Quote - its been removed, and the writer/publisher has sent a notice to the stores where it is hosted to remove the image from there as well. during the email correspondence theyve admitted to it being an infringement, money has changed hands, I have irrefutable proof that I created the image, and it was harvested from a site that has the copyright (2005) clearly posted -- so I'm not really worried about my legal standing.

seems he had an 'Art Director' working on the graphic side of things and he just took it upon himself to harvest work from DA and other sources. 

I'm not super pleased with how it was handled but its been taken down and I dont really have time to mess with the issue further - I have several projects I need to finish, this has already wasted half my day :(

thanks for the help folks, appreciate it!

Just heard about this issue, and I'm glad it got handled somehow.

And I thought, after looking at the cover: Whose background painting did this person steal?

And...yeah. This is why I don't post much of anything on DeviantArt.

Quote - And...yeah. This is why I don't post much of anything on DeviantArt.

despite its evils DA is still a worthy place to post because of the sheer traffic alone.

i have a GND2 image up there that has ~2000 comments and ~20,000 favorites.

the color version of that image here has 68 comments and 57 favorites.

that said, i much prefer the tighter-knit community here at Rendo. more mature and much friendlier people and far fewer career trolls, d-bags and s-disturbers :)

sure there are many of us that dont see eye to eye on everything, but for the most part Rosity does a really good job of discouraging and purging trolls.

clipped redundant advice

Theres also a slim chance the person who used the image paid some other unscrupulous person for it on good faith, or were given it by a friend not knowing where it came from

I slapped your URL into tineye - the image search site and found 3 dead links to the exact image, so its been around a bit

Lyrra

Yeah, once one of your images makes it onto TwitPic (which I think may be even more damaging than Facebook when it comes to image theft) -- people seem to think it's basically public domain.

The same would go for being very very popular on a big site like DeviantArt.

One member posted in the forums that her art was being featured on a subscription tattoo site. She would have loved to serve them with DMCA notices, but she only saw the advertising thumbnails. In order to verify that they were really using her art (and to find all of her art that they were using), she would have had to pay for a subscription to get access to the images. What a freakin' scam!

Quote - clipped redundant advice

Theres also a slim chance the person who used the image paid some other unscrupulous person for it on good faith, or were given it by a friend not knowing where it came from

I slapped your URL into tineye - the image search site and found 3 dead links to the exact image, so its been around a bit

Lyrra

according to the author there were other infringements as well.

regardless, if youre going to call yourself an art director and supply the graphics for a project you had damned well better make sure you can account for where everything comes from.

that tineye site is depressing. i put some of my more popular images in it and some have multiple pages of results. i dont mind people reposting with my sig/a credit but when they edit out my sig it really irks me.  i dont lose sleep over it though since its the nature of the internet - always was, always will be.

the alternative is watermarking, i know. but honestly youre just going to piss people off even more when you use HUGE over the top watermarks. when i open something like this and the subject is completely obscured by a ridiculous watermark i just grumble and close the damned thing.  there is no way i would favorite that, and i am way less inclined to comment since i consider it a pretty arrogant practice.

I don't see the point of sharing images with big ugly watermarks. But I don't see it as arrogant. Well, if the image is something that no one in their right mind would steal or that obviously took very little effort (eg a canned pose render of a default nude Vicki in P4 with no shadows) -- then it's arrogant or actually kinda comical.

But if you've had your stuff taken, I don't see it as arrogant to assume that it could happen again.

After I got my image used, I watermarked every single image on my site via a php script. The watermark is darned ugly and I hate it. But I did it because it's a quick fix for now while I decide whether or not just to pull the site entirely.

The other option is to upload only small resolution images (600px or so length max) embedded in Flash (which I despise) in order to make it as annoying as possible to copy the images.

Of course, I'm not sure what the purpose of sharing pictures on the internet is any more. If I want to show my friends, family, or potential employers I could give them the password to a protected server, I guess, or better yet, hang prints on my wall and invite them over.

These days, I am tending toward the very last option.

i see putting a huge watermark in the middle of your image as about the equivalent of a chef pissing in a bowl of his soup so noone can steal his recipe.  as a result noone can enjoy the soup, so whats the point of sharing it to begin with?

something with a huge ghastly watermark just looks repulsive to me. i simply cannot get over the fact that there is a big watermark obscuring the image - its like a black hole sucking in all my attention. assuming you didnt immediately close the image like i do, how do you even comment on something like that? 'great work! when i squint a little so im not focusing on the massive watermark, the parts i can see around it are really well done!'

with regards to the prints thing - i am sure i sell less prints on DA because i basically make the full resolution image available, so anyone can just download it and print it out for a fraction of the cost. but the alternative is to cripple my uploads via watermarking or shrinking so that all detail is lost, to try and milk more print sales. i guess i have pcked what - to me - is the lesser of the two evils.

but i dont make my living from prints/gallery:  im sure its a much different consideration for someone who does. 

