Stolen art

[RUiN 427]

So last night I'm scrolling through tumblr while watching tv and I come across an alt game box cover art pic for Red Dead Redemption. The funny thing is, the art used for the alt cover is my original art from a Red Dead poster I did. Now, I have nothing against the whole alt box cover thing, I get it. In fact, I'm flattered someone thought it was cool enough to use. However, I wish they would have given me credit and said where they got the art originally.

So digging deeper I come to find out that it's not only on tumblr, but it originated from a Neogaf post... and then I found that the covers were in several blog articles (all crediting the person who cropped my art into an alt cover). These were not just some no-name blogs, Kotaku actually ran it in an alt cover gallery post (crediting an entirely different person to boot). Some friends and I added comments and sent out some emails essentially saying "hey love the alt covers, but could you please credit me". I mean if your getting blog articles written about the alt cover you made, it's not that hard to include a link to my original poster. Easy peasy.

Well, it gets worse. Some dude on deviantART is straight up claiming he created my poster. This is different than the alt covers. This is stealing. I understand it's deviantART and it comes with the territory, but it just feels gross.

A buddy of mine has been helping me track down all the instances where the alt covers show up as well as the poster rip off. He's been a big help since I've been so busy at my day job. He brought up an interesting thought about the ethics of fan art. I personally love fan art, I believe in the freedom of expression. As long as there is some indication of the origin. I've used game, tv, movie, and comic assets as reference for some of the work I do, however I make sure to tag, link and name the source material.

The point of me posting this here is to maybe shine a light on how it feels to discover this. Hopefully gain some support. Maybe get some help tracking these dudes down. Also to spark some conversation about all of this.

Here's some links to the above mentioned stuffs:

My original poster:  http://www.bradvandenberg.com/weekly-works/top-3-games-2010-red-dead-redemption.html

Tumblr image: http://jnadiger.tumblr.com/post/43332002400/custom-cover-art-for-red-dead-redemption-by-neogaf

Neogaf post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=30359115&postcount=1106

Blog posts:
http://kotaku.com/5834641/print-off-your-own-badass-game-covers/gallery/6
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2011/12/01/check-out-this-gorgeous-red-dead-redemption-custom-cover/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/13/10-gorgeous-custom-game-covers-gallery/

deviantART thief: http://muusedesign.deviantart.com/art/Red-Dead-Redemption-Alone-211108275

[Samwise]

It seems to me like pretty much all you can do is make sure that stuff you create and release to the public is posted somewhere that'll show the date (like your own deviantArt or whatever, ideally something where the date of the upload is certified by a reasonably trustworthy third party rather than your own privately hosted blog), and then link back to that when you see people ripping it off.  At the very least you'll cause them some embarrassment.

A little while back I made a silly piece of artwork for my brother, he took a picture of it and posted it to reddit (attributing it to me), then someone else reposted it to 9gag with a caption (a lame caption, of course, because it's 9gag) and no attribution (because 9gag).  I think it was the first time I'd felt like I'd been ripped off in an artistic sense.  On the one hand I was annoyed, but on the other hand I guess it was the first time somebody liked something I did enough to want to rip it off, so that was cool.

[Mosesandstick]

That sucks man, especially when some guy just flat out says he did it himself. I wish I could provide some advice.

[Khaldun]

Well, the deviantart page is gone so maybe you've had some impact on him.

I think in a way this is why posting work publically is sort of a good idea, oddly enough--as long as it's done through a site that provides attribution markers and date-of-posting metadata. It makes it easier to at least establish that a) you're the person who made something and b) you did it first. But yes, at the same time, it seems nearly impossible to really prevent altogether the unauthorized recirculation of images.

[Salamok]

I've seen several reddit pitchfork mobs successfully combat this but YMMV on getting the ball rolling on that.

edit -  Maybe if you posted this thread there and then some of us gave it some traction by heading over there to rage vent and upvote it...

[Merusk]

This is the sad reality of the internet.  If you post it and it's good it's going to get stolen, guaranteed.  The only way you can totally avoid it is by not ever posting anything.  The only way to minimize it is by posting in a format/ size that makes it too much effort to casually grab and reuse it.

This is a frequent discussion on the photography groups I follow on Linked-In.  I feel worse for a lot of those guys because it means they have to work that much harder to make a living at their passion, where I only lose out making spending cash on a hobby.

