Rhiannon, I'm glad to see that an epilogue member who had left an early favorable comment for Khalid Loukili at epilogue had the courtesy to come to your gallery here at renderosity and post the praise where it belongs...

Gee, that was as much fun as jumping in on a warez thread!

well, I finally got a comment in. >:) Though I felt my hair grow while waiting for it to load.

We'll probably run up the comment count and get him in the top 20 or whatever they have over there! Sheesh.

The NERVE of that little twerp! If the site wasn't so damn slow, I'd cruise it and see if I recognized any other images. Glad you found out about it and quashed his pathetic little ego trip.

I don't see that anyone hit the "Report this Image" link so I did. Here is the response I just got. Maybe they'll tie him up for a public flogging?!? --------------- Thanks Igohigh, we'll get it taken care of. Also, please don't form your entire opinion of Epilogue based on the (bad) behavior of one artist. These people are definitely in the minority and are generally taken care of quickly. Thanks, Chad Lockwood Epilogue.net - Fantasy and Sci-fi at their best. http://www.epilogue.net ------------------------- Rhiannon, the least they should do is deliver his/her head on a plater to you!

Not a very wise thing to do, I would say. Maybe this person just found out the community is closer than you think. It didn't take long to gather support. Sorry this has happened to you Rhiannon.

Sent the owners an email too before I saw the post from igohigh...lol How lame some people are. Marque

I too left a couple of comments, also tried to report the images...got this weird messege "Report an Image: Sorry, cant run it from here...." What in the world does that mean??

At the moment all the images on that site seem to be missing, even the site design ones. Also, all the text has been changed to black so that the comments can only be read if you highlight them with the mouse.

Epilogue.......spit....elitist bastards, with it appears, some more dishonesty to add to the list of previous indictments

I also reported the image. I also mentioned that Rhiannon will most likely be taking legal action if the image is NOT removed within 24 hours. Thats pathetic and frankly I may hurt this man for stealing from my Rhi! lol Lil jerk! Im seriously NOT pleased...not a good way to wake up! HUGS to you Rhi! And this BEST br removed by the time I get home! Cheers! Gina

I also e-mailed Khalid Loukili. I told him to remove the images AT ONCE or Rhiannon would take legal action. Definatly sounded better than "We will for a lynch mob and hunt you down like the dirty dog that you are!" lol Course Im not opposed to it if anyone wants to do it! :) Gina

man that sucks. I have a gallery at epilogue. So far they've only accepted one of my images all the others got rejected for "obvious use of digital tools" (WTF?) I'm thinking of pulling that one image because of this though

the page loads now, pic and all...cor that is nervy.

y'know what really pisses me off? I put up an image i did using those same wings (different texture), this one: http://www.skyewolfimages.com/images/gallery/SheFlies.jpg and it got rejected! ("elements look cut and pasted", WTF?) I was already thinking of removing myself from this site. Now I'm positive...

Telling a digital artist "obvious use of digital tools" is kind of like telling a traditional artist who works with oil and brushes on canvas his work is rejected because it shows "obvious evidence of brush strokes"... The way I see it, the main difference between elitist, snobish epilogue and Renderosity is that we not only allow, but encourage, beginners, rank amateurs, newbies and plain folk without formal art training to express themselves in any medium they like... ...just my 2 cents

I'm so sorry for you Rhi! I wanted to leave a note on Khalid Loukili page but I can't open it. I've always thought of Epilogue as a snobish community who boasts to feature 'creme de la creme' artists...now they've accepted the ripper! How disgusting to say at least! I'm with you Girl!

OMG Igohigh, at least you got a response. I have gotten no response to "two" violation reports I've submitted. From Guslaw: "Telling a digital artist "obvious use of digital tools" is kind of like telling a traditional artist who works with oil and brushes on canvas his work is rejected because it shows "obvious evidence of brush strokes"... Rhi here: Exactly ... how f!#$%$%g ludicrous is that? And ya' know, I hear some traditional artists are using some kind of "texturizing" paint or some such thing for elements in their images ... how is this different than using the impasto brush in Painter? None, in my opinion. Skyewolf, so sorry to hear about your experience. This kinda' thing always happens when lines are drawn to divide and separate people, for whatever reason ... the lines become fuzzy and grey and nothing is ever consistent. No matter how people try to "make" things be black and white, the black and white alway end up bleeding and mixing together eventually, and creating even more separation. Gina, you're my girl!!! HUGS Yeah, I've written this low life slimeball as well and gave him 24 hours to do the right thing and remove my images from his gallery, or legal action would be taken. As of right now, they are still there ... damn, how long does it take to remove a few images and boot his sorry ass outta' there? Thanks all you guys! YOU ROCK!!!