I agree that watermarking is ugly. But I don't think it's necessarily arrogant. Paranoid, in some cases, yes. Arrogant in some, yes as well. But not all. Sometimes I think it's frustration -- throwing your hands in the air -- while hoping a better solution comes along.

I don't make my living from prints either. I expect about six or seven people on DeviantArt do.

I see making full resolution files available for downloads as similar to leaving the jewelry counter unlocked. Sure it will probably result in more sales, as customers who get to handle goods are more likely to buy, and if they don't have to wait for a salesperson to hover over them, even more so. But there are distinct risks involved in doing so. So you have to balance the losses with the gains and make your decision.

As with jewelry, peeps who steal your stuff weren't going to buy it anyway. Few sales lost there, if any.

I don't think highly enough of my photos to believe that anything is gained by looking at resolutions any greater than 800 pixels. Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe I think they look good enough that you don't need to see the tiny details. Not sure which.

TL;DR summary -- Agree. Watermarks are darned ugly. But....

I agree images with the big text layer copyright across the image defeat the purpose of displaying the image. But, isn't there the embedded watermark Photoshop filter that only shows when the document is printed?

Quote - I agree images with the big text layer copyright across the image defeat the purpose of displaying the image. But, isn't there the embedded watermark Photoshop filter that only shows when the document is printed?

There may be such  a thing, but I don't see how it would survive loading the image in Photoshop, ctrl-a, ctrl-c, file>new, ctrl-v...

And that doesn't address web-only use of images.

What's needed is 1. a way for watermarks to appear only when an image is displayed on a different server from the one specified by the original creator (and not just for hotlinked images), and 2. a way to show the watermark pasted over the image in browser screenshots, or 3. a way to punch people in the face right through their monitors when they take your stuff and claim it as their own.

Quote - 3. a way to punch people in the face right through their monitors...

i just made that same 'feature request' a few minutes ago, when i was discussing my new biggest pet peeve:  people who type in Cockney accents.

whenever you think youve seen every kind of internet douche, a new breed is born.

Attached Link: Cockney and other accents

Quote - ...since it is entirely too much work ter devise the phonetics for an accent oneself, do wot guvnor!

Ah dunno, burrahthink Ah juss 'ave t'type thway Ah tawk tuhgerra Lanky dialect.

That sucks.  I'd definitely say see a laywer.  Understood you're leaving for Europe soon, but they'll work behind the scenes for you.  If you don't act now for it, you'll never be able to stand you're own ground in the future if they do it again.....

A funny story about Copyrights. About 15 years ago I was working in a print shop and the local newspaper had sent over a 4"x5" film transparency they wanted scanned to CD. I had it up on my monitor and was double checking the scan when this guy behind me said "I hope you have a copyright release for that." in a not too friendly voice. "Whaaa..." I said turning around. He was the photographer of the image, and had wandered into the store for another matter. Fortunately the newspaper had also included their copyright release. O.O;

my Poser Animations

Since where on the subject ,I get confused about what rights all the defrent sites have to do with my art if I post my art on there site.

I always thought DA could sell t shirts and all with my art on it.
In exchange for them host my art free.

The WEB is pirates play ground.
YouTube was built on piracy.

If your art is any good it will be pirated on the web.
But if you want to play the game you half to play on the Web.

Before the Web Bands concerts where cheep I saw KISS,OZZY $8.00
they made there $$$ with records.
Now cause of the Web they make there $$$ with concerts.
why buy a CD , with You tube ?

Lynyrd Skynyrd new CD was on YouTube as fast a lighting.

I was thinking on putting my name in the Art.
Have a rock in the grass with RorrKonn on it.
A book on a shelf with RorrKonn on it just put my name some where kinds discreat.

Quote - I always thought DA could sell t shirts and all with my art on it.
In exchange for them host my art free.

This is incorrect. You can sell things with your art on it via DA, and they get a cut. If you are a paid member, their cut is smaller. So far, I've actually only sold art to myself. (I wanted some of my art on coffee mugs, and made a couple of prints.)