Protecting Your Art: Copyrights

Your art is a personal investment of fourth dimension, money, and endeavour. Moreover, it is your intellectual property. Protect your property, protect your copyright.

For the fine art world, the internet is a lot like the American frontier: full of opportunity and promise – but also a place to exist wary. Today, with simply a few clicks, you tin can share your art with a worldwide audience, meet and learn new collectors and fans, enhance coin for your art projects, and make life-long friends. Nonetheless, along with this convenience comes a whole new moving ridge of dangers and drawbacks, sometimes leaving artists exposed and vulnerable.

For many artists out in that location, the largest looming nightmare iscopyright infringement.Art is your craft and your livelihood, and information technology is a personal investment of your fourth dimension, coin, effort, and soul. Moreover, it is your intellectual property . Protecting your art needs to exist a priority. There are a number of ways to aid you lot do this, and we've laid them out for you lot in a quick, simple guide.

Did You Know? If someone clicks a flick of your art and posts information technology on the internet without crediting you, it qualifies as an act of copyright infringement.

Protecting Your Art Against Copyright Infringement

"Intellectual property is a property right that can exist protected under federal and land law, including copyrightable works, ideas, discoveries, and inventions. The term intellectual belongings relates to intangible property such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets." – US Legal

"Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this championship, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they tin can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the assist of a motorcar or device."  – Usa Copyright Office

In layman's terms, intellectual property is your right to protect your original work while a copyright is established when an original work is created tangibly (not just conceptually). However, unregistered work can oft be difficult to evidence as your own, which is why it is important to go along digital or physical records. If you ever need to take a case to courtroom, think about how well you lot tin can demonstrate that you are the creator of the artwork in question.

So, legally, how can you lot protect your fine art from copyright infringement?

Always Sign Your Name On Your Work

This is the first step in protecting your art confronting copyright violation. Adapt the addiction of signing all your works, preferably with the year of completion.

Antelope Canyon iii | Acrylic on Sail | Jerry Anderson

You must always sign your artwork once it is finished. You could do it discreetly in a corner, or make you signature a part of the artwork, like Jerry Anderson does. You lot can also sign the back of the artwork.

Annals Your Work

If yous're a U.S. creative person, it is recommended that you officially annals your artwork with the Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress. Even though a copyright is automatically in place at the moment of cosmos, registering the work ensures you have sufficient proof that the work is yours. It also enables y'all to need more money in the event of a copyright infringement arrange. Hither's how the registration process works in the United States:

  • Go to the Library of Congress website and click on the electronic Copyright Function (eCO). Make full out the registration form and pay the required fee.
  • One time the registrar'southward role examines your awarding, they will transport yous an official certificate of registration. This serves as documented evidence of your copyright, which will also be filed online as a matter of public tape.

We recommend that y'all check your country's Copyright laws after reading this commodity. Although Intellectual Belongings laws are similar throughout, there might be some nuances and differences that you should know about.

Keep Digital Records Of Your Work

A picture is worth a g words – particularly if someone is challenge that your work is their own. Having a digital library of your artwork volition save you lot a lot of hassle in the event of copyright infringement, every bit you tin present this record in courtroom. The great thing about photographs is that their metadata often stores the date that the pictures were taken. We have a guide for taking bully photographs of your artwork, only a professional photographer can as well be used to ensure that 2 people have evidence to back up whatsoever copyright infringement cases.

Related Article: Documenting The Auction Of Your Artwork

Recognize The Risks

Yous create a lot of art, and then information technology'south of import to focus your fine art copyright protection efforts where information technology'south going to count. For instance, if you produce art that'south more abstract or conceptual (and thus more than difficult to reproduce), then your risk of copyright infringement will be substantially lower. Even so, if y'all have pieces that comprise creatures or characters that could conceivably exist borrowed or replicated, or if yous create images that are very iconic or have loftier mass market appeal, then yous should always protect them using the steps outlined above.

Now, those above are all great safeguards that will set up you lot well if y'all ever demand to file a claim against a copyright infringement. However, in that location are several easy practices to prevent the theft of your images.

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Protecting Your Fine art On Your Website

There's no doubt that posting your work online can be risky. At the same time, in this increasingly digital fine art world, online exposure is often disquisitional to an artist's success. While nothing is foolproof, in that location are some measures you lot can take to help protect your fine art on the web.

Convert Your Images to Flash

Before posting them online, y'all may wish to catechumen your images into a flash slideshow. This makes information technology impossible for those on the web to only copy and paste the image. You tin can do this past downloading special slideshow converters or consulting a web design professional.

Only Publish Small, Low-Resolution Images

A pocket-size, low-resolution image merely isn't worth stealing for virtually people. However, earlier you run off to resize all of your images to thumbnails, make sure y'alldo not save them over your high-res images. In one case you save an image equally small and low-res, you cannot get that file to ever be high resolution again. For all you agree beloved, save the web-ready version as asplit file.

Windows or Mac, you lot can use near any image-editing software to resize images. From Photoshop to Paint, the process is universally pretty similar. Yous'll usually discover the "Resize" option under the "Edit" toolbar. Converting to lower resolution can be a piddling trickier.

Consider Calculation Watermarks To Your Images

A watermark is a logo or name that is placed on top of an image. Watermarks credit you every bit the artist of your image and information technology is very difficult for anyone to remove/alter this.

The ane most used is the copyright detect, best known equally the C symbol (©), plus the year the work was published, or the abbreviation Copr. You should also include the yr of completion too as your name into this watermark. It should await something like –

art copyright
This curated infinite image was featured on our Facebook Page, and in order to protect the image digitally created by us also the painting of our artist, Corinne Garese, we could place a watermark to announce authorship.

Protecting Your Art On Social Media

While it'south possible for y'all to keep track of the number of people visiting and viewing your works on your site (and there are some good measures to protect them from being copied), once yous add your images to social media there is admittedly no knowing where they will finish upward. Nonetheless, fugitive social media altogether tin can be a serious disadvantage too. And then, how practise you protect your image? Here are some tips!

Read The Terms And Conditions

Do y'all promote your artwork on Instagram? How well-nigh other social media websites? Recently, artist Richard Prince sold a series of other peoples' Instagram photographs and made out with around $100,000. Though this seems like an outright copyright infringement, the issue is actually in a legal gray-area. One thing we know for certain – these images would have been protected if they had been registered federally with a copyright. Whenever you lot are posting your artwork to other platforms, be sure to read the terms and conditions to determine what fine art copyright protection your art has there.

Useful Commodity: How To Promote Your Fine art On Instagram

Always Add together A Watermark To Your Epitome

Just similar on your website, a watermark is one of the all-time tools to protect your art across social media. Not only does a watermark apparently tells the viewer that your piece of work is protected by copyright, information technology volition too help in a court example, as the other artist won't exist able to say his or her use of your work was "innocent infringement" (pregnant information technology was copied unknowingly).

Identify your watermark conspicuously beyond the image. Don't only stick information technology on the edge – you lot don't want anyone cropping the watermark out.

Information technology'south increasingly important, especially in our digital age, to protect your artwork from copyright infringement. Hopefully, these safeguards and practices volition ensure that your intellectual property remains your own.

With over 30 years of experience representing artists from around the world, Agora Gallery offers artists the opportunity to nowadays their work to a broad range of national and international art collectors and buyers. Looking for an opportunity to raise your career? Visit our Gallery Representation And Artist Promotion page for more than information.

If you have any questions, allow us know in the comments or email us at blogs@agora-gallery.com!