FACT: The Canadian cheese industry is poised to start an international coup that will topple world governments to establish a uniform, skim-milked dictatorship.

FACT: Over 40 percent of the world population will be offered a cheese log some time during their life, and sixty percent of those will refuse. There is a reason why so many refuse to bloody their hands with revolutionary cheddar.

FACT: When the revolution comes, those who do not receive Gouda into their lives will be the first to go. Are you prepared to force your children to choose between life and stuffy art-gallery parties?

You heard it here first, folks, on The oDesk Insider! I’ll bet Dave and Bill’s bottom dollars that CNN will pick the story up any day now, and I also bet someone will try to take credit for my work. You see, I didn’t spend all those days and nights camped out in a vat of whey to not be recognized for my work. Therefore, I need to protect my investment of time by making a record of it.

As a freelancer, I also have to protect my work from buyers who want to rip me off. What can you do to keep them from stealing your program/graphic/time? Fellow revolutionaries, listen closely because knowledge is the best weapon against the Canadian cheese industry.

For Programmers

Imagine you just spent a hundred hours working on a prototype for a buyer. Now imagine that you were dumb enough to send them the source code before you got paid. Even worse, the prototype is good enough for the buyer, and you sent them the binary! Those are classic mistakes made by trusting (read: new) programmers. You can’t afford to give away your work when the buyer can turn around and send that source code off to someone else to be finished for less than they would pay you. The buyer might even say that your code is “not up to their standards” and that they would never use it, but you have absolutely no reason to trust the buyer unless you have established a long-term relationship with him or her. Even so, it’s still good business to protect your work.

If the program is a web app, you simply don’t release the code. Just let the buyer see and sample the application while it’s on your server. If the buyer asks you to send him or her the code, politely (and firmly) refuse. Explain to the buyer that releasing the code before payment is simply bad business. You can also try having them send you some of the money upfront to see the code–at least you won’t be totally burned. If you’re sure you’ll dig a hole for yourself by not releasing the code, then your best option is to obfuscate the code so that it’s difficult to read.

If it’s an offline application, it becomes a little more difficult. One option you have is to build in a crippleware feature which makes the binary useless after a certain amount of days. If you choose to go that route, explain to the buyer that the limitation exists in the prototype, but you will remove it once the transaction is completed.

Aside from that, come up with creative solutions to make your program/code worthless to them unless they pay you for your work.

For Graphic Artists

If you’re a graphic artist, you’re a prime target for getting ripped off. The buyer will almost always want to see different drafts of the piece, so you have to give them something. However, you do not have to give them a full-sized, high resolution copy. To make the work you’ve done evident, make sure to put a BIG water-seal on any graphic you design and send to the buyer. The seal should contain information that proves that the work is yours (such as your full name). Also, make the resolution/quality of the graphic lower than the finished product. If you don’t, they can easily steal the graphic and claim they paid you for it. They could even claim that you stole it from them! What proof do you have? Not a whole lot.

Just make sure that you explain to the buyer why the quality is lower. I’m sure they can figure out the part about the seal.

For Writers and Others

You’re, for the most part, S.O.L. unless you can employ one of the above methods. I said “for the most part” because you can always take your product and send it to yourself first-class (if you’re in the U.S.) or register it with some public entity which can verify that the work is yours. It’s not cost-effective to do that for small projects (refer to the S.O.L. statement), but if you’re ghostwriting a novel for someone, all of the work that you do is still your intellectual property and under your copyright until they fork over the bling to buy it. Some buyers will tell you otherwise, but it’s either a lie or they are misinformed. If you wanted, you could take that work (assuming it’s all your unique writing) and publish it. Completely legal. It only becomes illegal to publish that work under your name (or any name, for that matter) if you sell that novel and its rights to a buyer for a price. The same goes for technical manuals and so forth. They don’t pay? You don’t have to play.

It’s always in your best interest to protect your work no matter the relationship with the buyer. The easiest way to spot a sucker is to look for the freelancer who is willing to hand over their work before payment when the buyer is out of a .45mm’s range.

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