Graphic Design Copyright:

Graphic designers often face a problem of copyright theft. Many graphic designers spend much time, thought and energy creating material to be submitted with proposals to corporate clients. It has been known for the client to receive the graphic designs, and have them developed with a cheaper competitor and give no compensation to the author of the graphic designs.

While copyright is an automatic right in the UK, in these situations, it can be very difficult for a graphic designer to prove the copyright of their work, as there is no official copyright agency in the UK. All graphic designers should add a copyright mark (" © Copyright 2006. Writers name/company All Rights Reserved.") to their work, especially before the work is released to potential clients or the public domain. This offers some protection.

If a graphic designer becomes the victim of copyright theft, proving that they were the original author can be difficult. Times and dates on computers can be changed and is not always a reliable article of proof.

By submitting your designs to Protect My Work, your designs will be registered and held in our database, along with the time and date they were received. It is possible to submit any digital file, either by email or by logging into your account and uploading it.

For extra proof of the originality of the work, you are able to upload different versions of the work, demonstrating the different stages the designs went through before reaching their final state. This can be invaluable evidence should you need it.

Protect My Work allows it's members to upload up to 20MB in one go, either by email or upload from the website. Members may upload up to five separate files in one go as long as the combined total of all five files is less than 20MB.

Members have the option to simply attach up to 5 attachments (totalling less that 20MB) to an email and send it to protect@protectmywork.com. This is without doubt the easiest, fastest and simplest way to register your work. After sending the email, you will receive one email in reply asking you confirm. Once confirmed, you will receive a final email with details of the recently registered work, a unique username and password. This unique username and password can be given to anyone that you may need to prove the work is registered. The username and password can be entered in the "Search Protected Work" page and the work will be displayed for download.

This protection in itself is an effective deterrent of anyone attempting to use your work without permission.