*peeks in* Hi. LOL so yeah, I know I haven’t posted in a REALLY long while. Life kinda happened, I got busy, hell I GOT MARRIED. =)))
Which is why I’m a little sad that I had to come out of hiding like this. You see, it’s been brought to my attention, like, JUST NOW, that people have been basically stealing some of my artwork. While I’m aware that when it’s posted on the internet, it kinda becomes free game, I guess the optimistic side of me was still hoping for a bit of… I dunno… respect (???) when it comes to borrowing someone else’s work, especially if you’re going to use it for things such as BRANDING.
I’m no famous artist, and I’m semi-pro at best. Which kinda makes it worse for me because… COME ON. I’m small fish. Don’t take what little I got.
So when I find out that not only did some people take something that I made, but also removed my watermark, didn’t credit me, and also terribly mutilated the original piece with horrible edits… I can’t help but feel pretty darned offended.
Case in point…
Sigh… Just… wut.
And what’s worse is that some people seem to consider asking for permission as more of an afterthought.
If you’ve noticed, the commenter only asked for permission September 5, when they’ve already been using the image since August 31/September 1.
Look. I’m not selfish or greedy. I’m not asking for money, and if anything, us artists tend to be a very sharing bunch. But please, please, please, for the love of whatever gods you pray to, SOURCE AND CREDIT YOUR MATERIALS (I’m especially disappointed with the blog, because as supposedly reputable and highly-ranked bloggers, they should really know better). It’s really not much, nor is it difficult. The original image had A WATERMARK. A simple Google search would have saved everyone all this trouble. I’m also not hard to get hold of, as there’s the comments section, and I have a working contact page, and you really could have ASKED ME FIRST.
And please don’t remove the watermarks we put in there!
You can even see in one of the images that someone tried but wasn’t able to successfully remove the entire DeviantArt watermark.
That’s. Really. Rude.
Heck, had you asked nicely, MAYBE I would have even edited or colored it myself for free! Unfortunately, it’s stuff like this that make us artists much more protective/defensive with our work. And that’s sad.
Alas, from now on, I would probably have to resort to horrible, horrible watermark mutilation. Like this.
Please don’t make us have to do this just to be able to protect our property. 😦
In the meantime, here’s some possibly relevant reading material:
- Credit is Always Due (blog post by Austin Kleon)
- How to Cite Sources & Not Steal People’s Content on the Internet
- Giving an Artist Credit Doesn’t Give You Permission (I know this is for videos, but I believe it also applies to other media)
- Why Crediting (an artist) is Important
Peace out, and I hope I never have to write a post like this ever again.
UPDATE:
Both offending parties have removed the images from their sites/pages, for which I am very thankful. However, a bit disappointed that the motorcycle club also removed my post on their wall regarding the issue, and never bothered to reply/comment/message me about the matter… which again, feels sort of rude. But that’s okay because I have screenshots of it here. Yay.
Tanuki Doodles 