Advice for dealing with art theft?
Jul. 17th, 2011 03:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
volmise.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
artists_bewareI'm not entirely sure I'm going about this the correct way, and while yes I have reported the offender to the proper people, I really don't know if there's anything more I should be doing. For now I'm going to be avoiding naming names, especially since the name they're using is actually one of my own, which only complicates things.
About two days ago I was searching through some artwork using DeviantArt's search feature and came across one of my own pictures posted by another person. I figured, okay, probably just someone who doesn't understand what they're doing, I'll just ask them nicely to take it down and be on my way.
...getting to the person's profile, I see something, weird. All of the art they have posted is my own! Scrolling down, I see they've even taken my profile info from FurAffinity and pasted it onto DeviantArt as well. To top things off they've even taken my OC's name as their username and are using my pieces as examples for Point Commissions. They're taking also complete credit for my work in their artwork comments. Said person didn't even bother to crop out or remove the watermarks from my pictures.
I did what any sensible artist would do at the time - reported each and every one of their Deviations to the HelpDesk, with links and other proof proving that they're mine. I then reported the account in general for identity theft and scamming. After that I went through their comments, and favorites one by one and warned everyone who had any contact with this person what-so-ever what they were doing and who was really the owner of the pictures.
Recently on another journal of mine they've come back and began calling me names and insulting my artwork for "ratting them out". I've mostly ignored these comments and even the private Notes they've been sending me, minus one comment I replied back with telling them that it's my right to defend my artwork.
I just want to know, am I handling things correctly? Can I do any more to warn people or make sure this doesn't happen again? All of my artwork does have a signature or watermark, but lately I've been making the watermark less obvious - maybe in the end this was a mistake.
Any advice for the situation would be lovely, as I'm really not sure what to be doing at this point.
About two days ago I was searching through some artwork using DeviantArt's search feature and came across one of my own pictures posted by another person. I figured, okay, probably just someone who doesn't understand what they're doing, I'll just ask them nicely to take it down and be on my way.
...getting to the person's profile, I see something, weird. All of the art they have posted is my own! Scrolling down, I see they've even taken my profile info from FurAffinity and pasted it onto DeviantArt as well. To top things off they've even taken my OC's name as their username and are using my pieces as examples for Point Commissions. They're taking also complete credit for my work in their artwork comments. Said person didn't even bother to crop out or remove the watermarks from my pictures.
I did what any sensible artist would do at the time - reported each and every one of their Deviations to the HelpDesk, with links and other proof proving that they're mine. I then reported the account in general for identity theft and scamming. After that I went through their comments, and favorites one by one and warned everyone who had any contact with this person what-so-ever what they were doing and who was really the owner of the pictures.
Recently on another journal of mine they've come back and began calling me names and insulting my artwork for "ratting them out". I've mostly ignored these comments and even the private Notes they've been sending me, minus one comment I replied back with telling them that it's my right to defend my artwork.
I just want to know, am I handling things correctly? Can I do any more to warn people or make sure this doesn't happen again? All of my artwork does have a signature or watermark, but lately I've been making the watermark less obvious - maybe in the end this was a mistake.
Any advice for the situation would be lovely, as I'm really not sure what to be doing at this point.
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