With the growing numbers of kids turning in to adults with the, "a digital copy isn't theft" mindset, I expect this sort of theft to only get worse.  "What's the harm, you only found out because xyz told you." 

Keep your portfolio online small in scope and format and hope you can minimize your losses that way. Yeah it sucks that someone only gets to see a thumbnail or sees a full-size with an ugly ass watermark through it.  Sucks worse to not eat.

A little while back I made a silly piece of artwork for my brother, he took a picture of it and posted it to reddit (attributing it to me), then someone else reposted it to 9gag with a caption (a lame caption, of course, because it's 9gag) and no attribution (because 9gag).  I think it was the first time I'd felt like I'd been ripped off in an artistic sense.  On the one hand I was annoyed, but on the other hand I guess it was the first time somebody liked something I did enough to want to rip it off, so that was cool.

I recall seeing that picture the day after you mentioned it here.  I thought it might've been you posting it, but the caption said something about cousin instead of brother.

[Selby]

This is the sad reality of the internet.  If you post it and it's good it's going to get stolen, guaranteed.  The only way you can totally avoid it is by not ever posting anything.  The only way to minimize it is by posting in a format/ size that makes it too much effort to casually grab and reuse it.

This isn't limited to just art.  I've restored cars, put photos of them on the internet, then other people have taken the photos of mine and then run scams to try and get someone to "buy" something that they don't even own off of some place like eBay or an internet forum.  There's real money to be made by some people and it's quite depressing.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, it's a serious problem with online photography--the folks who make really great images that have actual value are constantly struggling against being ripped off. Though part of the problem is that you also have to be exceptionally creative to make images that stand out--if you have a very high-end camera, understand the basic techniques involved in something like long-exposure shots of moving water, can get to a scenic place, and have good processing software, you can almost certainly duplicate some stunning images pretty easily. The only things that are hard to reproduce are candids of some unusual scene or person and studio shots where the photographer has a really distinctive eye or imagination. I think the same goes for strong graphic art and design work--even with watermarking and so on, an unimaginative person who has basic technical knowledge can often just do an image that is *almost* what a much more creative person came up with and then claim that it's their own. Or they can do what some comic-book artists like Greg Land do, which is just trace most of their faces and bodies from photographic source material (Land uses a lot of porn actors) and then draw the costumes over the tracings.

[Sky]

Interesting.

http://www.fantasywelt.de/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=orson&x=-925&y=-234

[Strazos]

What's funny is the poser actually edited the poster to look worse, IMO.

[Merusk]

Interesting.

http://www.fantasywelt.de/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=orson&x=-925&y=-234

How'd you find that out? Now I'm curious to search out the pics I had on Flickr before removing them.

[Sky]

I found it while searching for source pics for another mini. I noticed that site had someone else's paint job rather than the studio paint job. So I searched for Orson, as there is no studio paint job for him. Voila, there's my paint job.

I'm going to be discussing with the folks at Reaper what extent their creative commons clause allows that. I don't mind them using it in their webstore, but it seems if my paint job is representing that mini commercially worldwide...well, I ought to at least get a freebie :p

[Signe]

You should absolutely get a freebie.  And a bit of dosh for your trouble.

[Sky]

Reaper went to bat over it and fantasywelt put in attribution almost immediately.

[RUiN 427]

Woof, what a busy week. I'm finally settling in and reading some of the fallout from all of this. First off, thanks for the support. I went into posting these work knowing and accepting the eventuality of stuff like this. I guess I wasn't prepared for how dirty it would feel.

I talked with a designer friend of mine who's advice was to embrace it and use it towards your advantage i.e. turning it into humorous Facebook and Twitter fodder to spark conversation with your audience.

I think with a redesign of my website I will opt for smaller images.

It's cool that the miniatures site gave you a shout out.

I think I would only rally a mob on Reddit if my requests for removal or credit were met with shittyness or further drama.

Thanks again everyone, I'll keep you posted.

[Krakrok]

I talked with a designer friend of mine who's advice was to embrace it and use it towards your advantage i.e. turning it into humorous Facebook and Twitter fodder to spark conversation with your audience.

This. The only thing you should care about is if it links back to your site. If it doesn't, ask for a link (or post one like you did in the comment). Build your URL into your designs in the future (some people will cut that off but most people won't).