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Protecting Yourself from Being Scammed



Introduction
To help you protect your art from theft or scamming, we have come up with this section so you can be informed. We hope you find this helpful.

~The Gaiaonline Staff~

Why watermark?
Hypothetically let's say you have a shop and someone commissions you to do something for them. They want to see the nearly finished product before they pay you. At that point they may turn you down or never pay you and you won't finish the image... however they would have access to the unfinished drawing and could try to use it without paying for it.

How is that allowed? It's not... but some people do it anyway. This is why we encourage you to watermark your unfinished pieces before you show them to the person that commissioned you.

What's an easy way to watermark?

Here we have a shady looking Labtech as example:


You want the mark to be large and obnoxious enough that removing it would ruin the image:



This is the easiest way to do it. Just open it in Paint or any similar editing program and place your marks in highly visible spots to make it clear that it is intended to be a sample.

If the commissioner complains, please remind them politely that it is good business practice to protect your work. If they further complain, please refer them to an R&C mod.

Sign your work
We don't mean in the margin next to the image. That is easily cropped out and could be easily stolen. Find a spot somewhere in the image and add in some form of identifying mark... if it's somewhat easy to read, then it can be traced back to you.


What is the safest way to complete a transaction?
1. Take the request
2. Commissioner sends a trade.
3. Artist draws request (rough drafts or final) and watermarks it before sending it to commissioner for review.
4. Artist confirms trade.
5. Commissioner completes trade and artist sends non-watermarked art.

If there are to be corrections made, go back to step 3 and repeat. You can also add in rough drafts for approval this way. When commissioner is satisfied, they can move to step 5. This way commissioner can't run away with completed image without paying... and the commissioner doesn't lose anything if the artist doesn't finish the piece.

If you have any questions, pm an R&C moderator.