artists_beware | What's this community about?

Its came to my realization that people don't seem to know what this community is about. Since nothing's quite really being done, and this community's getting more and more people who've joined, I decided to step-up and say something. Please take what I say seriously.

This community,

artists_beware, is for warning against bad /commissioners/ .. what is that you ask? A "commissioner?" .. Its a person who commissions you for goods or services in exchange for money. A bad commissioner is someone who is painfully difficult in getting payment from, or someone who doesn't pay at all. They can also be disrespectful, annoying, threatening, harassing, or just plain terrible to deal with. This is not someplace to slander someone, though. It is to respectfully warn others about the situation you had with them.

There's been lots of cases of dubious art "thefts" posted here. And although it says in the community profile "This community also accepts reports of art theft" there's this grey area where everyone seems to mistake what art theft really is.

An art theft report needs several things to be helpful to anyone. A general link to "omg, I think someone took this" is not helpful in the slightest. You need to post the link to the original image and the "copied" image. If you do not have both, PLEASE don't post it.

Try going through the right outlets first, first report it to the website you found it (vcl, deviantart, geocities, etc). Then report it to the original artist to make sure that they have not actually given permission for the image to be used (you will not know this until you've e-mailed the artist, NEVER assume permission was not given --even though that's oftentimes the case. Just e-mail the artist and they can deal with it). If you've contacted the artist and they say its OK to post here in the community, then you can. If you cannot contact the original artist, then its ok for you to post here because we may be able to help identify the artist or help find their contact info. Otherwise, don't post an art-theft complaint.

If anyone else would like to add or elaborate, you're welcome to comment with your input.