Here's the reply I received today - so maybe it is worth a bit of sabre-rattling.
Çäðàâñòâóéòå, Stuart.

BE DELETED!

--
Ñ óâàæåíèåì, Þ
  www.ArtFile.ru

Âû ïèñàëè 13 ìàðòà 2007 ã., 2:30:13:

S> http://www.artfile.ru/oboi/b/i.php?i=a|242110
S>
S> I am the artist who created this image and gave NO permission
S> for it to be hosted at this your website.
S> This image has been STOLEN from www.renderosity.com and I
S> demand you remove it from your website immediately.
S> You should also ban 'chris' who posted it.
S>
S> Thank you

Funny....It seems now that the site is "temporarily unavailable" to my IP address. Anyone else not able to access it?  I was looking, during my free time at work, to see if our images were being removed. Maybe we just succeeded in annoying them and they are just going to deny us access??

Maddy

I've not been able to get on the site most of the day.  Once my puter got in, but the other times, no.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm???????????????????

no excess at all for most of the links.
if they visit here to collect, you know for sure they reed  the commotion as well.

monica aka ligt

Just because they come here to collect art doesn't mean they look at the forums. Not everyone does. I rarely do. There's no excuse for theft, period, whether or not they read the forums.

Pat

pat, you are right, but that does not mean they are incapable of sensing the commotion.
that is all i wanted to say, since they noticed so quickly something fishy ( in their point of view) and closed down, and no doubt open another site.
monica

Actually, the reason they closed down is because someone from here contacted their host, and complained. It has nothing to do with commotion here. If I don't visit the forums, I'm not aware of any commotion.

They are in the process of taking down all images complained of.

This is unusual responsiveness, and the only thing I can figure is that because Russia wants to be admitted to the European Union, they're cracking down when caught.

Pat

Ok, yesterday several emails and letters went off to the a) siteholder b) the isp and hoster and c) to the russian ministery of interior. After some back and forth we compromised that the sender was the dpt of justice of the local govt amd not the govenors office itself. Content was the list of all the links I could gather here, futher the contents of a huge complaint by a german picture database unrelated to what has happened here. It contained especially a referrer to some informal agreements between russian governement and the european union concerning "intensivation of efforts to limit and penalise infringements of third party rights ..." etc blah blah. hth in some way but dont count on it. cheers, Valerie

Quote - This is unusual responsiveness, and the only thing I can figure is that because Russia wants to be admitted to the European Union, they're cracking down when caught.

Pat

Hi Pat Actually thats not it, but I was surprised myself to hear some of the reasons why they seem to comply 1) that hoster is involved in various big rip offs. In one case they were so stupid to try to rip content where big european money is involved. Big money that invests in Russia too. Needless to say that they are not amused and can make much more pressure then any of us can 2)another reasons seems to be the family background of some of the posters of some of the ripped off copyrighted material: I cant give details here, but let me say that sometimes kids do stuff which badly crosses the plans of their parents. And this moreso when those parents have political ambitions. It looks to me that the people here just got lucky that this hoster/isp was "on the list" since some longer time already and that coincidentally several floods of new complaints hit more or less at the same time. take care, Valerie

Quote - After some back and forth we compromised that the sender was the dpt of justice of the local govt amd not the govenors office itself.

Correction: It wasnt sent from any govt related dpt, but an organisation which deals with intercultural and economical matters between the eu and ru. take care

I think if you can get through to the web host, and they are even remotely legite, they should investigate the claims and the problem, even possibly shut the site down. Trust me, there is a ton of illegal web activity going on in the area of the Ukraine of late.

I have been trying to take a peek given the links provided here and get bounced to a different site?

I made a suggestion in the Suggestions section of the forums today, and I did so because I had another individual add me to their fav list, and they have never commented on anyones work, nor do they contribute to the site.  I feel there is a % of individuals that gain accounts, add favs and take their images at will.

I suggested the right/ability to delete individuals that have claimed you as a fav after asking the right questions first.

Denise, this is what I have been wondering about too.  These folks do not leave any feed back, just add you to the favorites.  They do not have any work...as you said.  I believe you have hit the nail on the head where some of the problems are occurring.  
Bunny

What I don't understand about this is...if all they want to do is steal our work, why bother adding them to their favorites? To what end?

Maddy

I don't think we want to go on a witch hunt. Lots of people who want to watch are perfectly innocent. Let's not worry about people who do that. Some of them may want to look at your art but may not speak English well enough to leave a comment. I favor people's work more often than I comment because of lack of time, and I want to see their work again.

Pat

Individuals that make your their favorite tend to do so out of respect for your work through commenting (even if rarely! which is great!!) and placing a reasoned comment with the favorite link.  

Some do not and *I personally, would like to opt out of that link exchange. As of late, I have had numerous so called "neutral" individuals add me, with no comments EVER and did not even leave a comment on the link itself.  these are the only ones I am concerned about.  multiple attempts to contact these individuals to thank them for making me their favorite have never offered a reply. *

**The term Witch Hunt is NO where near my personal thoughts on this matter, I would just like the opportunity to take my name off of a list if my personal findings leave me more than skeptical.  That is all I am suggesting at the suggestion forum, *allow me the option to remove myself with respect when I feel threatened.

