How to Protect Your TPT Products: 3 Essential Steps to Secure Your Resources

As a TPT seller, you invest a lot of time, energy, and creativity into developing high-quality education resources for teachers. But once you upload your products to Teachers Pay Teachers, how do you ensure they stay safe from unauthorized use, edits, or theft? 

In this blog post, I'm sharing three essential steps you should be taking to protect your TPT products. These simple actions will help safeguard your work, prevent others from tampering with your resources, and make your intellectual property remains secure. 

1. Add Your Personal Copyright

Adding your personal copyright to your TPT resources is one of the most important steps you can take to protect your intellectual property. By adding a copyright notice, you are clearly stating that the content you've created belongs to you and is legally protected. 

Yep, that's right, you do not need to get an LLC or incur any type of legal fees to claim your work as your intellectual property!

How to add a copyright to your TPT resources: 

• Create the copyright symbol. On many platforms, you can type ( c ) [with no spaces] and it will turn into the copyright symbol. If not, you can copy & paste it from just googling it. 
• Add your name or your TPT store name. 
• Add the year you created it. 

For example, "© Malia Rivera, 2024" is what I put on every page of my product. No really, every page. Even on little parts within your product. Like things that could be cut out, like task cards.

2. Flatten Your Resource

If you use clipart, backgrounds, borders, etc. in your TPT products, this step is essential! When creating your resources you are starting with a blank space. Even if you're using a template, the template started from nothing! Every time you add a text box, piece of clipart, shape, etc. you are adding another layer to that blank space. Flattening all the layers of the resource means merging all the elements into one single layer. This is essential to avoid buyers accidentally (or intentionally, really) lifting off your layers and using them elsewhere.

Why flatten your TPT products?

• Many clip artists require their graphics be flattened before distribution to prevent others from editing or lifting the work and reusing it without permission. 
• It prevents anyone from removing or altering parts of your resource ensuring your design remains intact and protected. 

How to flatten your TPT resource:

• If you use Google Slides:
  • Once you've finalized your pages, download each slide as a .png or .jpg file (aka, as an image) 
  • Create a new slide deck, add a new blank slide for every picture.
  • Upload each image file as the background of the slide. 
  • Export as a PDF. 
    
    The downside of this method is that it can take a long time... 
    
    
• If you use Canva:
  •  Once you've finalized your pages, you click "Share" in the upper right corner
  • Select "Download" 
  • Change the file type to PDF - either standard or print
  • Check the box that says "Flatten PDF"
  • Select "Download" button at the bottom
    
    The downside to this method is that it takes away the ability to click on any hyperlinks you put in... 
    
    
• If you use PowerPoint: You can do the same steps as you would with Google Slides, but that can take a long time... Instead, I recommend using Flat Pack by Bearwood Labs!
  
  Flat Pack is a PowerPoint add on software that creates flattened & secure (more on that next time!) PDFs with just one click ! What is even better is that it will allow you to keep your hyperlinked images and text too!
  
  There are many TPT sellers, new & veteran, that use and sware by Flat Pack! If you'd like to check out Flat Pack, just click the link below for the type of computer you have. It is a one-time fee and the creator is great with tech support, should you need it!
  
  Click here if you need Flat Pack for PC  
  
  Click here if you need Flat Pack for Mac

By flattening your resource, you're not just protecting your hard work - you're also complying with the terms of use for any clipart or elements you've used.

3. Secure Your Resource with an Encrypted Password

The final layer of protection you can add to your TPT products is encrypting your resource with a password. This will make sure that no one can edit your resource without your permission. For sellers creating editable products or resource intended for teacher customization, password protection is crucial. 

Here's how you're going to secure your Teachers Pay Teachers resources if you use Google Slides or Canva to create your resources:

After downloading your flattened file, you're going to open it up in Adobe Acrobat Pro ($19.99/mo). Inside, you'll select "protect file" from the menu on the left side. Make sure to set your preferences so that the buyer CAN open and print the document with a pdf reader, but they CANNOT edit the product in any way. Once it is saved, you are good to go! Just make sure to use a password that you 100% know and use it for all your secured product passwords. 

If you want to add any hyperlinks, you can also add them in Adobe (but do this before you secure it). Just go to "Edit" on the menu and then select "link". Now you can draw an invisible box around where you want to hyperlink a URL.

Although Adobe is on the expensive side, there is A LOT that you can use Adobe for! Even more than what I just stated above.

Here's how you're going to secure your Teachers Pay Teachers resources if you use PowerPoint to create your resources: 

Once you've finished designing your pages, you're going to use Flat Pack ($60 one-time fee) to secure it. Okay, you might be thinking now, "umm Malia, I thought that was for flattening the product?" The great part is that Flat Pack will flatten AND secure your product as a PDF or PowerPoint file with just one click. It is seriously a huge time saver and gives you peace of mind that your resources are protected. You also can easily add hyperlinks to the product without having them disappear after flattening them! Double win!!

 These are the settings I use to password encrypt my resources.
Adobe Acrobat Pro OR Flat Pack

By encrypting your PDF with a password, no matter how you do it, you add an extra layer of security that ensures your TPT product remains safe. 

Protecting your TPT products doesn't have to be complicated, but it is important to take these steps to ensure that your hard work stays safe. By adding your personal copyright, flattening, and securing your file, you're taking the key actions to protect your intellectual property and ensure that your Teachers Pay Teachers store continues to thrive. 

For more tips on growing your Teachers Pay Teachers store, make sure to subscribe to my email list and check out my other blog posts!