How to apply the proper permissions for external drives being physically shared and passed on?

I would like to know how to apply the proper permissions for external drives being physically shared and passed on??? 

I have a large amount of files that I want to trade off and share with others but I also want to prevent anyone from accidentally deleting, moving, modifying, and creating files when they have access to my drive. 

I figure that applying “read-only” permissions to the files and folders is the best route but I’ve attempted this on test folders and the result is that I am also applying the “read-only” permission to myself.

I appreciate any advice, guidance, and direction anyone is willing to offer…

Thanks in advance

Maybe you should try contacting WD’s Technical Support about this. You can do so either by phone or email.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en