So recently I got an email from a customer who said “Hey, I see your artwork is on puzzles on this site. I hope you knew.”
Well no I didn’t.
What to do … what to do…
Sigh …
So I contact my licensing agent and asked if he wanted to send them a bill for use of my images. And he was all “Hell yeah.”
Okay … that’s paraphrasing on my part … just a little.
Or maybe a lot.
One of those.
But it got me to thinking about how often this happens. Folks using my work thinking it’s free for the taking. And though I have held off doing this it is finally time to watermark all my images on my website. Currently I’m about half way through.
I Probably should have caved years ago but the artist in me wants the images to look nice. You know because people are more apt to buy them if they can see them without a big ol’ watermark across the face. But after much internal dialogue which I will spare you (you’re welcome) I decided to deface my art in order to protect it.
At any rate I don’t expect anything to come of the bill sent to the infringing puzzle company. But it makes me smile a small devious smile to think it may have given them pause.
Even if only for a moment.
Disgusting Mona that there is such a lack of respect and proper etiquette for an artists work on the market today. Great thing about the internet, we all get to enjoy art work from talented artists all over the world The worst thing about the internet, is people freely confiscate hard work of others and call it their own and with no regrets for taking what’s not theirs. It seems to get worse by the day and what is it that people say, well if you put it on the internet then you should expect it to happen. Really? Those aren’t my expectations. Another artist that blogs on wordpress just went through the exhausting process of copywriting every piece.
I’ve been mulling over wondering if I should start doing this? The sooner I get into the practice, the easier it will be to carry forward I suppose.
Sorry to read that this has happened.
Reblogged this on Oil Pastels by Mary and commented:
All too often we read of artists finding their art work on the market, where someone else has copied their work and are making a profit off of it. This has recently happened to Mona, a fabulous Mid-West artist ~ It’s a pretty sad commentary on our society today. Why bother to post your work on the internet – it’s pretty simple for some, it is how they earn a living. Posting a warning all over one’s blog doesn’t matter in the least, these folks totally ignore it and could care less.
Question: are you doing anything to protect your art? Are you concerned that what happened to Mona could happen to your work?
I’ve only recently started the process of legally copyrighting my paintings, and I guess will now begin to watermark the pieces as well. I have had spiked viewing activity every once in a while, where 400 views are clocked in a day – unusual and highly likely that something is going on and it’s not that that many folks are just loving my work.
Every day I lose a little bit more confidence in basic human values and morals. Are we at a point in society where it’s too late to turn back?
I arrived at the same conclusion with my photography. I actually saw a print of one my photographs hanging in an office. The first thing I noticed after applying the watermarks is that traffic to my website dropped dramatically. Lesson learned, but the visitors now are not looking to steal anything.
I bet you have far more issues infringement with photography. On top of the usual suspects you got painters and such looking to use your photos for reference. I belong to a copyright infringment group and the photographers take a beating. Glad to know you think watermarking helped.
The painters issue is a good point. It’s all become too much business and a lot less fun….but, still fun š
A sorry commentary indeed. Leaves me wondering how does one go about watermarking their work…. The need to do it saddens me.
There is a lot of free software out there for watermarking but I just use the text tool in Adobe photoshop. I like it because I can custom create my text, move it anywhere I want on the image, and change the size, color and opacity to suit me. When done I flatten the image and save it to jpg. If you have any questions about doing it this way feel free to ask me.
Thank you!
sic em mona!
š I doubt anything will come of it because legal action takes money and more importantly time. But you never know.
Yes, copyrighting is the way to protect your work. I think the practice of pirating music that started long ago, denying the proper payments to composers, spread across the board into art and anything else they could copy without paying. Do you have an internet address that sells your paintings?
Thank you for asking. http://wildfacesgallery.com/ is my business website. I also have a zazzle store ( http://www.zazzle.com/wildfacesgallery ) and etsy shop ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/WildFacesGallery?ref=si_shop ) but they are just small extensions of my artist website.
Thank you so much Mary. Honestly though truly annoyed it has happened over and over in the past few years and doesn’t surprise me anymore.
What a shame to see the watermark on your art. I just can’t bring myself to do the watermark thing. If someone really wants your art, it is relatively easy to take this into Photoshop and get rid of the watermark. It’s not that hard to do. But I understand where you’re coming from. A lot of ourselves goes into our art. It is uniquely ours.
You are correct. I’m a giclee printer so I use photoshop professionally. And yes it can be removed, though easy is open to interpretation. Most infringers have no desire to spend the time it would take to fix this. That being said there are programs where you can insert copyright into the code as well but of course there is always someone who can remove it. The point of this effort for me is to make it less desirable. I mean there are chinese factories who will recreate the art stroke for stroke so watermarking has no effect. However, I am certain that the aforementioned puzzle company would not have stolen my images had they been watermarked. There is easier art out there for them.
I had not heard of the Chinese factories you talk about. Wow. I just hate this kind of thing.
I wanted to add that I understand your desire not deface your work as well. There’s a reason it’s taken me years and years to do it.
I wish somehow the right click button could be disabled on images. That would help a lot!
[…] Let The Great Watermarking Begin. […]
Reposted this on my blog, but don’t think I did it correctly.
Thank you.
[…] read Mona’s post about artist’s hard work being […]
Hi Mona, found you through Mary. It is a shame. I hope you get this people to stop or at least pay you royalties. Copyrighting our work is one of the many ways we can protect our rights; however, it doesn’t stop people from stealing. We do what we can and hope for the best. By the way, you have a wonderful collection of art. Very talented!
thanks to kind mary, i am here, and i am so sorry that you’ve been ‘right=clicked’ and had your images stolen. it’s so frustrating!
you might enjoy reading a post i made earlier about the same frustrations.
lisa/z
Good article, and a shift in opinion that I’m seeing more and more. I also resisted it for awhile, but too many people were using my art for ads, etc. The mark may not stop all infringements, but it stops most, and that means more time to create new art, and less distracting aggravation.
I’m with you all the way, Mona … been doing it myself on anything social-network-ish … even on 500px. That way, even if they swipe something of mine, it’ll have my website address right on it … anyone coming across the image with an interest to either seeing it watermark-free (more or less) … or purchasing … will know right where to go. Yes. Let the Great Watermarking Begin, indeed!!!
I too thought having the website address included a nice way for folks to track back.
I saw this at Mary’s blog, so sad, they can make a screen saver shot too, it is really not save with out the watermark, I never put watermarks on my stuff to lazy and is true it does not as good but you have too, hope you fix the problem.