Protect your images online so you can use
Pinterest worry free
Pinterest seems to be the social network
made for visual artists. It’s all about the image. But some artists have been
afraid to share their work there or allow anyone else to do so. This week I’ll
list some ways that artists can protect their work online. Next week’s article will
show some creative ways artists can use Pinterest to market their work.
Here is a list of things artists can do to
protect their work and get it in front of as many people as possible.
Make
it small. First any image of your work that you
have online should be a low resolution file, no more than 72 dpi. This means it
will be too small for anyone to replicate as a print.
Use
watermarks. Put a watermark of your name and
contact info, like your web address, on the image so people can’t use it and
always know who to contact for permission and a higher quality file. Be careful
to not obscure the image so much that people can’t view it well enough to know
if they would buy it.
Be
metadata smart. Metadata is data about data. Photo
metadata is the data embedded in a photo file. The information stored in the
file can include your name, copyright, contact information, etc. Learn more
about this from PhotoMetaData.org.
You can learn how to use this effectively on the Metadata 101 page.
Don’t
allow lifting. If you really don’t want to share
your images you can disable the right-click function on your website. But if
you do all of the above I don’t think you have worry. The more people that
share your work the more your name gets out there.
Monitor
your images online. Learn where your images are
going and make sure that you are being credited. You can do this with a reverse
image search. This search is done with image recognition technology and not with
keywords, watermarks, or metadata. Go to Google Image search
and click on the little camera icon in the search box. From there you can add
the image URL or upload the image you want to search. If you use Google Chrome
you can right-click on any image to do a search. You can also use TinEye, an innovator of this technology.
TinEye also has plug-ins for all the popular browsers.
And if that wasn’t enough here’s more on
copyright and some of what I mention above from Carolyn E. Wright, a/k/a the
Photo Attorney® in her article:
Next week I’ll share some ideas on how
artists can best utilize Pinterest to market their work.
For more information on what I do, please
check out my New
World Creative Union profile.
Great tips here. Having Google Image search available has given visual artists an excellent tool to check for infringement. Out tattoo artists have used this effectively to locate instances of misrepresentation and out-right theft, and to have such sites shut down, and knock-off artists exposed.
ReplyDeleteThank you Steve! Good to hear that the tools are making a difference to artists.
ReplyDelete