Attached Link: http://www.network-viking.net/eyecandy/screens/index.html

Thanks for the heads up, I'll be perusing his site myself.

Attached Link: http://www.desktopcollector.com

Looks like the first site took all the thumbnails down to make it harder to spot your work. This is a very serious problem. I hope anyone finding their art on such a site sends an immediate cease and desist notice to these bastages. I haven't spotted any of mine yet but if I do I will bring the full legal force of The Graphic Artists Guild (U.A.W. local 3030) to their doorstep. I don't play with this kind of stuff. FYI, this is why I never post any image over 800x600 online. I render all my images at much higher resolution, but I will never post anything large enough to be printed or used as a high res screen saver. I don't mind if individuals DL my art and use it for their desktop. I object to the renaming and redistribution of my work without my knowledge or consent. I try not to make it easy for people to do that.

I sent off a nasty cease and desist letter to this site. I don't know if it will do any good but they have been forewarned. I browsed the galleries there and found a piece by an artist I recognized. It was a piece that had been on the cover of Science Fiction Weekly on Scifi.com called "Suburb 2100" by Dawid Michaelowitz and it had been renamed "Paradise Parking" and his name was curiously missing from the work and not credited anywhere. I did a web search and found Dawid's email address and just informed him of this. There's a lot of unnamed 3D work there and once again I urge anyone who feels their work is being used without their permission to speak up and tell them to stop. I have no doubt this site is making money, even if it is only enough to support this crime, and don't be confused copyright infringement is a crime. Thank you rdarsey for bringing this to our attention.

Apologies to Dawid for botching his last name it is really Michalczyk, not Michaelowitz.

Aw crap. I hate these kind of sites. I'm kind of pressed for browsing time right now... don't go out of your way to look, anyone, but if you see something of mine you recognise, could someone let me know? Thanks. I'll try and hit it soon and snoop around.

Attached Link: http://www.desktopcollector.com/cgi-bin/wallpapershow.cgi?cat=09&subcat=00&img=0058&stat=preview

Attached Link: http://www.desktopcollector.com/cgi-bin/wallpapershow.cgi?cat=02&subcat=00&img=0044&stat=preview

there seem to be more than a few of Ryan Bliss's work posted there also with no mention of him at all. He wouldn't be happy I would think since he makes his living off his stuff.

Attached Link: http://www.desktopcollector.com/cgi-bin/wallpapershow.cgi?cat=18&subcat=00&img=0026&stat=preview

Disclaimer Notification All rights reserved by "Desktop Collector", or copyright owners (photographer, painter, etc...) Lots of wallpapers located on this server are exclusive works and created specially for our site. Copyright reserved by their authors and owners of "Desktop Collector" Distribution of wallpapers located on this server without owners consent are strongly prohibited If you found some copyrighted works that were presented here without permission contact us Owners of this site responsible only for design and programming maintenance of this server If you are agree with disclaimer showed above you can freely use this site That's what the disclaimer says...so there's a possibility that there's some individual(s) who take the pictures from here, edit them and then send them to Desktop Collector as their own work.

Ironbear, the artist of that image is, I think, Ferenc J. Haraszti, his homepage is at http://www.unc.edu/~haraszti/frontpage.html

Could be. Sounds about right... as I remember anyway. Is is username here Ferenc?

I don't know his username. Most if not all of his work that I have seen has been posted at Ryan Bliss's Digitalblasphemy in the users gallery. Im searching Renderocity now, as I know he uses Bryce, 3D Max and Painter in his artworks!

Thanks. I've got that image in my desktop collection - that's why I recpgnized it. It was my wallpaper for two months on my gaming rig. Odds are, if it's in my wall paper downloads, it came from the galleries here.

Ferenc is nitro115. He can also be found at 3dcommune as well. He's one of my favorite artists. I'm really upset someone would rip him off that way!

Ah. Ko... thanks Crescent. Odds are pretty good I'll bump into him over there then. I "think" he mods one of the forums, if so, I'll see him in Commune Mods forum pretty soon. I'll give him the url to that image and site.

