Protecting your Artwork

~~I hope everyone is having a fun weekend with family and friends.
~~I thought I would clarify a little; my artwork hasn't been reprinted or sold. It's just been posted on another blog. But it worries me because it shows how easy it is to take.
I'm a member of the Monday Artday blog group and recently they discovered that the entire blog was being copied, artwork and all. Someone was just stealing the feed and putting it on their own site. Then, at the same time I discovered my Prismacolor chart on another blog, posted by someone else. Those sorts of things worry and frustrate me.
~~As an artist, the internet can be a blessing and a curse. It's a wonderful way to get your work out to people who would never have a chance to see it otherwise. There are forums where you can post among other artists and get help and critiques. But even there you're not always safe. The Scribbletalk forum had to recently enact stricter membership rules because artwork was being stolen from the forum.
~~I was asked how I found out. Well, with Monday Artday I found out because it was posted on the blog. But there are a few other ways that you can keep track of where your work is posted. I have read that it's a good idea to put links to your own blog within your blog posts. That way, if your feed is stolen, you might get a hit on your blog that would come from the stolen feed. You can use services such as Statcounter and Google analytics to see where people are coming from when they visit your blog or website. That's actually how I found my Prismacolor chart. Someone had clicked on a link that went to my blog. I know there are other ways to keep track of your content and I plan to research them more. If you all have ideas and thoughts, I would love it if you would share them.
~~You can take a few extra precautions with your artwork to make it harder to steal. I always post my pictures at a low, screen-only resolution. That way, if someone did try to print them out, they would be fuzzy. The watermark is another way to deter thieves but it isn't foolproof. If you wanted to badly enough, you could probably use Photoshop to remove it. But at least it makes it harder and a little more work to steal.
~~I also thought I would share a few of the tutorials that I used to play around with illustration in Photoshop. I took a semester of Photoshop in college, but that was years ago and so much has changed. Honestly I didn't remember a lot either, lol. So what I do is play around and look up online tutorials. Here are three that I used when working on the Snow Angel. Digital Coloring, Coloring your line art in Photoshop, and Colouring Line art. I'm still very much a beginner. I enjoy doing it though and hope to learn more next year.
~~You know, the world is never very certain. Yes, there is a lot of bad out there, but there's also a lot of good. Through my blog I have met so many wonderful people who I now call my friends. So I refuse to let some rotten apples spoil my fun. But I do think it's a wise thing for us all to be knowledgeable and careful.
~Have a wonderful weekend!! Just 3 more sleeps until Christmas!