And this is why copying is BAD. [Update 09/03]

[embyquinn]

Now, I've had my artwork nabbed before for everything from avatars to banner work to video games (yes, really), and I never felt anything more than vague amusement and maybe a little bit of pride because somebody thought my work was good enough to "borrow" for their own (non-monetary) purposes.

Today that changed.

Someone on another board privately let me know that a DeviantArt user was using my modified Gatchaman artwork without permission. I went to take a look, expecting that someone had edited the images to make my character, Miya, look like their own OC making out with Joe the Condor. I fully expected to check it out, and privately message the artist asking them to give me credit for the original image (since it's fanart, I don't feel like I can scream about copyright infringement too loudly, especially since a lot of the poses in my old work were derivative of advertisements and other poses in images anyway).

What I found was a lot worse. A LOT worse.

I'm not going to name the person here, but this individual has been dumping hate on this one particular character on DA for years. I mean, seriously, I haven't even written any Gatch fic or drawn any fanart for the past fifteen years. But this person has posted hate about Miya all over DA and even tried to start a hate group that focused on her. Because Gatch is so obscure and nobody usually cares about an old OC, it failed.

So what did this person do? She took at least a dozen of my old Gatchaman fanart images (probably more, but I could only easily recognize about that many for reasons later described), edited my character to be as ugly and tarty as possible (heavy makeup, streaked hair, and GINORMOUS breasts), and posted them on her DeviantArt account. This goes beyond plagiarism and way beyond parody. I know I shouldn't be upset, not about a character, but I am. I'm even more upset that she took my art and befouled it for such awful purposes.

I reported all the images that I could recognize, so hopefully they'll be taken down. Even so, it was a horribly pissy thing to do. And this person is NOT twelve; she's been stalking me for the past five years at least. I used to think it was funny. I don't anymore.

I'm going to go curl up in a corner and cry now.

[DollyKim]

You are not going to curl up in a corner now. You are going to know that you are a great person and the universe is aligning to bring you justice and balance. Truth knows when to come out of her well.

Through Gatchaman I discovered your KiSS dolls and somehow I learned how to make my own. Gatchaman and Battle of the Planets and all that stuff always has and always will be a safe and comforting place to be. Theres no room for ____holes.

Don't let them have that power over you.

[embyquinn]

Good news: After my report, DA removed the offensive images and issued a warning to the poster.

Bad news: She reuploaded the pieces of shit she turned my art into again today. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I notified the mod at DA. Maybe she'll get banned this time. Of course she might repost them under another name...sigh.

In the end, there's not much I can do to keep this from happening except ignore it for the stupid childish nonsense it is and move on.

[maywong]

I would keep reporting it. Don't let her get away with what she is doing to your art work.

[Kirahfaye]

Grown people being ridiculously childish because of the internet. I just don't get it..... //hugs//

[embyquinn]

Thanks, guys.

Welp, I just reported her again (thanks May). I also saved all the URLs to my original works so if she tries this sh!t again I'll have the URLs handy.

I counted; she has done this to SEVENTEEN of my pictures. Anyone who has the time to painstakingly deface that many pieces of 20-year-old fanart and repeatedly post them to a DA account nobody looks at just to spite someone of whom they're obviously insanely jealous obviously has no life whatsoever. She has also posted several pictures of herself (she's 30 if she's a day,, I swear) and describes herself as "fat ugly me". So there's got to be a lot of self-hate there. I feel a lot more pity for her than anger now. But I'm still going to keep reporting the b!tch.

In all honesty, though, this experience has had me have a whole lot more sympathy towards the BJD artists whose work has been recast. No, hear me out on this. Somebody took a lot of my work--old work, granted, but work I was very proud of at the time and still feel a certain connection to--and made it over and put it out there without my permission in order to get attention. I didn't make any money off my fanart, but I still feel used and violated because someone is doing things with something I created that I would never have approved of. There's a kind of correlation here. A very strong pro-recast argument is that the sculpt is discontinued, or the artist was paid a lump sum for their work and it's not taking anything away from them to recast and sell their sculpts. Well, it is taking something away. It's painful to see something you worked hard to produce changed into something you never intended it to be.

Congratulations, b!tch. You just made a dedicated neutral a firm anti-recast.

[DollyKim]

If what you did made her go out of her way to react to it you must have done something right.

*to add
Attention ALL artists!
You sure have seen this post. (link) It has spread like wildfire over the past few days so I doubt there is any artist out there who hasn’t seen it. But even if you didn’t, you should read on because I’m about to tell you a handy little thing that can help you to protect your art from such assholes as the anon who submitted this bullcrap, as well as art thieves in general.

The magic word is Metadata.

Metadata is like an invisible signature that is embeded into a file. It can contain all kinds of information, like Title, date, keywords for online seach engines, and copyright information. And the best thing is, since this information is “hidden” in the code of your picture, it’s hard to remove it.

There is a nice basic tutorial on how to add Metadata, or “additional file information” to your images in photoshop. It’s really, really easy so check it out!

“Adding Your Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos With Photoshop” on PhotoshopEssentials.com

I’m not sure if you can do the same with any other art program. If you know how to do this in other programs / can confirm that it works the same way there, please tell me so I can add the information to this post.

Adding the Metadata will not stop idiots from taking and reposting your art. It also won’t make them stop editing out your signature. It WILL however, help you prove that you are the original artist whenever you have to.
Always remember my friends. You, the artist, are protected by law. No one has the right to take your intellectual property and hard work and repost, use or edit it without your permission. Ever.
infinipede
art thief: well how can you prove its yours??

me: /opens metadata
(NSFW image in ASCI)

[embyquinn]

Welp, I reported her again, and this time not only were my images removed from her account, they took down her entire gallery AND suspended her account indefinitely.

Of course, she can probably just go right back and make a new account and repost everything, but unless I happen to stumble across it on accident, I'm done.

How much you wanna bet she thinks I'm the one who attacked her and she's the victim because her account got trashed?

[maywong]

Good for you. I am glad that she was taken down. Don't worry too much about what she thinks. You are in your right and that's all that matters.

[richila]

Welp, I reported her again, and this time not only were my images removed from her account, they took down her entire gallery AND suspended her account indefinitely.

Of course, she can probably just go right back and make a new account and repost everything, but unless I happen to stumble across it on accident, I'm done.

How much you wanna bet she thinks I'm the one who attacked her and she's the victim because her account got trashed?

Bullies always portray themselves as victims when they are called on their BS.