Knowledge Base: is my art safe on the internet?

Is my art safe on the internet?

Define safe? If your artwork is visible on the internet, at any size, at any resolution, someone can take a screen shot of it and steal it. If they don’t know how to steal it, they can search for ways on the internet. If they are really keen they can just take a photo of their screen or do a screen dump. And even a low res copy of an image can be copied by a painter or illustrator. Basically, if your art can be seen, it can be stolen. I hate to burst your bubble but it’s true.

So how do I stop people from stealing my art?

If you want a 100% guarantee that your work will not be stolen, the best thing to do is never ever exhibit it anywhere. Never hang it in a gallery (people have mobile phone cameras), never give one as a gift or have one printed in a book or magazine (people have scanners), and never put it on the internet. The drawback is that nobody knows who you are, and nobody sees your work.

Ok, so that’s a bit drastic… How do I make it difficult for people to steal my artwork?

• only provide low resolution previews of your work
• watermark your work
• using a clear GIF to trick would be thieves
• disable right clicking

Which of these does RedBubble do?

RedBubble only ever provides a low resolution preview of your work. It looks great on a computer screen but if you were to print one out, it would not be of a sellable quality, and enlarging it would only make the quality much worse.

Yes, someone could screen capture and save your artwork and pass it off as theirs on another website. Realistically, there is very very little anyone could do to stop this except deal with it on a case by case basis if and when it happens. And if it’s any consolation, they would not be able to produce quality prints from it to sell.

RedBubble also has the option for you to use a small or large watermarks on the larger preview of your work. This can be turned on in MyBubble >> Edit Your Profile >> Zoom View Watermark Preferences. There isn’t a watermark on the smaller image because we’ve found through analysis of data that it deters people from looking at and purchasing your work, because they are U.G.L.Y.

RedBubble is confident in these two measures to protect artwork online. All of the RedBubble team have work on display on redbubble.com – and we’re comfortable with these protective measures.

But… If you really really want to do something extra. You can also enable a transparent/clear “GIF.” What this means is that when someone tries to right click and save your work all they get is an empty file with no image. The downside to this is you will not be able to post your images in RedBubble forums or elsewhere around the site. If you want more exposure from your fellow artists, it’s best not to use this option.

Why Doesn’t RedBubble Disable Right Clicks?

Right clicking enables members to create image and text links on RedBubble. It is a good usability tool that allow people to link your work and give you exposure. Basically, we feel that to remove right clicking would cause more harm than good, especially since there are already other safety measures in place.
As Oscar Wilde said, ” The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about”. If you were Leonardo Da Vinci and everywhere you looked, you saw the Mona Lisa, would you think, “These peasants are stealing my painting!” Or would you think, “Now the Gioconda Smile stretches over the world”?