Art theft - possibly being sold... somehow.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

I was recently pointed to this site by my other half through his latexy fetish-type connections, and it seems they've got a site full of stolen art, most likely ripped from FurAffinity galleries.

If you're a latex/inflation fetish artist (or know one), then you might want to look through and see if your stuff's been posted - Mine's on there and I'm surprised since it's... terrible. I think the only place I posted it was FA though. So yah.

The site:
http://www.latexcatfish.com/product.asp?product_tell=false&id=33&brand_name=Inflatable%20Items

They seem to be claiming to be... selling the artwork as... outfits?
It's too bizarre to really compute, and they've even whited out artists' names in some of the artworks and added their own watermarks as even more of an insult. Gah.
I'm emailing them now, and I suggest anyone else with art taken should do the same.

I'll post this to art_theft too, as soon as I join.

Comments

[alcyione.livejournal.com]

LOL - love how they've put a nice big watermark over everything, like they own it. *eyeroll*

[snala.livejournal.com]

A basic WHOIS lookup showed this information:
Administrative Contact:
Name: laishuwang
Organization: laishuwang
Address: GuangDongFoShanShiShunDeQuDaLiang
City: FoShan
Province/state: GD
Country: CN
Postal Code: 528300
Phone: +86.75726281379
Fax: +86.75726281379
Email: laurels@21cn.com


Since it is a whole web site, and not a gallery or other major public group. (Such as facebook) it is doubtful they will heed your takedown requests. I have little doubt that the address is false, but mabe the phone number isn't. If you want to pay for the long distance cost of calling the person. Regardless, everything you should need to try to get ahold of the owner.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

heh. yeah, I'm not expecting anything to come of it or even have stuff taken down - it's just a bit irritating to see your own stuff (and not even your good stuff!) posted on some random site claiming to... sell... something off them, with their own watermark pasted on :P

I haven't even emailed yet, I might not even bother but if I get some of the other artists whose work have been posted there together, I might get us all to do it together.

eh :P

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Host information:

role: CNCGroup Hostmaster
e-mail: abuse@cnc-noc.net
address: No.156,Fu-Xing-Men-Nei Street,
address: Beijing,100031,P.R.China
nic-hdl: CH455-AP
phone: +86-10-82993155
fax-no: +86-10-82993102
country: CN
admin-c: CH444-AP
tech-c: CH444-AP
changed: abuse@cnc-noc.net 20041119
mnt-by: MAINT-CNCGROUP
source: APNIC

You can try and hit them up with a DMCA complaint but they're not bound by it, but you might get lucky and they'll be nice about it. Or they'll discover the nature of the site's content and decide to censor it out of existence.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

as I'm aussie a DMCA claim would be even more redundant :P

Berne convention applies sort of, but in all honesty it's more of a minor annoyance than anything. I have NO idea what I have legal precedent to do as far as contacting hosts and stuff - does anyone actually know the deal with international stuff like this that doesn't involve US people?
Ugh. so confusing :|

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I've dealt with EU people.. Russian or Chinese? Not so much.
I suggest taking the usual tack and seeing what happens?

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

China?

Don't even bother. They won't listen. And who knows, their items may end up poisoning someone.

[draggo.livejournal.com]

One way to get them to listen and take action very quickly in China is to send them a message stating that Falun Gong greatly appreciates their support.

[rockstarpup.livejournal.com]

Quahong China?

Well there goes your copyright, right out the window! XD

[fyphfoko.livejournal.com]

hurry up and go touch it!

they seem to be having a sale, from $.00 to $.00

i don't get it

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Part of me almost thinks this might be a case of PhotoBucket syndrome. Very few images on the site actually have prices. The rest, including the art, are just $.00.

Could be they're trying to get around some sort of censorship to repost those inflation and latex images?