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How to protect product photos on Shopify, Etsy, Amazon and eBay

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What Pixel Sentinel can and can't protect when you sell online.

On a store you run (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce), add the loader to your theme and use the script embed in product descriptions and pages. Product media uploaded to the store, and marketplace listings on Etsy, Amazon and eBay, are stored by the platform, so upload a copy made for that place instead of your original: sized for the listing, with your copyright notice inside and its own invisible mark.

Also covered: expiring, watermarked download links for buyers, and patrols and takedown notices for copycat listings.

Transcript

0:03 Your own store

Selling online? How much Pixel Sentinel can protect depends on who serves your pictures. On a store you run, like Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce, add the loader to your theme once, and put protected pictures in your product descriptions and pages with the script embed.

0:21 What copycats get

Shoppers see the real photo. A copycat store that hotlinks it, image search, and scrapers get the scrambled copy, with your name on it.

0:30 Product media and marketplaces

Product photos uploaded to the store's own media, like Shopify's product media, are stored and served by the store, not by us. So for those, and for marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon and eBay, upload a copy made for that place instead of your original.

0:47 Copy for another site

Choose another site. The copy is only as large as a listing needs, so your full-size file never leaves your hands. It carries your copyright notice inside the file, and its own invisible mark, so if it turns up somewhere else, a trace tells you which copy it came from. Nothing can stop copying on a marketplace, but that file is all anyone gets. Making copies is free and doesn't use views.

1:12 Download links for buyers

When a customer buys a full-size file, don't send it as an attachment. Create a download link from the image's row. You choose how long it works, up to thirty days, and every download through it is invisibly watermarked for that link.

1:28 Patrols and takedowns

And if a copycat listing does appear, a patrol searches the web for copies of your images, and one click writes the takedown notice, with the right form for Etsy, Amazon, eBay and other sites. You check it, and send it yourself. Next: posting on social media.

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