***This is all I am suggesting.  I will kindly, out of respect for everyone, leave it at this, my suggestion is just one in a ton to try to keep our work in the community. 

That is an interesting idea. Thank you. I am unaware of any site that will do that. I don't know if I agree or disagree; let me think about it.

My computer had a heart attack and died. I'm borrowing someone else's. It may take me a few days to get replacement parts. So I may not be responsive for a few days.

Pat

As to the "artists" that have favorites but no images - why not follow the links to the images they fave and see if they fave a lot of work by the same artist(s). As can be seen by some of the threads still in this forum, certain folks are STILL all zenoid and "sick" about the "Hot 20" - which is now called the "Art Charts" or maybe better the Hot 100.

Matt showed a while back that one could game the system by signing up a TON (I think he did like 30!) of junk Hotmail addresses and then using then to sign up as a new user and vote for a certain image. Though, to be fair, I have a few friends who have logons here who aren't artists and they just look around. I think they've contributed a sum total of 3 comments to my stuff in the last couple years but it's nice when they say in person they liked my last pic.

I've occasionally had the same thoughts about some of the no-image members but in the end there's really no way to tell. Though I never make the art chart thingie, it IS nice to know someone really liked one of my pieces and the new system might be more "genuine".

Rick

Quote - As of late, I have had numerous so called "neutral" individuals add me, with no comments EVER and did not even leave a comment on the link itself.  these are the only ones I am concerned about.  multiple attempts to contact these individuals to thank them for making me their favorite have never offered a reply.

Well, I think it's fine to have an option not to be a favorite, but if these people are adding images to be stolen later (which I doubt - it's easier to right click on the spot), removing the option accomplishes absolutely nothing. They can simply bookmark the page or gallery.

Look just ad a non-disturbing signature through your creations and suddenly you're not so very attractive for them buggers anymore. It is very easy to do that. I have some of my latest done with such a 'watermark' and as long as this community doesn't have any equivalent activities like the optional watermark at zazzle.com, you just have to do it yourself.

Good night

Harmen

Hi everyone,

a couple of days ago I went through the whole 3D nature and also 2D/3D section on this site:
http://emmir.mylivepage.ru/  Those two sections are actually being written in english and were therefore easy to find. I have worked myself through all the 90 sites in 2D/3D.........found seven of my own images and also hell of a lot of artwork I have seen here on Rendos. I am only new to this site, that is why I could not really say what belongs to whom.........but I had definitely seen a great amount of them on Rendo.

However, I clicked one of my images and then simply clicked on all the buttons beneath it, and luckily the comment box opened. I don't know any russian at all that is why I copied all the words from the comment box into a textfile, which was later translated by a neighbour.
Knowing how I had to fill out the boxes now, I simply copied all the links of my images in there and told him to remove them within 24 hours or I would contact his host server and have his site taken off the net. The next morning they had been removed.

That young man has another site though.............this one here: http://emmir.gallery.ru/
I found tons of fractal and 2D/3D images there as well...........many of them from here, and also the same seven images he had removed from his other site. Ironically they were on the last three pages (appr. 327 sites, each with eight thumbs). I will contact him again later on.
The direct link to the gallery where all the fractals and 3Ds are in is this one: **http://emmir.gallery.ru/photoalbums/22949_matrix.html

http://1zoom.ru  ** has been mentioned in this thread as well. Many of works from here there as well. I found three of my own stuff there and wrote a mail with the links to admin@1zoom.ru . They were also removed the next morning.

Thought I needed to tell you this.
Best regards to everyone reading here,
Antje

Ok, just in case you might think it was a joke that I am new to this site ..............I registered here in 2004 because I wanted to download some objects for Vue but started submitting own images here a couple of days ago. :-)))

Wow!  Now I had to save these links, so I can go back and poke my nose into all of them! lol q-:

I was just over at all the sites mentioned above.  The first one has some of the Poser and Bryce images that look familiar.  May be some from here, but I'm not sure.  What is funny, is this person was so bold as to include photos from National Geographic that they put up for the photo of the day and some that are part of the Adobe Photo for purchase.  That just blows me away with the chutzpah of this guy.

On the other two sites, something must have been said, because while I was there, images were disappearing very fast and leaving little red x's all over the place.
Bunny

Unfortenately is renderosity the number ONE gallery in the world where these people steal the images from. And unfortenately for us, are those image all of a sudden Public Domain by these peeps actions.

There is something we all can do is to mark all those images here uploaded with our unique signature OR renderosity will provide their coöperation in doing so with an easy mark OR renderosity won't be the number ONE gallery/community in the world anymore.

Of course there are many other galleries on the net where us artists upload our creations, and so it is our own duty to provide a watermark as i suggested. Renderosity isn't gonna make one on short notice.

I will have to provide my creations with an undisturbing sign on every website i have my designs on.

BTW there aren't just a handful of galleries, but dozens and dozens russian free wallpaper websites where you will find most of our creations. And those people don't have to be russian...

Keep On Smiling

Harmen

lol just found another one:

Daler.ru

I'll keep on searching...

I am so sad.....I will  continue to post F>>>K em, and I will make it easy....I will not cloud my image with watermarks........I WILL BE CONCIOUS of those that add me to their favorites......I WILL BE CONCIOUS....I will be alive, I do have a choice.