As a designer, showing your previous work to the public and getting it seen by many people is paramount to success. It helps inspire others as well as attract new clients easier. You can upload your designs on your WordPress website and share them with people around the world.
However, the Internet can also come as a double-edged sword. There is a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism. When you have your work available on the web, ill-intentioned users might copy and use it as their own.
It’s so easy for your designs to get copied
Your intellectual work can be stolen easily. With just a right-click, visitors can download your design files without asking for your permission. Some visual artists just huff and puff when seeing their intellectual property being used elsewhere.
In other situations, some clients require freelance designers to show their example work to check their ability before hiring. However, they reject most of the candidates while still keeping their design work for future use.
That’s why you need to know exactly what actions you need to take to protect your works of art.
Prevent users from downloading and reusing your designs
There are various excellent ways to make sure that whoever decides to steal your idea won’t get away with it. Displaying watermark, adding invisible information, or even putting the © notice with your name seems effective to protect your visual art. Here are the 2 most common solutions:
Watermark your designs to prevent theft from reusing them
An effective way to protect and enforce your design rights comes to adding watermark to your files. You can put your brand name, logo, or special symbols on your designs to prove that they’re your property.
Watermark WordPress Files plugin helps embed a custom text or image to your PDF design with a single click. You’re able to place the watermark anywhere on your file. It’s possible for you to preview the watermarked file so that you can adjust it before applying.
Do you know that many designers also pay attention to the file’s download ability? They just want specific people to view and download design files such as clients or co-workers.
Protect your designs against being downloaded
Prevent Direct Access Gold works well with Watermark WordPress Files to prevent users from downloading your inventions. The plugins stop users from accessing your designs by creating private links.
Unauthorized users will see a 404 not found page whenever accessing your protected file URLs. Instead, you can create download links and send them to users. Only those owning these links are able to view your design.
Now, you’ll have your intellectual property secured with 2 protection layers: watermarks and non-downloadable private links.
Follow these 3 steps to protect your design:
- Watermark your PDF design files with Watermark WordPress Files
- Protect the file URLs using Prevent Direct Access Gold
- Create download links allowing authorized users to download them only
