Ways to protect your work from getting stolen?

[astros99]

If you do graphics jobs for freelancing, it's pretty hard to get that stolen. All you have to do is put a watermark in it. But, let's say you do writing. We all know how many buyers will ask for "samples", and they might just be using it for their own personal pleasure. Now, how do we protect that? This is the way that I think is best. Post your writing on the web if it's just sample. That way, when they turn it in to whoever they're turning it in to, they will get dinged for plagiarizing.

[mini_0]

There is no way to prevent anyone from downloading the images. However, be aware that if you are going to post these on the internet, they must be reduced in file size drastically (20K or smaller, 20K is considered a huge file for internet purposes) so that they will load quickly. That makes them useless for reproduction/printing purposes. A 20 K file printed will look grainy and lose definition. If the attempt is made to increase file size by means of a bitmap editor (eg: Photoshop), the image will degrade in quality greatly. The other thing you can do is to insert a watermark over the graphic, which will accomplish the same thing. Basically, if this is going to be a major issue with these people, then they should not be using the internet at all.