This section covers various strategies for protecting your artwork ONLINE.
  • Plan to prevent theft
  • ​Digital watermarks for art 
  • How to find stolen content​

​Next you need to go to

How to avoid copyright infringement - PLAN to prevent theft

Preventing copyright infringement
can be achieved by:
  • Not putting your artwork online at all. This is the only guaranteed way which you can prevent copyright infringement online
  • Post a very clear copyright notice - it's not going to stop theft but it will help you get it sorted out
  • Put your blog on a short feed - limiting the amount of content which can be scraped and put on other sites considerably reduces the problem of theft. This is what I do and have done for years after my blog was scraped mercilessly in the early years. Short content means no content to hang adverts on but it also means you have to write a killer opening paragraph to get people to read the rest!
  • disable right click - this means
  • tell people that the artwork they buy is a high resolution version of what they see - some people use a sample of a small cropped area to illustrate the difference
  • Use a digital watermark - mainly used for images which people want to protect
  • Use a digital fingerprint in your feed - this helps identify places which have scraped your content. 
REFERENCE:
Other Contents:
The Copyright Zone: A Legal Guide For Photographers and Artists In The Digital Age
by Edward C. Greenberg J.D and Jack Reznicki ​
RECOMMENDED: An accessible guide to copyright (for the American marketplace). It's targeted at photographers, illustrators, artists who need to understand why and how images need to be protected and what their rights are - within the context of digital images and the internet.
Easy to digest content covers:
  • what is and isn't copyrightable
  • copyright registration
  • fair use
  • model releases
  • contracts and invoices
  • pricing and negotiation
and a lot more! Plus it's accessible and easy to understand.
The authors are American and hence much of the content related to law has an American bias. They also write a blog called The Copyright Zone - described as a survival blog for photographers, artists and the confused! Greenberg is a commercial litigator based in New York. Reznicki is an experienced and commercial people and children photographer.
Paperback: 352 pages
Published by Focal Press in 2015

UK: Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars by 42 customer reviews 

BUY THIS BOOK
USA: Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars by 45 customer reviews 

BUY THIS BOOK

Watermarks for Artists

What are watermarks for art?

Watermarks are traditionally used to discourage cheating and counterfeiting.  Thus a  watermark on an art paper signifies that it is actually made by a particular manufacturer.
An image or mark in a sheet of paper (usually the papermaker's trademark) visible when viewed by transmitted light
Tate
Digital watermarks are the online equivalent. However digital watermarks can either be:
  • overt - and can be viewed online
  • covert - and are embedded in the digital data associated with the image
The problem with digital watermarks is that the science and technology can change as this whole area of knowledge becomes more sophisticated both in terms of those trying to create protection and those trying to circumvent it
REFERENCE:
  • Watermark | Wikipedia - A watermark is an identifying image or pattern (this article relates to physical watermarks on paper)
  • Digital watermarking | Wikipedia - A digital watermark is a kind of marker...embedded in... audio, video or image data. It is typically used to identify ownership of the copyright

Digital watermarking can provide a range of solutions for identifying, securing, managing and tracking digital images, audio, video, and printed materials.
Glossary | Digital Watermarking Alliance
The issues for a lot of artists are:
  • whether or not to go to the bother of digitally watermarking their art - in terms of the expense and effort involved and the need to keep up with technology changes if software is involved.
  • whether using a visible copyright watermark deters people from buying art because it makes it look unattractive 
There is considerable debate about digital watermarking within the art community. The reference section has some of the numerous articles about this.

However an alternative is that you can digitally watermark your art using software in a way which is invisible. This is an approach which is not infrequently used by those who can afford to do so. (It's not cheap).
REFERENCE:

How to watermark your art

You can watermark your art in a variety of ways. These are explained in this section - with references to useful websites. I'm not recommending one method of another. The perfect solution will be customised for an artist's requirements and budget and what will suit one might not suit another. Avoid those who tell you that "you must have...." - because you don't.
You can digitally watermark your art using software. This enables you to:
  • develop customised digital watermarks
  • cope with the need to watermark large quantities of images - rather than each one (one by one)
REFERENCE

How to find stolen content

Practical Things You Can Do:
REFERENCE: 

    COPYRIGHT ALERT!
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Note: I'm not a lawyer and you should not rely on any assertions I make as legal advice. I'm just an ordinary artist and writer who is trying to make sense of copyright in relation to visual art - and what artists can do if their copyright is infringed and/or others act in such a way as to create orphan works from their copyright protected artwork. These pages organises links to what seem to me to be relevant websites. If you need the help of a lawyer you should engage a professional.