Technological advances made our lives easier. Missed a picture with your family during the holidays because of voice over work? Easy! You can now edit yourself in the picture using several photo editing applications that are available online. Do you want to go to a party but you do not want to miss an interview that you’ve been waiting for a month already? Do not want to carry a portable recording booth? Download some apps that can serve as your recording studio on the go!
Almost everything now is possible because of the advancement brought to us by technology. Although technological advances are mostly beneficial, some can also be harmful. Since it is easy, and since almost everyone has access to the Internet, scamming and manipulating videos, pictures, and even audios are possible now! There are even Artificial Intelligence software that are existing that can imitate someone’s voice!
One good and creepy example of this was when a startup company was able to imitate Joe Rogan’s voice, almost flawlessly! How did they do that? They added up some bits and pieces of Rogan’s videos, and podcasts. Even Rogan was scared because he knows, he has uploaded a lot of stuff already. If this technology goes to the wrong hands, we will face a lot of problems in the future.
Catfishing is also a thing today. Since everything is reachable within the reach of your fingers, someone can steal your identity and use it for something else. Online dating is very popular nowadays, so someone might use your photos that you have uploaded on your social media platforms, and pretend that they are you. Not only photos can be stolen now. Even identities!
Why is it important to protect my brand as a voice actor?
As a voice actor and business owner, it is important to protect your brand, and your content. Several years ago, there was an issue where a VO talent used another person’s voice to pass the audition. Scary and vile, right? In order for this not to happen, you have to be tech savvy as well. Remember that prevention is better than cure. So, in order to avoid being catfished, protect everything that you upload online beforehand. You have a reputation to take care of, so it’s best to be careful with everything that you upload on the web. Losing a job because someone stole your identity and used it for something bad would be totally horrible.
How do I protect the things that I upload on the Internet?
Protecting your Photos
No Right Click – Use a plugin that will prevent users of your website from right clicking your images
Keywording – You can add keywords into the EXIF data of your photo, so that Google or other search engines can pick up those terms
Copyrights and Captions – Put in copyright information on the data of your photo by adding details in the creator, copyright, and author areas
Reverse Image Search – protecting your photos also means scouring through the internet similar photos. Google has a reverse image search wherein you can upload your photo and check where else would you see your copyrighted photos.
Protecting your Audio
Watermark – add watermark to an audio; watermarking audio is similar to watermarking photos, it is embedding audio signal in a way that it will be difficult to remove or extract
Prevent audio download – again similar to how you prevent right-clicks on a photo, you can add plugins to your website that will prevent any audio to be downloaded or “saved as” to a local drive
Protecting your Website
Display Copyright Notices – sometimes by simply putting a copyright notice or trademark it can thwart website visitors from copying your content.
There are other ways to protect your content, but as you search through methods to prevent the more tech savvy users from stealing your content, you may need to balance protecting your content and keeping your website or profile user-friendly.
It is your responsibility to protect what you own. Imitation, as some would say, it the sincerest form of flattery. You have to draw the line on everything. Not making your content accessible to everyone does not make you an anti-social. It only shows how protective you are with your stuff. You do not want to see someone reap what you’ve sown right? The year is 2020 already. You have to swim to the current so you will not drown. Almost everything that you need to know about protecting your content is within your fingertips only. It will not take up so much of your time to read on blogs and articles related to this one.
Also, in order to do you share of protecting one’s content, never plagiarize. Always remember to give credits to the original owners of the content. Being different amongst everyone will make you stand out. After all, will not cause you any money to be a decent human being.
Do you have any tips in protecting your work online? Share them with us below.
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