Publishers trust Zfuro with unreleased artwork, so protecting that intellectual property is a first-class part of the product, not an afterthought. Because planning and production live in the same platform, those protections apply consistently across the whole pipeline, from the first upload to final delivery.
Per-viewer watermarks
Previews are stamped with the viewing user's own email address. If an image ever leaks, the watermark traces it back to a specific person, which makes casual sharing far riskier and far easier to attribute.
Watermarking covers two independently controlled contexts: general viewing and the lettering workspace. Each toggle is separate, and a manager decides whether it is on, so you can tune protection to how a given project actually works. A title in early, sensitive stages can run with both on, while a routine job can be lighter.
Crucially, the clean, un-watermarked master is never exposed on the viewing path. What people browse is always a protected rendition, so there is no screen where the pristine image can simply be right-clicked and saved.
Role-scoped file access
Not everyone sees the same files. Access to the pristine layered master and the final files is limited to privileged roles: company managers, a project's own managers, and admins. Everyone else works from web previews, flattened versions, and thumbnails, which is enough to do the work without handing out the crown jewels.
Freelancer access is tightly scoped
Freelancers are common in localization, so their access is deliberately narrow:
- A freelancer can only reach the projects they are both assigned to and currently engaged on.
- Ending an engagement revokes access, so someone who has finished cannot keep browsing the art.
- A freelancer never sees other projects in the same company, only the work in front of them.
How files are served
Files are delivered through short-lived signed links, as downloads, and are never executed on the server. Because each link is short-lived, a URL that is copied and passed around does not stay useful for long. Strict tenant isolation keeps each company's assets fully separated, so one client's material is never reachable from another's account, even by accident.
Protection across the whole pipeline
Because Zfuro handles both the full planning and the full production of a title, these safeguards are not bolted onto a single screen. The same watermarking, role scoping, freelancer boundaries and signed delivery apply wherever the artwork travels through the workflow, which is exactly why publishers are comfortable putting unreleased chapters into it.