Apparently my comic is a "free stock illustration"

[carloswebcomic]

I Googled my comic the other day and found a rather suspicious website called Free-Stock Illustrations (I'm not going to link it as it could possibly contain malware) that had one of my comic pages as a free stock image!

They only have two ways to contact them (through a 'Contact us' and a 'Report Image' link) and they both state that they will ignore copyright claims unless a form is filled in. Of course, there is no form to be seen anywhere on the website.

I looked them up and, at least the domain, is based in the Bahamas.

Hooray for tropical art theft I guess....

[Kamikaze]

BOOO! I'm so sorry you're going through that! It's so frustrating that these companies show up and just nab artwork from folks and then leave it to the artists to prove it's theirs. >:/

Hopefully it'll get taken down soon? Have you filed the form?

[carloswebcomic]

No, because they don't actually have a form!
The whole thing smells of bots taking images from Google and putting them on their website for ad revenue.

[Caelestie]

Why would a comic be a illustration stock? that is really odd and shitty...

[Kamikaze]

Ugh that sucks!!! I'm so sorry @carloswebcomic!

[carloswebcomic]

I've been ghost hugged!

[SpavVy]

Oh no! That blows man! I think you might want to get your comic copyrighted. Your comic has become vary popular on this site which makes you more vulnerable.
I basically took down all the pages of mine until I finish the first volume so I can get it protected.
After that incident with the whole mangaforadults website I'm done taking chances.

I may look for them on a different device.

[SpavVy]

Okay so I went to that website and what I can say is basically they didn't re-upload it to be exact, the image is actually linked to your DevianArt page. Still it is kind of unsettling.

[qcbl]

That sucks
Someone on Deviantart stole one of my pieces and removed my small watermark. It was easy to get it taken down but in the open web its a lot scarier. Good luck.

[pedro_de_matos]

A couple of months ago something similar happened. It's, like you say, ad revenue and malware. No image is hosted or sold, only listed, for the fans to fall in the trap and the artists giving them more visits when published in rage. It's good to denounce, but the better you can do is waiting for those pricks to end in jail, and the web down, of course.

[DuneDeca]

This ^^^ Many of those sites are actually just spiffed up google search engines. They don't actually sell the work. They are traps for you to file personal information to get your stuff "taken down." They then use that information to sell to ad bots/etc. Be careful about what site is actually committing theft, and what sites are trying to bait users in to mass gather information.

[bsienk90]

That is JUST horrible! I'm so sorry!

[carloswebcomic]

Interesting. Maybe that's how they get around hosting costs. If they just link images from external hosts, they don't have to spend money on storage.

[carloswebcomic]

At least they are not just ripping the image and claiming it as their own. So I guess it could be worse.

[yvettegustafsson]

Do they have a Fb-site? A friend had her stuff stolen from a site that was selling her art as canvas prints. She called them out and everyone helped by bullying them into taking it down. And taking everything else down that was also stolen.

Call them out! Spread the word, people will help you. Put up a link to your image and tell people it has been stolen. If they don't have a form, they'll get one. They are in the wrong here, they don't have any rights to your image, they insisting on a backwards form anti-release doesn't fly. You could contact a lawyer, maybe there's even some sort of society that will help you out for free.

[carloswebcomic]

They don't seem too organised.It's just one of those automated sites that don't really do much other than generate some money through ad revenue.

[bsienk90]

I didnt even think about that! yeah, totally worse. knock on wood.

[SpavVy]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that's how they do the ground hosting costs.
If they have an email you could try emailing them requesting that they no longer link the image. I've seen my art hosted on other sites and one of them was a porn site that hosted images the same way this tropical one is doing. I found their email and requested that they no longer host any of my artwork especially not without my permission, they didn't respond by email but the definitely removed my artwork from their site.