I read that "disclaimer" too, while it is possible that some third party is ripping of work and sending it in, I doubt it because it is so widespread on the site. So far I have not received any response to my "cease and desist" letter. If there are any "hacker" types out there who know how to do a trace route to find out who owns the server this site is kept on, we could then contact the web hosting company and tell them about it. This type of thing is usually a TOS violation on most servers and they don't like to be sued or get bad publicity. They will take the site down even if the owner does not. That's usually the way you have to deal with these people. It's just a shame.

The IP address that the site resolves to is registered to the following: Cove Software Systems Inc (NETBLK-COVE-NET-2) PO Box 2264 Annapolis, MD 21401 US Netname: COVE-NET-2 Netblock: 209.103.160.0 - 209.103.191.255 Coordinator: Shevenell, Mike (MS1417-ARIN) mike@www.covesoft.com 410 268 0935

This is for the first link... Registrant: Gunnery Network (NETWORKVIKING3-DOM) 297 Leaing Tree Lane Sylva, NC 28779-5555 US Domain Name: NETWORK-VIKING.NET Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: Network Viking Server (NV353-ORG) OPERATIONS@NETWORK-VIKING.NET Network Viking 297 Leaning Tree Lane Sylva, NC 28779 USA 828-631-4867 Fax- 828-631-3757 Billing Contact: Gunnery Network (B12009-OR) no.valid.email@worldnic.com Gunnery Network 297 Leaing Tree Lane Sylva, NC 28779-5555 US 828-631-4867 fax: 828-631-3757 Record last updated on 28-Sep-2001. Record expires on 02-May-2002. Record created on 02-May-2001. Database last updated on 27-Jan-2002 22:54:00 EST. Domain servers in listed order: NS1.GUNNERY.NET 66.51.97.33 NS2.GUNNERY.NET 66.51.97.34

This was done with Visual Route Demo found at; http://www.visualware.com/visualroute/index.html I only use this program to search for people trying to ping/flood my computer, its a neet little program that is realy easy to use. I dont know how to interpret all the info it gives you, but could someone else try this program and see what the get before anyone goes hunting...

That's some great detective work guys. Now...can you find Osama Bin Laden too? hehe.

Visual Route is a trace route program that turns a series of hops into images. Hops are steps taken to connect you to a given website. Each of the steps is an IP address. VR resolves the IP address and gives you the location and the owner. Neat little program. Rick

UPDATE: The people at Network-Viking that I have been dealing with have been very cooperative so far. They state that they will get an original copy of the images in question and provide links as required by the Terms of Use on my site. I would advise any and all artists who find their work on this site to contact them via the network ops link on their website. Thanks to all for the input and help in spreading the word on this.

I ran across that desktop collector site about 6 months ago, from referrals in my SilverMage Concepts site, never found anything of mine there and they didn't have very much at the time... mostly photos...

oh geesh, I have looked at this - they have grown quite a bit!! There are several images there that are avaialble as posters at zazzle...

Even the photos are copyrighted to someone, even if they were purchased as "stock photos" they still don't have the right to redistribute them. Even all the celebrity images are copyrighted. Aint no such thing as "free wallpaper" unless it is being offered by the original artist. After sending a rather heated complaint to cove software sytems I got back a short cc message that was being sent to brent@internetconnection.net saying: >Hello Brent, >Can you correct this problem? >We received this complaint today. >Name: desktopcollector.com >Address: 209.103.170.82 So I assume the ball is rolling and I will keep my eye on the situation.

Of course the photos are copyrighted! I had just assumed that since there weren't very many of them and they were (at that time) noted with the creator's name that they were legitimate, that was the gist of my comment above. HOWEVER; after looking at the desktop collector site (I had looked at the viking site and read the desktop name, Isee it isn't teh site I saw previously - although the name is indeed very similar and the layout at viking is almost identical to the one I'd seen previously. That is waht I came back to say :-)

The route that Alleycat is following is one of the best ways to try and deal with something like this. Just in case anyone needs it though, or is interested in checking out other groups with a similar interest in copyright on the net, you might follow the above link and give ACAP [Artist's Coalition Against Piracy]. Sam and Rain Silverhawk are both involved with it's organization, and they're both very cool people with an avid interest in copyright protection. Pretty knowlegeable on it also. [And acquaintances of mine off and on for a year more or less - neat people. Sam does some fantastic web design and silversmithing work]

Attached Link: http://www.theacap.com/