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PROTECTING YOUR WORK
Written by THOM BROMMERICH
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Let's say you just finished your best piece of art and you want the world to see it.
You want to post it to your website or favorite news group. The problem is you
don't want someone to steal it, change it or call it their own. What can you do?
Without doing anything you have taken the first step. The moment you finish
your new work it is automatically © Copyrighted. Adding the © symbol found
by using the "alt" key plus the "g" key with a Webtv, will give you the ©.
On a PC go to "start", Accessories, System Tools, Character Map, and copy
it and paste it where needed. It is usually done like this: © 2004 John Doe.
This procedure is like locking your door, it just keeps the honest people honest.
Anyone who isn't familiar with the law or just plain doesn't care can steal your
work. It probably would be just by chance that you would ever know. The image
above has a Java Script added to it that is seen by most browsers. This is added
in the
like this:
<![CDATA[<head>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="Javascript"><!--
var message="© 2003 THOM BROMMERICH. All rights reserved.";
function click(e)
{
if (document.all) {
if (event.button == 2) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}
if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=click;
// --></SCRIPT>
</head>]]>
A "pop-up" shows when a PC user "right clicks" on the image that gives a warning.
You can put any message you like in the pop-up. I like to keep it polite.
There are many other ways to protect your work as well. Embedded in the photo
above is a "watermark". A watermark is a code that is invisible to the eye but can
be read by a computer or software. This one was free with "Corel Photo Suite" and
is very basic. Mine just says "restricted" when I ask to show detect watermark.
If you are really serious about keeping people from stealing your work there are
other "watermark" programs that can actually embed something into your image.
That would be like adding a chip to your image that cannot be extracted, no matter
what the thief does. It also has another nice feature in that you can actually see
where it has been used. This program is not free but is fairly reasonable. A quick
search for Watermark will give you several sites to choose from.
It is beyond the scope of a short article to go into much real depth on the issue
of copyright and how to protect your work. Hopefully we have hit on something
that you can use.
Copyright is a very serious issue online. If you haven't created it, someone else
owns it and taking it for any use is against the law. In some cases it can be a
felony. Always ask permission to use anything you find. I have been generous,
as have many others, with sharing images for people to use as screen savers,
or for other uses, but I would be very upset if I came across one of my photographs
being used by anyone for any use I did not authorize.
There are many copyright sites out there. I would really sugest you at least get
familar with the basics.
THOM BROMMERICH
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