Well The image is still there but I can't get to the comment page damn it all but as soon as I can I too will leave a comment BTW Rhi! Beautiful Render!!!!!!!!!!1

Rhia, I left the following comment in Epilogue's General forum under your Stolen Work topic: "The image is still up. What seems to be the problem? Rhiannon's picture was posted in early December of 2002. This image was posted in mid-July of this year. Rhiannon's picture is in keeping, in both style and content, with the 100+ other pictures in her gallery at Renderosity. This image is only one of two and the second image is also in question... Rhiannon's pictures are well documented as to tools/programs, meshes, textures, etc. used. This image does not indicate how it was produced. To me it seems that there is no question of the original artist and copyright holder. C'mon, get with the program guys..." ...and the response I got was this: "Guslaw: as stated before, the editors here are often BUSY and -will- get to it. Please be patient. " It seems that the wheels of justice are turning, turning very slowly, but turning non-the-less... Walter

What is there to get to? Its a simple matter of hitting the delete button. Thats it, thats all it takes! Busy my butt!

~runs in and slides to a halt~whooooooa thought I would miss it today O.O yup skywolf....I KNOW what you mean. I have a gallery too..one that the work is well..you know when you first buy a puter and you are just dilleriouse that you have modernized? and you do something that is cheesy and you are just happy it actually looked like something? because you are use to "traditional" tools and that roller ball mouse is like working with a shoping cart with one broken wheel?~nods~{and I was working with ulead 5 this is like working with broken crayons and torn paper} yup and silly me in my ohh yea ohh yea I made it look like something dillerium submited and IT GOT IN ~cringes remembering ~ the worst work I have done since I was 6. now they wont allow any of my work in. when I wrote and said "obviouse use of digitall tools...what the hey! you have other poser work in there with very obviouse use of the smudge tool and all what the heck is the deal" now they wont respond to any letter and when I submited a piece of mine that is being used in print work {some one wanted it as a print for their wall} they said "obviouse use of digital tools" AND THERE WAS NO POST WORK ON IT! I wrote and told them well by your standards you now have to take out any photoshop done work...psp...ulead...painter...poser...and anything that used anything on a computer..ohhh and scanners are digital tools as well so I guess you dont have a gallery. right now I could submit the mona lisa and it would get rejected. BUT they WILL allow in stolen work apparently. not very very high standards they have there. the pic itself is wonderful and Rhi should have it in. but when they are notified that it is stole and do not IMMEDIATLY take it down...soooooory all respect gone. I know of a few Renderosity Artist there..I think Ectasy has some there because I saw one of the giesha pics there..I have seen some Millenium dragons over there too. But do NOT tick Chad off{god forbid do not question them on their own rules or hypocracy} or hell will freeze over befor you get work in. There is some great work there but chad is a hypocrit.

Well, Hell freezes over every winter.... Hell, Michigan that is. And the town south of Hell, is a actually warmer during that time. That town is hotter than Hell. Couldn't resist :) JV

UPDATE FROM THE FORUMS AT EPILOGUE: Hi. I just saw this thread, and have removed the pictures in question. As soon as the caching system updates (within a couple of hours) they will be gone. Thanks for the heads-up.. -------------------- -Patrick McEvoy Epilogue editor http://megaflow.epilogue.net ------------------------------------------------- Not bad for a site that has no fulltime admin ... less than 24 hours ... now if they'll kick this person's ass outta' Epilogue, that would be really good. Of course, he/she can just join up anywhere they want to with whatever name they want to and could do it again, with anyone's work. Thieves and liars ... they're all around!! Once again, thank you all so much for your support and the time you've taken to back me up on this. I won't soon forget it!!!

~giggles maddly at JVs post~

This may be the "millionth" time it's been brought up or discussed, I don't know cuz I've never seen the discussions, but short of watermarking all our images here at R'osity, is there a workable solution for this? I know it is totally fullproof, but my personal website is coded so that right clicking does nothing but close the window that the full size image is in. Is there no coding available that would do this? Just asking, so don't throw any tomatos at me. :-)

well it's 2:20 pm Central and the image and comments loaded just fine for me, so it hasn't been removed yet. I did notice in reading through all that crap the he said he used neither poser nor bryce to create the image (of course - all he used was right-click mouse). I once put up a website that had some of my own graphics on it but was mainly informational in nature and discovered that the entire site, text and graphics, had been copied and were being used on a dutch site. When I demanded the site be removed I was told I was the thief and presented with the same ultimatum. When I put my images on my website I have tons of code in place to ensure they can't be lifted (as if I'm that good LOL!). I wonder if we shouldn't get together as a community of artists and see whether Renderosity would be willing to do the same. Don't worry, gurl, you're too well-respected and recognized by the digital art community to let too many people get away with this.

