Ever Gotten Your Stuff Stolen?

[marbl]

Haven't gotten my stuff stolen (yet...) but I've been debating watermarking my images lol

On one hand, watermarking my work means that I'll get proper credit and prevent uncredited stolen images

But on the other hand... Would I be proud to put my name on slightly above-average photographs (and artwork), and would anyone even be bothered to repost it?

[jurinova]

I made a couple of outfit memes on Tumblr a few years back and they keep getting stolen. I designed and drew the outfits myself, which was no small effort, so it really bothers me that people keep treating them like they're just a free resource. I think it's the same thing with any drawn meme or a short funny comic; people just don't realize that someone made them and so they don't even stop to think that maybe it's not okay to share them on other platforms.

Back in the days when I had my own domain I did get my stuff stolen occassionally. Luckily enough people would usually hotlink the pictures (meaning linking from the source), so all I had to do was replace the pic on my domain with something else. I would usually replace them with a simple black picture with bright yellow letters that read: "I am a dirty thief who steals pictures." Good times. Too bad with social media it's pretty much impossible to do something similar.

[fleurravenbooks]

I don't care that it was fanart, you drew it, they stole it, call them out on it ( if you can do it on their community page with a link of your socials, even if they delete your comment, few people will see it and spread the word)

[Zin_Trollborn]

Like.... there's not any good reason to steal art and claim it to be theirs. Never.

So yeah, happened to me several times. I came after some thieves several times as well, privately at first. Then when they didn't understand or not the first time they did it and play it like "omg sorry will not do it again" and I knew about their fake apologies, I outed them publicly in a humorous way.
People started to make fun of them too, art thieves were mad at me.
I roasted them a bit more.
Art thieves and their friends were even more angry at me and spamming messages about me bullying the art thieves.
So I made more fun with even more roasting.
People brought popcorn to enjoy the show.
Art thieves were burnt to the core.
Art thieves gave up.
I was sad and told them I was waiting impatiently for their return 'cause I had way more love to give them.
Never heard about them again

Ah, good old times when I got my art stolen. Wish it happens again

In all seriousness, it's annoying as hell. We take time, passion to create something from our own hands, we work very hard on our arts. Sometimes there's even a deep meaning in our arts that only belongs to ourselves. Be it fanart or not.
So I have no shame kicking people in the groin about art stealing (I always stay nice but firm and only contact the thief in private first tho, it's important, some people who do that are sometimes very young kids).
It's harder tho, when it comes from business company from other countries but they often steal from various artists so I guess it's better to get in touch with those other artists and see what is doable about it.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Yea I did, though I didn't link off to my socials. Someone else also went around in the comments calling them out after I posted my comment so that was nice at least. It's just that there's no much I can do at this point.

[feuersichel]

Yeah, my little sister gets her stuff stolen way to often (she's a professional grafic designer). She says, you can't really do much about it other than report (then new accounts steal again...) or upload only low quality pictures and watermarks.

We actually found a design from her on a t-shirt with her (well hidden) watermark still on x,D

[IndigoShirtProd]

We actually found a design from her on a t-shirt with her (well hidden) watermark still on x,D

That's hilarious

[fleurravenbooks]

i get it, but at least someone helped you. People sometimes have no shame

[fleurravenbooks]

Your sister is smart for hiding the watermark. I noticed people go on tiktok or twitter if their design gets stolen, but i fear that you might get in trouble for "angry mob" coming at stealer

[frgmnt]

Like almost a month ago, some impasta made a fake account on twitter/instagram by my name and posted another artists' art out there.

Uh oh, are you sure it wasn't you???

You started this thread https://forums.tapas.io/t/wanna-be-art-moots/64155 and on the twitter linked there, https://twitter.com/cal_calliope - which I am absolutely sure it was yours, as you followed me and other people from tapas - I'm 100% that there sure you posted work stolen from this artist https://twitter.com/muisketeer

Wish I could provide more concrete proof but the calliope account seems to be deactivated and alas, I did not take screenshots. (Though, some evidence can be found googling "calliopetrichor".) I did not want you to call you out publicly but since you are posting in this thread...

So my point in this post would be, idk, I guess at least admit what you've done? Kind of hypocritical of you to post in this thread when you were an art thief yourself. If you are absolutely sure that twitter account wasn't yours, I'd like to know how do you explain the following thing. If you do have an explanation for that, I'm sorry for placing a fake accusation here.

