Tasks 4: Analysis
4.1 Forms of Risk
In today’s age of digital art, it is important to understand the forms of risk that are involved so that you can be proactive and protect the work you produce. Since art is a personal investment of time, money, and effort, copyrights give the author or artist the exclusive right to copy, distribute, publicly perform, and make derivative works from the protected work. Without these copyright laws anyone could take and copy an artist's work, which could potentially lead to the loss of income for the artist. There are many ways art can be stolen online which are forms of risk. Some of these risks are:
- Use of art by others without owner’s permission
- Claim the art as their own
- NFT theft
- Trademark property disputes
A recent area of concern has been the rise of the NFT environment. NFT’s or non-fungible tokens, are a unique digital asset stored on the digital blockchain. It has been heralded as the saviour to online artists digital ownership and in many ways, it shows potential, but the NFT space has been ripe for digital theft and forgery. Many artists around the world are reporting their work has been stolen and sold on NFT site without their knowledge or permission.
In one case a Russian artist named Weird Undead, said she became suspicious of theft when she saw a user mention @tokenizedtweets beneath a tweet of her that featured images promoting her most recent work.
Another example is trademark infringement, which occurs when the asset owners’ rights are violated by the unauthorized use of a trademark by someone other than the owner. In one case of trademark infringement, Starbucks filed a lawsuit against the parent company of New York’s Coffee Culture Café for launching a drink called the “Freddocino”. The lawsuit’s documents allege that not only does the drink appear similar to the Frappucino, the structure of the name contains enough similarities to cause “confusion in the marketplace” and “diminish Starbuck’s brand equity”. Starbucks does own the trademark for the term Frappucino and additionally alleged that Coffee Culture has created deceptive packaging to make it appear the term “Freddocino” is trademarked when it is not. While Coffee Culture has changed the name of the drink to a “Freddo,” Starbucks is proceeding with the lawsuit
Copyright laws are therefore important both for the artist and also for other artists that may infringe on another person’s art. Academy of Art University recommends following these important tips to protect your work online. For a detailed description of each one, please follow the link Tips from an Art School on How to Protect Your Work Online (academyart.edu).
- Watermark your art
- Tag your work
- Disable right click
- Add disclosures and friendly reminders
- Send out infringement warnings
- Report copyright violations
- Be careful about where you post
- Hire a layer if possible
- Keep creating
Another topic to consider as an online artist is integrity. Integrity is defined as the firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. It means the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. It is important to have strong integrity as one slip-up could have irreversible negative effects on your career as others may view you as untrustworthy or a fraud depending on what was done. Some things to consider in keeping your integrity in good standing are:
- Using legitimately purchased software
- Acknowledging the work of others and how it has contributed to your own ideas
- Having a proactive approach to checking creator referencing requirements
- Never plagiarising
- Never directly copying but instead taking ideas and tweaking them to make them our own
- Have respect for your art, yourself, and your audience
4.2 Professional Development
Upon reflecting on my research of forms of risk, and protecting my integrity and intellectual property, I have been able to see how it might affect my own current and future plans in creating digital content. When using assets from 3D model & texture marketplaces, it is important to check what my rights are when using these assets, especially with the free assets. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean I can use it however I like and so it is important for me to check the requirements, which might be as simple as crediting the creator of the asset.
My future plans may not involve creating 3D assets for sale online, but I have been working on creating digital content in the form of online teaching of Solidworks modelling. I am aware that my content needs to be original, everything needs to be filmed and edited under my direction, and I can’t simply reupload someone else’s Solidworks lessons to Youtube. Additionally, I have learned through this course that copyright laws go far beyond simply protecting against reuploading someone else’s work as your own and I should educate myself further on the finer details of these laws to make sure I am completely covering myself.
Through my research I discovered a site https://www.watermark3d.com/ which can watermark 3D files such as STL, OBJ, and more. In the Industrial Design field, part of my future work is likely to involve creating 3D models for clients ready for 3D printing which is usually in an STL format. By watermarking these 3D files, I can protect myself against unauthorised use of the files that the client and I had not agreed upon and be able to prove my original ownership of the files. This site offers a free plan that allows you to have up to 50 uploads per month which is an amazing proposition for a hobbyist looking to protect their 3D files.
Also, as an artist it is important to spend as much time creating art, and not spending time hunting down potential infringement cases that can take away from your productivity. That is why using an automated DMCA service could be immensely valuable. These services can monitor the internet 24/7, searching for pirate copies of my work and if found can automatically send DMCA takedown notices on my behalf. This would free up time which would normally be spent doing this manually. One provider of this service is https://www.pirat.io.
With all this in mind, it is important to understand my rights as a creator. It’s not good enough to just let hard work be stolen and potentially sold as that could have been money, reputation, or clients that I could have earned through my own efforts. Not doing anything leaves the door open for others to pick an easy target and potentially ruin a career. Copyright will be a topic I take seriously and continue to keep myself updated on whether it be rule changes, new ways to protect myself, or software advances to protect my work, while also making sure I adhere to doing the right things myself.
