|
On Protecting Your
Work As your skills grow -- the vultures fly in low across the desert by midnight. OK - OK! I know that was a bit dramatic. It is true though that as you learn more about Flash and can actually make those little balls do something besides bounce -- you will have thieves at your doorstep. The better you get, the more visible you are -- the more the hoards will grow. There are many kinds of thieves in the creative businesses. One takes ideas. I have no problem with this. I DO believe that there is no original art - only personal variations on a theme. Then again, there are the actual "bank robber" thieves who take your movies and try to use them -- or SELL them. These guys we all need to guard against. Here are some tips of things to do to make your movies LESS useful to would be burglars. 1. Protect your movies.You know that little "protect from import" box on the Export Movie dialog box -- ALWAYS use it. This is your first line of defense. True, there are programs that can open protected swfs [and "no" I will not tell you what or where they are], but many folks will consider a protected movie off limits.2. "Sign" your movie.Put your name right in the movie. Even if your work is for a client who expects you to remain anonymous, you can put a "designed by" on your working copy. I recently had a client I suspected was a bit too shifty for my tastes. After several [paid] hours of work, he kept asking me to take the "Fay Studios Sample" off of the swf file. I emailed back that "of course the Fay Studios comes off YOUR movie - send the rest of the template price". He mysteriously disappeared [wink]. Was I surprised? Not a bit.3. Watermark photos.If you have particular photos or manipulated images that you would like to protect from import as well as screen shot thievery, you can watermark your jpg etc before import. Be SURE and save an original file of the same size for easy updating [use that update feature] later.4. Use absolute linksWhen referencing URLs in your movie [GET URL at the end of an intro sequence for example] use absolute rather than relative links. So "sitemap.html" becomes "http://www.faystudios.com/samples/client17/sitemap.html". If someone steals your movie, it goes to YOUR page and is virtually useless. [Note: my aforementioned slippery client above had an lovely custom Flash movie that did this; hence the alarm bells.5. Use Movie ClipsIt took me YEARS to get used to Movie Clips. Yes, I know some of you are laughing, but we all work differently. I LIKE being able to see the WHOLE story as one long movie. I seldom use scenes for that reason. But I have finally graduated and began practicing the MC ethic. On the plus side, MCs are virtually useless to a thief once they have been compressed into a swf. So if you want to protect your files even more, make ample use of MCs for the tricky parts of your movie.6. Movies calling moviesYou can have a short movie call your main movie [Load Movie action]. If you want extra protection, you can make that movie URL an absolute link. If someone uses your movie you can see from your stats [assuming you have good ones] who it might be and investigate.7. VariablesFor you techie types, I understand that you can ask to see a certain variable on your server and if it does not appear the movie will not run. NO -- I haven't a clue how this works. I stay away from variables as much as possible and concentrate on PRETTY :) |