[Kura]

For art it's happened a lot (at least when I used to do fanart and more anthro art) at one point I got accused of stealing my own art as well, as I had someone calling me out for stealing my art from me x.x (I had posted in a forum some fan art that I did, and they called me out saying that I didn't draw the art because they bought this art at a convention from this artist with a link to my dA. I had to explain, that yea... 'you probably bought my art from me at that convention')

For my comics not as much, it gets reposted a LOT without my permission (which sucks because I need the adrev and views for the algorithms on the sites I do post it on), but usually credits me as the artist x.x (a lot of these are also translation sites, usually Spanish)

Had a few trace and recolours as well of promotional art when I was doing an anthro comic, with people claiming the art to be their original art... when it was not.

Had someone claiming to be me at some point / not sure if they are still going honestly (I occasionally get something like 10 - 15 pms in one day asking if I am the same Kura in game/chat server) Got someone complaining to me about self promotion too, on how they promoted my comic in their series as I had requested but I have yet to promote his series in mine and it was not fair.

[incognito-burrito]

Their old Tapas account saved on waybackmachine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210908131903/https://tapas.io/Writenry

A number of things that they claimed to have drawn are stolen artworks, a few from the person you've already mentioned.
https://mobile.twitter.com/muisketeer/status/1389985405437714437/photo/3
https://twitter.com/muisketeer/status/1414948740452999173/photo/1
https://mobile.twitter.com/muisketeer/status/1387519878588940289/photo/3

Jenny Yu
https://twitter.com/Adobe/status/872570438752256000/photo/1
https://www.maxitendance.com/2019/01/illustrations-artiste-jenny-yu.html [I don't know the regulations on using other artists' works as covers without permission, but it's about 7 images down]

More novel cover artwork:
Tom Haugomat

Tom Haugomat — Handsome Frank Illustration Agency

Xuan Loc Xuan

Lonely blue

Cherry Blossom

https://twitter.com/xuanloc_xuan/status/1090267278623424514/photo/1
https://ego-alterego.com/night-illustration-xuan-loc-xuan/#.V9PMOpCg9jQ [4th image down]

A wallpaper [and gif apparently]
https://chikyuuwallpaper.blogspot.com/2021/05/1024-x-576-pixels-aesthetic-wallpaper.html [about 12 down]

As for the remaining four, Google reverse images can only provide so much. They claim that they drew the cover for "Purple Shades of Blood", but as far as I can tell, they are two images overlaid each other.

They seem young and naive, hoping they could get away with this, and it almost seemed like they did... but it's hard to scrub your tracks entirely from the Internet.

Just a message to folks, especially younger, impressionable ones, don't steal other people's art work and claim it as your own. You will regret it one day, especially when you really do want to move on and create your own works.

[incognito-burrito]

I had someone calling me out for stealing my art from me x.x (I had posted in a forum some fan art that I did, and they called me out saying that I didn't draw the art because they bought this art at a convention from this artist with a link to my dA. I had to explain, that yea... 'you probably bought my art from me at that convention')

LOL! Sorry, that's funny XD. But it's forgivable bc they're only being a vigilant fan looking out for you, lol. Did they realise that it was you in the end, though? If they continued to harass you after the fact, then I can see where that can be annoying and problematic.

[IndigoShirtProd]

@frgmnt And @incognito-burrito And I followed them on Twitter! I've been had!

Went and followed the actual artist, but to be caught up in a scheme such as this... the shame

[incognito-burrito]

It seems a few people followed them when they made that first forum post. The original artist is phenomenal, though!

[Kura]

Naw it was pretty funny, and yeah they did do a "oh, I see." kind of response after I replied. So thankfully it wasn't a fight with them and like you said, they were just looking out for me without realizing it was me lol

[darthmongoose]

I haven't caught people reposting my art or comics, but there's one thing I made that gets ripped off a lot. Reposted without my permission to sites like 9gag, facebook, twitter etc. I've even seen bad SVG traces of it being sold on t-shirts and mugs. It's hilarious and annoying to me because it's THIS:

It was originally posted on my Tumblr after in a frustrated state, I scribbled it at about 11pm one evening, then went to bed, only to wake up seeing it had exploded. Occasionally people ask for permission before using it... mostly they don't.

I wouldn't even care if people weren't making money off it that I never see a penny of.

[sushy00]

I think I have seen that flowchart before in a different style.

My art has been uploaded by someone else at DeviantART too at times. If someone tells me, I just report the artwork and move on. Other than that I have no incidents.

[fleurravenbooks]

I don't understand not asking to repost something, i asked people on here who offered to draw our characters for practice to repost ( which is bare minimum since it IS their artwork)

[euphisa]

@incognito-burrito @frgmnt
Wow ive seen Writenry around the tapas forums, often promoting their Purple Shades of Blood. I knew its cover was commissioned by someone else. I didnt think they would claim to have drawn the cover, and even steal other artists' works. Dang ive been had