Someone may be stealing your work.
Yesterday I had the most frustrating day I’ve experienced since I joined CF years ago. It’s not the Forum, most of the people here are very nice, get along fairly well, and enjoy the site by doing their own thing. We’re a lot bigger now and that always works against the common good of the group. Any large group has a tendency to attract elements who are not necessarily concerned with being part of a happy group; they come here to get what they can.
While it is one of the less destructive things taking place, the fact remains that a significant portion of these people are here just to take what they can and in return give nothing. That’s why a person who contributes art to this site can’t depend on the number of likes they receive to determine if their work is appreciated; instead they use the number of times a thread is accessed to determine how they are doing. It seems to me highly likely that about 1 in 20 visitors to any given thread take the trouble click the like button for any given work whether it’s graphic art or the work of our writers. They take what they want and go.
Much more pernicious are the actions of thieves who visit our site and steal the work of our contributors and that’s what I want to address today: Yesterday I visited Deviant Art, I go there about once a month, typed in a few words to do a search and the results included work I’d done about 6 years ago. I recognized the images immediately, most of you have seen the sharp detail I like in my renderings and these two pictures were classic examples of my stuff. The first one a picture meant to be a graphic representation of Eulalia with a drum. This avatar was made to represent Eul with her approval so for someone to attempt to steal it was definitely a wrong move, it’s unique. The other shows girls being forced to work as galley slaves on a Viking ship.
The dummy who stole them thought they could remove my signature which consists of the name “Helmut Followed by a year. (i.e.: Helmut 2012 & etc.). They did it to both pictures and took credit for their creation. I complained of course and I was promised my concerns would be assuaged. I intend to take it one step further and repost the altered images next to the legitimate ones on the Deviant Art site.
I also noticed the work of other artists in that collection, Nobel Vulture for one and his signature was also removed, and while I didn’t want to spend a great deal of time on research there were others. This person who tries to pass themselves as an artist is nothing more than an out and out thief!
Sooo………. The point I’m trying to make is this: If you do creative work for CF you need to spend some time checking around to assure someone isn’t stealing your work.
Occasionally someone will ask me if they can use a peace of my work and the answer will vary with their intentions. The time invested in creating an image is often quite significant especially for an old guy like me who certainly doesn’t have a great deal of time left. (The shame of it is I have to expend more of that time trying to fix situations like this.)
One thing that can be helpful is to use the minimum quality it takes to make a reasonable presentation. It keeps file sizes down which should be appreciated by our sponsor and if someone tries to enlarge the image it will pixilate; I use 72 DPI JPG @ about 500 x 700 Dots.
On the left is the stolen and altered image on the right the original note how sloppily my name was removed.
Best regards and good hunting,
Helmut
Yesterday I had the most frustrating day I’ve experienced since I joined CF years ago. It’s not the Forum, most of the people here are very nice, get along fairly well, and enjoy the site by doing their own thing. We’re a lot bigger now and that always works against the common good of the group. Any large group has a tendency to attract elements who are not necessarily concerned with being part of a happy group; they come here to get what they can.
While it is one of the less destructive things taking place, the fact remains that a significant portion of these people are here just to take what they can and in return give nothing. That’s why a person who contributes art to this site can’t depend on the number of likes they receive to determine if their work is appreciated; instead they use the number of times a thread is accessed to determine how they are doing. It seems to me highly likely that about 1 in 20 visitors to any given thread take the trouble click the like button for any given work whether it’s graphic art or the work of our writers. They take what they want and go.
Much more pernicious are the actions of thieves who visit our site and steal the work of our contributors and that’s what I want to address today: Yesterday I visited Deviant Art, I go there about once a month, typed in a few words to do a search and the results included work I’d done about 6 years ago. I recognized the images immediately, most of you have seen the sharp detail I like in my renderings and these two pictures were classic examples of my stuff. The first one a picture meant to be a graphic representation of Eulalia with a drum. This avatar was made to represent Eul with her approval so for someone to attempt to steal it was definitely a wrong move, it’s unique. The other shows girls being forced to work as galley slaves on a Viking ship.
The dummy who stole them thought they could remove my signature which consists of the name “Helmut Followed by a year. (i.e.: Helmut 2012 & etc.). They did it to both pictures and took credit for their creation. I complained of course and I was promised my concerns would be assuaged. I intend to take it one step further and repost the altered images next to the legitimate ones on the Deviant Art site.
I also noticed the work of other artists in that collection, Nobel Vulture for one and his signature was also removed, and while I didn’t want to spend a great deal of time on research there were others. This person who tries to pass themselves as an artist is nothing more than an out and out thief!
Sooo………. The point I’m trying to make is this: If you do creative work for CF you need to spend some time checking around to assure someone isn’t stealing your work.
Occasionally someone will ask me if they can use a peace of my work and the answer will vary with their intentions. The time invested in creating an image is often quite significant especially for an old guy like me who certainly doesn’t have a great deal of time left. (The shame of it is I have to expend more of that time trying to fix situations like this.)
One thing that can be helpful is to use the minimum quality it takes to make a reasonable presentation. It keeps file sizes down which should be appreciated by our sponsor and if someone tries to enlarge the image it will pixilate; I use 72 DPI JPG @ about 500 x 700 Dots.
On the left is the stolen and altered image on the right the original note how sloppily my name was removed.
Best regards and good hunting,
Helmut
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