well guslaw... :) and that... and Rhiannon's pictures were published long before this upstart decided to right click and steal them, to repost elsewhere. I've seen all manner of idiots do this kind of stuff. They are poseurs. (as opposed to Poser, the program) They live a fantasy online, of someone else other than they are. They steal graphics, indeed anything they wish, and live in a fantasy world of their own creation... Having done graphics for just such a virtual world and confronted way too often with this sorry attitude... I know it only too well. Its why I'm here doing regular 3d art and not doing the gaming/VR worldchat stuff anymore. Yes there are poseurs here that do the same sorry stuff, but at least they are fewer and outnumbered by the majority that see them for the poseurs they are.

as of 4.52 central time {pm} the pic is still up there. they have not removed it at all. this is just sad....it is simply take the picture down.

so much for being a serious art site.

I cant believe with all the posts we all made with the complaits and reports of it the fact they said it would be gone by this afternoon...and it is still there...any validity they had just went out the window with me.

I think it speaks volumes about the site and its administration. I can understand why they wouldn't want to accuse someone without proof...but proof has been given. Could it be they just can't admit they made a mistake allowing these images to be posted???

yes, I'm becoming a bit more angry about this now ... it's 6:36 CST, and my images are still being displayed. I've cleared my cache and temp files to make sure. I wouldn't submit my art there now if you paid me to.

as I do a lot of modeling, morph and shader/texture work, and only occasionally use pose sets by others (I don't buy them as a rule, if they come with something else I bought - fine) my work doesn't fall into this category. But to my knowledge, nobody has stolen my artwork... its probably not of the subject matter people enjoy stealing. I'm not exactly keen on elves, fantasy, etc. Nothing against it, simply not my genre. also, there is a lot of work in lighting, camera setup, etc... but then, I don't render in Poser, so its not quite as easy. Photographers don't usually make all the furniture and construct the building they photograph, either. Rhiannon renders in Bryce, I do believe, and again, similar rules apply. She does a lot of post, hair painting, etc, from what I could see in her images. They weren't click and renders.

Charlie, I'm not sure what your point is, but if it's what I believe it to be, you're missing alot of points. I'd rather not debate what is and is not art, what is mine, what is yours, etc., etc. What I will do is tell you this ... those images that this person is claiming that he created ... he did not. They are my intellectual property ... they came from my head, they have my hand in them, my paint strokes, my colors, my ideas, my technical knowledge, etc., etc. They ARE NOT his, they are MINE. I've sold two prints of this particular piece, and one day I plan to be able to make a living doing what I love to do. And yes, he is a thief and liar, just as someone would be who stole this 3D piece you just posted. If someone wrote me today and asked if they could use this image on their website for something and would give me a credit and a link, I'd more than likely be glad to give them permission to do so. But I will not stand by and allow someone to claim what is mine as their own.

As of 11:32 Pm this image is still up... >:(

1:11 AM, Eastern time, it's still up

You guy's cleared your cache file before you went back there?

Regarding protecting images... No, nothing will work completely. There are a number of things you can do that will discourage, annoy, and frustrate people, but these only work if the person trying to steal your image is not very technically savvy. Anyone who knows anything about how their browser works or knows where to look to find out can get any image they want. bonni

Sacred hallway by Poserworld, actually.

Thanks, Phantast, Shows how long I've had that hallway, forgot where it came from :-)

I keep reading posts about stolen art. I'm not a still renderer, so it's never been an issue for me, but I've always known about digital watermarking. If you're really worried about this sort of thing happening, why not start watermarking your work. It is completely invisible to the eye and can survive multiple copies, etc. Digimarc (www.digimarc.com) has an excellent digtally watermark system, and it is included in a number of graphics apps, and I believe is available as a plug-in. It can even track your images use on the web and alert you when it finds your image on someone's web site. Best of luck. -Tim

It's extremely easy to remove a Digimarc watermark. It takes no special training or ability, just a basic understanding of your graphic program and some time to experiment. The service that "tracks" your images only goes to publically available pages, so anywhere that requires a membership (even a simple one) will be excluded from being searched. I used to use Digimarc until I found out how extremely easy it was to remove the mark. bonni