For many creatives, the biggest fear is the prospect of having their work stolen or plagiarized. It’s sometimes harder to quantify the value of a creative piece, which means that the need to protect its integrity online can feel much more urgent. If you’re worried about your work being stolen, copied, or lost in the ether, then here are few ways to protect your creative work.
Back-up
It may sound disarmingly simple, but it is so important to back-up your work. The creative world is full of serial procrastinators, which can mean that backing-up your work gets left to the last minute, or until it’s too late. Every week, remind yourself to back-up your work onto a hard-drive or cloud software – that way, you won’t have the heartbreak of worrying that work hard work has been lost forever.
Keep a log
If you work in large, complex projects on a regular basis, it might be a good idea to regularly log your work and who you worked with. Keeping a spreadsheet that details the nature of the project, which helps you track your agreements and any fees that are owed.
Copyright
Unless you have explicitly told a company or person that they legally own the rights to your work, then you fundamentally own the copyright to your own work. This is crucial when it comes to providing creative work for other companies and those who are seeking to benefit off of your creativity.
Cloud protection
When you create pieces of work, you should of course ensure that it is backed up on the cloud. This, however, is not where your security should end. You should then ensure that you have cybersecurity to protect online hackers from accessing your work. Data protection specialists, as can be found at www.mcafee.com, will put a digital blockage between your work and any online criminals.
Copyright registration
While some people are free and easy about how their material is used, others would prefer some form of consultation of licensing before their work is distributed publically. Copyright registration allows you to police the use of your work and charge for its usage. This can give you a sense of justice if you feel as if your creativity may be used without your permission on a regular basis.
Terms and conditions
As mentioned above, there are a number of legal strategies to ensure that you are owed the money and right you are entitled to with any work you create. One way of solidifying any form of agreement with a customer or client is to explicitly detail your terms and conditions. This way, there is no misunderstanding on what you are both entitled to.
Creatives often worry that their work has no legal value, or at the worst, no monetary value. However, this is not entirely correct, and you are granted more legal support than you realize. However, as well as the financial and legal aspect, you must make sure your work is retrievable. Always back your work up and implement virus and security protection when possible.
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