I spent 6 grueling hours researching how to protect one's photos/scans so you wouldn't have to--And these are my findings:
As the title states, I spent 6 grueling hours researching how to protect one's photos/scans in case other collectors want to protect and/or receive credit for their photos.
Once more let me emphasize THEIR PHOTOS.
Backstory:
It's not a secret that I'm quite a big collector of official Spy x Family merchandise, specifically clear file folders, stationery, and acrylic stands. I own so much, in fact, I have a tendency to own a handful of duplicates and had the crazy idea to start a small business selling these duplicates via Ko-Fi. A thought came to me that since I had already invested in a light box and a scanner for selling my merch, why not also use them to share pictures of my collection for other fans to view and appreciate?
And that was when I had sought the opinions from my good friend, @yumeka-sxf. Yumeka has been kindly posting high-resolution scans of her SxF merch (clear files, pages, etc.) on Tumblr. She is someone I also deemed as an expert when it came to uploading merch on the internet. She gave me incredible advice with awesome foresight when it came to watermarking high-resolution pictures and scans. She easily predicted what disrespectful people would do if I hadn't moved my watermarks to certain (albeit not really appealing) spots. And, just like she said, someone did attempt to remove my watermark using AI. You can read about it here. @yumeka-sxf also provided her own insight to watermarking merch here--if ya'll are interested to read.
I won't go into too much detail, but essentially they're long posts meant to educate people on why fans, who own the official merch, put watermarks on their pictures. The bottom line is, we're claiming the picture for ownership, NOT the merch.
Second, did you know that people have found ways to remove watermarks?
That gives me enough incentive as to why I want to take it a step further to protect my photos/scans.
"If I take a picture of something do I own the picture that I took?":
Yes and no. Yes as in, the picture is yours. No, because depending on your subject, it falls under numerous jurisdictions of copyright. You can find all the details in this insightful post from veteran photographers.
But since we're focusing on the topic of photos and scans of merchandise, I'd like to provide these screenshots:
And so, to re-iterate, the only thing you'll get out of copyrighting your photo is just the right to the photo--which is all I want.
The Findings:
6 grueling hours of research for protecting one's picture led me to several insightful directions--one of them amusingly brought me down a rabbit hole of how to protect one's real estate pictures. They did have some wonderful tips if you guys would like to read them!
Unfortunately, I do not own Photoshop so I could not make any edits on the metadata or create a layer that will prevent downloading the content of the picture. Preventing screenshots/right-clicking is limited to control on a website and/or can easily be canceled by plug-ins. So that just leaves me with finding something creative solutions the only tool I have: Canva (more on this later).
I spent some more time reading more journals and visited USCO (United States Copyright Office) and, finally, Pixsy.
I'm gonna be honest, USCO is THE BEST way to protect your media (merchandise, art, etc.) IF you have the money to support it.
Not only do I not have the funding for this type of service, but my photos don't exactly meet "originality" especially when the subject of the photo is copyright-protected merchandise, which means there are severe punishments for those who pursue any commercial purposes (such as selling my photos to make money rather than directing people to purchase the official work from the licensing site). And at the end of the day, I just care about the photo, itself, and receiving credit and source.
It's ridiculously simple to just credit and source a picture, and yet, it'll surprise you how many people just can't do that. This is why, I must take these extra precautions to ensure credit and sourcing.
So, I opted for Pixsy for its free plan that includes 500 images being monitored.
There's no doubt that I'll most likely invest in a monthly subscription if ever I amass beyond 500 pictures for monitoring.
Currently, it has already done an impressive job of identifying pictures I've posted with my watermarks on Ko-Fi, Twitter, and Tumblr. It has even identified reblogs/retweets.
For some odd reason, it uploads my pictures horizontally when it's normally vertical ^^; but it still gets the job done. Interestingly, it hasn't picked up my pictures from Mercari yet. I assume that if I were to upgrade to the subscription plan, Pixsy might be able to find it by then.
Procedures:
I'm sharing my procedures for protecting one's photo (and content, if applicable of course).
Step 1: Register on Pixsy. As I've addressed earlier, it's free.
Step 2: Upload HIGH-RESOLUTION pictures (no watermark) to Pixsy's database. This is probably the most accurate way for Pixsy to identify pictures of the same (or similar) "blueprint". In the picture below, I provided a screenshot of my picture without the watermark (left) with a picture they found of my picture with my watermark on it from my ko-fi shop (right).
Step 3: If you plan to upload a photo/scan with or without watermark, it is recommended to upload your image at 550 pixel image and at 72 dpi. This makes it good for the internet (see first image below). But once you zoom in, you can tell the difference in quality (see second image below).
I mentioned before that I don't have photoshop, so I experimented with what I do have: Canva.
Since I have a premium membership (indicated by crown icons), I just use the following settings:
and it gets the job done.
I am planning to upload my photos without watermarks to the Spy x Family wiki quite soon, so I did all this research to prepare for possible theft and/or the lack of crediting and sourcing--just in case. A friend of mine told me that s/he can try to ensure crediting through the file name, which is a ridiculously kind gesture, but I'm not ignorant of people who change/completely ignore file names. That's unfortunately just the way it is on the internet.
Hopefully, I've curated enough research to help protect photos/scans from possible theft (if reposting is not allowed by the owner).
I don't mind if my photos are used for reference AS LONG AS they credit me and link the source directly to the image itself (not one of those cut-corner kind of way and just link my Ko-Fi gallery). I won't tolerate laziness when it comes to sourcing considering I invested a lot of money to purchase merch and invested hours--even days--to get the best photo/scan + researched information on the merch for public access.