Online, I have twice when I first started posting them. I had a site on Angelfire where I put up all of the oekakies and CGs I had done. A couple of days after putting up an oekaki for Easter, an acquaintance of mine informed me that on her oekaki board, someone had posted my picture up, claiming they had drawn it.

I never got to see it since there were tons of pictures being drawn on the board. I seriously...seriously, didn't believe her. XD It wasn't that good!

Then on deviantART, I've had a fanart stolen. It was amongst many other fanarts taken and compiled onto a gallery. No one knew it was actually mine, but they could recognize everyone else's.

Which makes me wonder how many more of mediocre junk have been "stolen" and no one knows. XD

In real life, I submitted an artwork in 7th grade to an area wide art show. My teacher told me someone was interested in purchasing it. When she went to relay the message, it was already gone. And of course, I wasn't paid. ^^;

Your experiences?

wow that really sucks O.o; so many occurences when people have stolen your stuff >.< *slaps them*

i dont think anyone has every copied my art, but i did have someone steal a poem i had written and turn it in.

Does being commissioned and the person taking the art without paying for it count? If it does, then I got robbed three times.
I've also seen some drawing floating around on DA that resembled one of my pieces a few years ago... some parts matched pretty much identically when overlayed. ._.

AUrilia - always ask for at least half up front.

Me, never had anything stolen that was reported to me anyhow.

I've been fortunate enough to not draw anything worth stealing, though I know of a lot of friends who have had issues due to companies stealing their art for cellphones. :S

some guy used my collab picca as avatar at dA. he was real apologetic about it when i contacted him. it was weird.

he's a nice guy.

Wow, tori @___@;;; So sorry all of those unfortunate incidents happened >A<;

I had someone from myspace sending me a note on DA saying they liked one of my pictures. He asked if he could use it for this Valentine's event he was doing with this band. I checked his myspace and saw that he already had it up (edited with ugly red fonts on it) X__x; At least he didn't take off my signature.

But yeah, I asked him to take it down and stuff. He took it down and was nice (apologetic at the same time) and... I had no problem after that ^^; I hope x___x;;

Well a friend recently told me someone had posted my art up on 4chan claiming he was an artist "up and rising". Didn't get to see it myself so I don't know what to think yet... anyways my friend contacted him to say he had stolen the art from me. The person who stole my art apparently now threathens to sue my friend. He's stupid, he stands no chance anyways *shrug*

Don't think my art is worth stealing though, so I found the whole thing really weird. He even stole some chibi headshots that I had slapped together in like 10 mins... don't get why anyone would like to steal that ^^;;

Yes ><;

It kinda sucks but some people have stolen mine.

The funny thing is when it has a huge watermark and then, the pictures look blurry in the middle and fine everywhere else. :lol:

Originally Posted by Aurilia

Does being commissioned and the person taking the art without paying for it count? If it does, then I got robbed three times.
I've also seen some drawing floating around on DA that resembled one of my pieces a few years ago... some parts matched pretty much identically when overlayed. ._.

I hate it when that happens...when you finish something and then forget to watermark and the dastards just take and run. ~_~'' :vein:

Never happened to me, maybe because my art is not that good enough anyway. Or I don't know about it. I think that could probably steal my oekaki's easily but not my cg, as I put my signature in evidence.

XD! I actually never had a serious case of art theft D8>

I did have someone do really bad 'manips' of my art... that I didn't authorize... but at least they gave me credit =w=;;

Also had my art show up on random foreign language galleries.... orz... but once again my name was on them ... I really wish people would just ASK first. I'm pretty lenient about letting people use my art but they could at elast ask right? @__@;

I see my art on DA avis.. sigs in weird forums.. myspace.. fanartcentral.. etc etc, I don't really care tho, and contact em only if I feel like it XD. Usually people are nice and ask first, and I only refuse if they are one of those weird yahoo tubing or sig groups.

i only got mad when this weird disco in.. was it London? somewhere.. used one of my pics as a promotional poster. now thats unfair.. i need money here!

ah thats just not cool >.>; i hate when people dont ask and use your work. actually what i despise more is when people edit my work without asking, like use the computer to completely change the colors and draw over the nose and such (when its complete) that just pisses me off to no end.. i mean honestly if they wanted MY art why the bloody hell are they edditting it. its no longer MY style if they go in changing my colors, drawing over my face and such *mutters vehemently*

^_^; My art isn't good enough to get stolen, so no, it hasn't happened to me before.

i've never had anything stolen. it's not good enough to be stolen. ^ ^;

I think the best way to make sure nobody steals your art is to scribble crap all over it and watermark it like mad. XD

But I forget half the time. ._.'

Hum... maybe not scribbing all over it O.o. That's a bit extreme and paranoid. Most of the people I saw doind that weren't the first target anyway and were just overreacting. Just putting a watermark on a character or crucial detail is okay, because it doesn't really shows on the pic and prevent an retouch anyway.

XD I have no idea how to watermark, lolz. I just use MSpaint after I scan stuff in and then pop letters where it can't really be easily removed. o.O' I rarely do online commissions anyhow so it doesn't really affect me, but I think if I did manage to learn paint shop stuff, I'd scribble still just cause it's easier. XD *lazy on compy stuff*

humm i dont really watermark anything since i do all traditional media.. though i do tend to always sign on one side and put it in an are that makes it so you cant miss it >.<

Aaah. I sign in the very bottom right hand corner. Usually date it too. But I don't usually sign in the middle or near the face or anything. Though..sometimes I will tuck something in the painting itself, like the whelpling in LeLe's, as a sort of signature. ^^ I like putting small lil things in places.

Ahh, my art has been stolen a few times. x_X;; So now I have this little fish insignia thing I draw into all of my work. >3

Hehe, I don't think watermark really work on trad O.o. But I never though about people stealing those. I have a great respect of trad and I find it inhuman to stole a work like that. I always considered people stealing work on web took only cg as they were done on comp and they imagine it would be easier to claim it there own.

Lol. I can't see where you'd get that idea, Gaina... I think people just steal CG more often because it's more popular. Which, to be honest, I don't understand it's popularity. I mean, it's obviously cleaner and shows up better online, but to see a real piece... Man, there's some sort of magic there. The same kind of magic like you know you're a unique person. (Well, maybe i'm exagerrating). I know a lot of young tweens who like CG more than trad because they think it's more modern and thuse, cooler. I kind of chewed one kid out about it.

You can watermark trad easy enough, I think. I work my signature into the picture as artistically as possible, so that if it's removed, like, part of the picture's intergirty is gone.

Then again, for me, I just sign rather than watermark.

I've had mine stolen a few times (not very often), but each time, the person was really stupid and actually hotlinked the picture from my site. That's how I'd catch them and that's the reason I've not eliminated the ability to hotlink - it's fun checking my stats every few months and seeing if people are doing that. So each time, I send a nice little email telling them I caught them and to take it down. Or else, if I'm feeling snarky (which isn't too often), I'll change the image linked to that filename with a big notice that the person did not draw the image, but rather hotlinked and tried to take credit for it at the same time.

The creepiest thing that I discovered once, though, was someone who didn't steal only my artwork, but my entire website layout, color scheme, banners, even words! When I discovered that, I was floored. I mean, who does that?? Like on my "about me" page, they used what I wrote, but changed a few words so it'd fit them. My welcome page, same thing. It was really weird. Luckily, when I emailed them, they were very contrite and changed it immediately.