Copyright Law for Artists: Protecting Your Work in the Digital Age

Imagine you’re a hardworking digital artist who just finished a new piece after hours of wrestling with creative software, recurring art blocks, and dealing with the frustrating realization that one small line on your subject’s eyelash could be a touch straighter. You post it on your online store, pricing each print at $30. The next morning, you discover that an unknown internet user has created a new online storefront selling your design at a cheaper rate.

This situation is all too common in the digital age. Unlike physical spaces, which have much stronger, more tangible security measures, online spaces make it incredibly easy for someone to quickly and anonymously steal and disseminate your work. So, any artist who wishes to distribute their work online must ask two questions: (1) what legal protections do I have, and (2) how can I prevent or mitigate the consequences of such potential theft?

What is Copyright Law?

Under copyright law, if you create an original work—a book, movie, play, song, painting, photograph or blog post—you are the legal author with the exclusive right to profit from, modify, or reproduce the work. So, returning to our example, when you created a digital painting and posted it online, you exercised your right to distribute the artwork. If someone admires your work and wishes to use it, they must request a license from you to do so. You may grant them the license for a fee or allow them to use it free of charge.

Conversely, anyone who does not obtain your permission is committing copyright infringement. Unfortunately, holding random internet thieves liable for copyright infringement in the digital age is difficult because they can be anonymous and plentiful. Even if you could identify all of them, suing each one would be cost-prohibitive.

The “Notice-and-Takedown” System

Since it is difficult to track down the infringers and hold them accountable, you may be wondering if the website owner can be held liable for allowing the copyright infringement to take place on its platform. Fortunately, under federal law, online service providers must give original copyright holders a means of fighting back via a “Notice-and-Takedown” system.

Let’s go back to our example. If you navigate to the thief’s page on the website (let’s call it OStore), you should be able to notify OStore about the infringement. Your notification prompts OStore to remove the thief’s page and determine whether copyright infringement occurred. If OStore finds there was copyright infringement, then the thief’s page will not be restored.

However, the thief may challenge this takedown, and if successful, their page may be restored. However, even if OStore takes down this page, nothing stops that thief from creating a new page or an unmanageable number of other thieves from creating more pages. Some sites, such as YouTube, have implemented automated systems that track uses of copyrighted content; however, more sophisticated thieves can make their work untraceable. 

How Can I Protect My Work?

To keep your artwork safe online, it is essential that you take proactive steps to prevent its unauthorized use. Consider these practical strategies:

• Register your work: Register your work with the copyright office, which provides a public record of ownership. Although you automatically own the copyright of your original work, registration is necessary to file a lawsuit for infringement.

• Publish a lower-quality version: Post a less-desirable, modified version of your piece publicly, and only deliver the true version to purchasers. This can be accomplished by lowering the image’s resolution, keeping the image small, cropping the piece, adding your name and logo, using a watermark, incorporating a copyright notice (such as the copyright symbol (©), your name, and the year of creation), or any other means you wish without completely compromising your piece’s integrity.

• Use technical barriers: Take more technical measures, such as disabling the “right-click” function, hotlinking, and the ability to take screenshots, to make it harder for users to easily download your work from your website.

• Be selective where you post and read the fine print: If you’re using your own website, ensure your security measures are sound and updated, and specify through the “Terms of Use” what customers are allowed to do with your work. If you’re using another website, educate yourself about their policies by checking to see whether the site allows AI scraping (or other permitted third-party use per their “Terms of Use”) and reviewing the site’s Notice-and-Takedown process.

• Monitor the web: Regularly monitor the internet for infringement by conducting image searches, bookmarking sites where infringement is likely, and using services that notify you of potential infringement (such as YouTube’s ContentID system for video content).

• Create strong licensing terms: When drafting agreements with other parties who want to distribute your copyrighted work on the internet, be as specific as possible regarding how they may do so.

These measures, combined with existing legal protections, will ensure your art is as protected as possible in the digital age. The internet, while unwieldy and obtuse, is a necessary, powerful tool for artists trying to cultivate a wider audience and present their work to new buyers. By understanding your rights, strategically fighting infringement, and taking other preventative steps, you can protect your work online while still growing your audience.