Today I had one of my students ask me about embedding copyright in her work for online publication. If you are a fine artist, you don’t want illegal pirating of your images, so you want to make it difficult for “pirates” who would like to copy and profit from your hard work and you want to make it very clear about your rights.
To answer my student’s question, I fiddled around in my “Word”, program, which is part of my “Microsoft Office Suite for Mac”. This program is Microsoft, so basically should work for any “Word” program. Here is a process that works:
1) On a fresh Word document, type: "©" and your name ("©" can be typed on a mac by pressing the option button and “g”). For instance: "© John Smith".
2) Make it the typeface, colour and size you want.
3) Insert your jpg from the"Insert" menu at the top of "Word", then go to >photo>picture from file.
4) If you select your downloaded image, then the “Format Picture” menu title appears right of “Home”. Click on that title and a whole pile of menus appear.
5) Go to “Wrap Text” > behind text. This will allow you to move your jpg around wherever you want, and you can place your image on top of your text. You can move and further format the text to harmonize it with the image if you need to.
6) Save it to “Word”.
7) Make a jpg of the whole thing by taking a screen shot. Press Command/Shift/4 and drag the cross - drag it corner to corner of the image area you want to make a jpg of, and then release the buttons. A new jpg called “Screenshot” (with the time and date) will appear somewhere on your desktop.
8) Go to your desktop to find it.
9) Rename it before trying to move it.
10) Drag it to your working folder for such images that you have in your documents filing system.
Copyrights are important to working artists. It isn’t too hard to make sure the message is loud and clear, and that your image is trickier for bad guys to copy (and yet... aesthetically pleasing!). A very basic “Word” program is all you need. Good luck! I hope that all the profits from your work go to you and that they support you well in your art-making.