Open Source Artwork: How to Get Over Your Fear of Digi-Theft

I just came from an art class discussing social media. I was shocked. These are third and forth year students at Emily Carr University and their view of the Internet and social media is that the Internet is out to get them, plagiarize, misrepresentation and predators.

Fear of digi-theft (as @dpringle phrased it) is not unfounded, but the reaction is not. Music companies squashed Napster but music piracy continues. You’re afraid your hard work will be stolen; fair enough.

Think about how you react. You can’t prevent images of yourself or your work from appearing on the Internet. Even the brown recluse is on the Internet- and hasn’t got a say in what pictures are here or not.

SO TAKE CONTROL

1. Lower Resolution Images- you can get a great quality image for a blog that won’t scale up to full size, so nobody will be selling prints of your work behind your back.

2. Watermarks – A good way to stymie lazy plagarists who don’t have photoshop, also good to direct traffic to your site when pictures are posted elsewhere. On the other hand, I think watermarks are ugly and I don’t use them. Here’s a 2 minute method to watermark photos using photoshop. You can also buy specialized watermarking software, but that’s a waste of money- if you’re in a buying mood, get photoshop.

3. Publicity- Be bigger than “them.” If I tried to pass off Eminem’s recordings as my own, you better believe I’d be called on it immediately and heavily mocked.  But if someone stole my second-grade poems, nobody would say anything, not even me! So if you’re the biggest player, the first google result, copycats will  be recognized as copycats. When big companies copy, it’s unnoticed by the general public because the company is the “biggest”- but if you were there first, time and date stamped, branding your work as your own, people will be less likely to “get away with” stealing your thunder.

4. Go Viral Is your work really worth copying? If it is than it deserves to be marketed and publicized. This could be all your own efforts, or you can allow it to take on a life of its own- in which case, people appropriating your ideas only serve to expand your popularity. Think “Mona Lisa”- it’s iconic because it’s EVERYWHERE- and nobody thinks that T-shirt vendor painted it himself, do we? Squashing your fans’ appreciation when they tweet or blog about it, is shooting yourself in the foot. What IF you go viral? Give yourself some credit!

5. Progress. If you’re always designing, always creating new work, always being your own avant-garde, copycats can’t keep up with your awesome. That’s why even when department stores are copying the trends, the runway shows are already onto newer and different.

6. Integrity. Most importantly, make sure that your own practices reflect your beliefs. Trent has a great policy on image use detailed here on The Simple Dollar. Give credit where credit is due, and treat others with respect.

8. Relax. If what you’re doing is important to you, drive towards it. Don’t let your fear of digi-theft prevent you from utilizing what can be a great tool for publicity and connection, and has launched the careers of many others, including my own. Don’t let your fear isolate you from the myriad possibilities of a strategic Internet presence.

The possibilities that open up to you when you open up your work to everybody are amazing. The open source concept is working for Zen Habits and you may find when you stop being suspicious of what you don’t know, that you’ll receive much more in return.