photos on a web site or sending images through email, the potential for theft in such a situation is high. Virtually any visitor has the ability to save your artwork to his or her hard drive and distribute it freely thereafter. Some creative professionals have found watermarks to be a viable solution to prevent pilfering of their work. A semi-transparent logo or sign featuring the copyright holders' name or business clearly marks the digital property as his/her own.

This technique, though fairly simple, can be rather effective in deterring many pesky copy-cats (1). A graphic with a watermark is virtually useless to a thief, making the theft blatantly obvious. Watermarks, however, don't come with a theft prevention guarantee. Those who possess advanced image editing skills and some time on their hands can succeed in removing or minimizing the appearance of the watermark.

Digital watermarks: an invisible layer of defense for writers

Due to the nature of written content and files, authors of written work must look to more innovative approaches at keeping their work protected for copy-cats. Digital watermarks provide this sort of invisible defense.

Printed documents often have watermarks that are invisible at first glance, but become detectable when the paper is held up to light. Digital watermarks work in a similar fashion, providing a more discrete alternative to watermarking graphics and documents.

This type of watermarking is especially useful for writers, since it is the only way to add a watermarked layer of protection to word documents (2). Some digital watermarking software allows the creator to "fingerprint" their work, which can track distribution of the secured files.

Preventing unauthorized email distribution

There is a great demand for email communications for creative professionals. Sending portfolios, artwork samples and design ideas are common when working with new and established clients. But by sending your work without email anti-theft protection, you are leaving it virtually defenseless to copyright infringement.

Anti-theft software prevents the recipient from altering and distributing content beyond the original creator's intent. In addition to disabling copy and edit functions, email anti-theft software allows the author to set the expiration time for a file, as well as disallow printing. Writers can rest assured that the story sample sent to a prospective publisher won't be forwarded to another author. Graphic designers can send high quality mock-ups to clients without the fear of another contractor working off of the original design.

An email anti-theft application can provide piece of mind that your artwork or written piece will be armed against theft even when it leaves your computer. Conquering unintended content distribution via email is winning half the battle in the digital world; for writers it is an essential solution to preventing thievery since words cannot be easily marked like images. With digital watermarks, email anti-theft provides an added, dependable layer of protection.

Combined technologies for ultimate protection

For writers, photographers and designers alike, realizing the power of publishing their work on the internet means getting added exposure and ultimately attracting new clientele. Though copyright protection legally exists, much of the time this law is difficult to enforce in a highly interactive medium like the Internet; a photographer's images can be displayed on another site without him or her ever finding out.

Taking advantage of watermarking protection and email anti-theft software can take the headache out of preventing misuse and distribution of original content. So create that watermark for your original photos, employ digital watermarking technology to track distribution of your files around the internet and utilize email anti-theft software when sending creative projects to potential and existing clients.


End Notes:
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1.) For help on adding watermarks to images in Adobe Photoshop, visit Sue Chastain's tutorial How to add a text watermark over a photo in Photoshop 5.5 or higher: http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/apswatermark.htm
2.) More information about digital watermarking options can be found in Doug Isenberg's Digital Watermarks: New Tools for Copyright Owners and Webmasters: http://www.webreference.com/content/watermarks/


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mila Levkovsky is part of the marketing team at Essential Security Software (ESS), the leading provider of email anti-theft software for small business. ESS has developed a premier content protection and user rights management solution that enables small business owners and individuals to securely distribute sensitive email messages.