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Email Anti-Theft: The Battle Against Copyright
Infringement
Email Anti-Theft: The Battle
Against Copyright Infringement
Imitation is not always the
highest form of flattery. Any creative individual
will cringe at seeing his or her work displayed with
another person's name in the credits. In the
fast-paced field of graphic art, design the dilemma
is even more prominent. Artists in all mediums are
seeing their work knocked-off by less talented
people.
Ideas are easy enough to
steal when the advertisement you designed is
circulated in an online publication, or when a
popular web site features the logo you spent hours
to perfect. While digital theft is most prevalent in
the recording and visual arts, it permeates all
creative realms. For writers, protecting words
published on web sites and in emails remains a
challenge.
Digital files and
Copyright law
Since its inception in 1790, the Copyright law has
undergone numerous amendments in order to adapt to
the changing technologies. With one goal in mind, to
protect the creator's original work, the law still
struggles to guard the efforts of writers,
photographers, graphic designers and other creative
individuals. The advent of the internet and
electronic mail has made protecting original
material from theft an even more daunting task. In
the digital world, stealing someone else's work is
as easy as hitting "file, save" or using that handy
right-click button on your mouse.
Though the Copyright law
legally protects an author's original work, internet
criminals still easily get away with theft of
original content. Over the years, solutions have
been innovated and adapted in order to provide
protection for creative professionals in the realms
of Internet and electronic mail.
Preventing unintended
content theft and distribution
Discouraging and disabling theft of original work is
vital for a writer's or a designer's success. In an
effort to put a stop to copyright infringement,
designers, writers and developers have devised
several ways to help protect their creative efforts.
Though some methods might be
industry specific, others can be layered for added
protection. Because the copyright law can be easily
ignored or bypassed, staying up to date on the
latest ways to ward off thieves can be vital not
only to your online presence, but also to your
career.
Watermarks offer basic
protection for visual art
Whether you are featuring graphics or photos on a
web site or sending images through email, the
potential for theft in such a situation is high.
Virtually any visitor has the ability to save your
artwork to his or her hard drive and distribute it
freely thereafter. Some creative professionals have
found watermarks to be a viable solution to prevent
pilfering of their work. A semi-transparent logo or
sign featuring the copyright holders' name or
business clearly marks the digital property as
his/her own.
This technique, though
fairly simple, can be rather effective in deterring
many pesky copy-cats (1). A graphic with a watermark
is virtually useless to a thief, making the theft
blatantly obvious. Watermarks, however, don't come
with a theft prevention guarantee. Those who possess
advanced image editing skills and some time on their
hands can succeed in removing or minimizing the
appearance of the watermark.
Digital watermarks: an
invisible layer of defense for writers
Due to the nature of written content and files,
authors of written work must look to more innovative
approaches at keeping their work protected for
copy-cats. Digital watermarks provide this sort of
invisible defense.
Printed documents often have
watermarks that are invisible at first glance, but
become detectable when the paper is held up to
light. Digital watermarks work in a similar fashion,
providing a more discrete alternative to
watermarking graphics and documents.
This type of watermarking is
especially useful for writers, since it is the only
way to add a watermarked layer of protection to word
documents (2). Some digital watermarking software
allows the creator to "fingerprint" their work,
which can track distribution of the secured files.
Preventing unauthorized
email distribution
There is a great demand for email communications for
creative professionals. Sending portfolios, artwork
samples and design ideas are common when working
with new and established clients. But by sending
your work without email anti-theft protection, you
are leaving it virtually defenseless to copyright
infringement.
Anti-theft software prevents
the recipient from altering and distributing content
beyond the original creator's intent. In addition to
disabling copy and edit functions, email anti-theft
software allows the author to set the expiration
time for a file, as well as disallow printing.
Writers can rest assured that the story sample sent
to a prospective publisher won't be forwarded to
another author. Graphic designers can send high
quality mock-ups to clients without the fear of
another contractor working off of the original
design.
An email anti-theft
application can provide piece of mind that your
artwork or written piece will be armed against theft
even when it leaves your computer. Conquering
unintended content distribution via email is winning
half the battle in the digital world; for writers it
is an essential solution to preventing thievery
since words cannot be easily marked like images.
With digital watermarks, email anti-theft provides
an added, dependable layer of protection.
Combined technologies for
ultimate protection
For writers, photographers and designers alike,
realizing the power of publishing their work on the
internet means getting added exposure and ultimately
attracting new clientele. Though copyright
protection legally exists, much of the time this law
is difficult to enforce in a highly interactive
medium like the Internet; a photographer's images
can be displayed on another site without him or her
ever finding out.
Taking advantage of
watermarking protection and email anti-theft
software can take the headache out of preventing
misuse and distribution of original content. So
create that watermark for your original photos,
employ digital watermarking technology to track
distribution of your files around the internet and
utilize email anti-theft software when sending
creative projects to potential and existing clients.
End Notes:
- For help on adding
watermarks to images in Adobe Photoshop, visit Sue
Chastain’s tutorial How to add a text watermark
over a photo in Photoshop 5.5 or higher:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/apswatermark.htm
- More information about
digital watermarking options can be found in Doug
Isenberg’s Digital Watermarks: New Tools for
Copyright Owners and Webmasters:
http://www.webreference.com/content/watermarks/
Mila Levkovsky
is part of the marketing team at
Essential Security Software (ESS), the leading
provider of email anti-theft software for small
business. ESS has developed a premier content
protection and user rights management solution that
enables small business owners and individuals to
securely distribute sensitive email messages and
documents while protecting the privacy of their
intellectual property. For more information please
visit
http://www.essentialsecurity.com.
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