Just a Steemian Concerned About Art Theft- A Short Rant
It’s Time to Talk About This.....Again
The plagiarized shitpost fuckfest needs to be dealt with. There are lots of great initiatives focusing on rewarding quality content, but we all need to come together and do some cleaning.
As the Fine Art Curator for Helpie I spend a lot of time scrolling through the new and hot pages for the art, drawing, and painting tags. When I find something that catches my eye I see if anything is written about the art and do a google image search along with a few other things to try and verify the content is original.
It’s Not Okay
When I scroll through here I just want to grab certain people and shake them. Let me say this in case anyone reading this is a guilty party. It is not okay to use the artwork of another without permission or giving credit. Don’t not post uncredited works in the hopes that people assume it is yours.
Yeah I know there are probably too many users to oversee it all, and people are going to come here and do what they want. Whatever the users of the platform, as a whole, allow to go on will continue to happen. We do have a say.
I want to bring something up and I don’t want to sound like I am bashing anyone here, but in my scrolling I come across a lot of stolen or uncredited art. Some people are trying to pass it off as their own and others are just trying to use it in place of creating original content.
Much of the time the art I find has already been upvoted and commented on by @artzone.
Here is a post that @artzone upvoted and commented on:
https://steemit.com/art/@marilis/realistic-portrait-part-one-2018-03-28-00-19-06
Here is the same artwork posted by a different user that also got upvoted and commented on by @artzone:
https://steemit.com/art/@smartfrend/my-sister-in-the-sketch-e39586949186e
I’m not trying to bash, I am just using this incident as an example of some changes we can all make.
We can’t be out here rewarding every asshat with an internet connection just because they can select pretty things and post them elsewhere. It drives me mad to see thieves making money off of another artist’s hard work.
Surely rewarding this behaviour is not their intention, but it is difficult to sort out sometimes. Basically I think that people need to question the authenticity of every author or “artist” they come across. It takes only a few seconds to find out whether you are rewarding an artist for their hard work or if you are rewarding a thief for stealing it. Just because you think something is cool doesn’t mean you should up-vote it. How we use the reward pool is important. STOP REWARDING THIEVES
You might think, oh well this person made a few bucks. It’s not okay. Your upvote is a declaration of value, and by up-voting stolen content you are essentially saying that stealing intellectual property is a valuable service to the community. It is not.
And while we are on the subject of making changes, Can we stop tagging everything under the God Damn sun as #art it literally makes the function of tags useless.
If You Are Stealing Art Just Fucking Stop It
If you are looking for images for your blog posts here is a post by @mindover that is a great resource for finding images to use the right way.
Art maybe someone can put a list together of these plagiarist, kind of like a negative curation report. Then everyone can go and flag the hell out of them.
Thanks for joining the conversation. This is exactly why I made this post, for great suggestions like this. My only concern is that I will pull myself in closer to the black hole that is a flag war. Lol
You can create a bot to do it for you and then everyone can delegate to the bot
We could even organize a curation trail that would flag these guys, so it wouldnt be just a few people. So for instance if you get a curie upvote theres typically 100 more voters that follow that upvote. We could create a system to do that with flags for these plagairists.
Great idea!!
I love the idea!!! Please inform us if you already have one.
That sounds like a great way to do it. The technicals of setting something like that up are probably over my head at the moment, but I'm really liking the idea.
Art thieves are leeches that are reducing the quality of Steemit as a LEGITIMATE blogging platform. If you're supporting art thieves, you're hurting Steemit. If you're hurting Steemit, you are hurting yourselves.
Thank you for bringing this important topic to talk about, @art-mess !! We all can be more vigilant and do more to make sure Steemit does not flounder.
Much love,
a spider
upvotes
we need to be more vigilant and MERCILESSLY FLAG those violators! Of course one has to make sure about it because it could be that for example someone rips off your art from elsewhere on the net and posts on Steemit, and some time later, you post it yourself (and then you might get flagged by an over-eager user) - so doing an image search and checking who the artist really is must be done.
A few times I had posted my essays that I had published previously (with links and all) and @cheetah caught it. Just wondering if that kitty can detect images as well?
I recommend https://tineye.com/ - I used them before and found some of my art being ripped off and used commercially!
Thanks @thermoplastic. I feel that we can all put our heads together and come up with a reasonable solution and a system that doesn't end up flagging legitimate content creators. I'm going to look into tineye. That is a pro tip brother.
Yes I'm brainstorming on multiple ways to approach this problem @veryspider. Some great ideas have been brought up here. I'm glad so many people have joined the conversation. Thanks for bringing my post up in steemartists. We are going to clean this place up. :)
You make some excellent points here. As a curie curator I do some pretty thorough checks on anything I submit. However, my standards are lower for my own personal upvotes, particularly when it comes to art. I will be more vigilant going forward with my upvote. Thanks for bringing this up.
Thank you @choogirl. It is easy to get caught up in the click frenzy trying to spread the love around, but a little mindful curation from us all should balance the world. Thanks for reading. :)
This is something that should be addressed more often, people also does ith with other media, music, artworks, photo... I'm adding my copyright in my metadata as well and not only on the footer... sigh! :( by the way looks like an actress portrait, cannot recall but for sure it's an actress.
Yeah. It is everywhere. I feel we can make a lot of progress even if we can't eradicate it. If everyone can be aware and work within their specialty to do some mindful curation then we will be golden.
I would love to know a little more about this metadata you speak of.
I believe it is Anne Hathaway.
Basically if you right click an image on windows there is always something as view metadata, sometimes it has date, software used, nanevof original file and more, so you can trace things on them but if you export your pics there are app to include info like your site. If others reupload it those metadata unless removed are there. I have a personal script so my system does not work in other computers as it was done by hec but it is easy, look for how to see metadata or add. Most thieves do not bother in checking them
Thanks @yidneth. I am going to do a bit of reading on the subject.
Great post. There definitely needs to be some cleaning up around here. I don't really have the answer... but I do enjoy how reddit does things. A lot of the most upvoted "Artwork" on here is... well can be... pretty amatuerish. I would definitely like to see more quality content getting recognition. And hopefully from the actual artist.
Thank you. It appears that are a lot of people through all communities that are feeling overwhelmed with it all. I think as we go about cleaning up more great work will start shining through.
I have found my own art work on other people's websites, used to illustrated their articles or whatever. I contact them and ask them to give me credit for using my work. Facebook is FULL of artwork that people don't even bother to identify. One guy who used one of my murals on his printed calendar that he was selling said I could sue him if it bothered me. It's always a battle.
GGGRRRRRRR! You must spend many hours on your paintings. Your work is amazing. That guy's attitude is frustrating too. Facebook is out of control.
There is a guy I always see getting jacked on facebook. He makes really great drawings and he portrays his concepts in a very unique and understandable way. So it is easy to see why so many people like it enough to steal it, but I feel bad for the guy. He is eternally dealing with it.
But this thieves out here might be telling us that we, as artists, are not taking advantage of the t-shirt and calender business. ;)
I don't really worry about it much. Remember the saying, "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery". Nobody has yet made a fortune on my art work, and if somebody does, believe me, they will have me to answer to! Actually I have mugs printed with my art work, and pillow cases too. Am planning to add shawls.
I spend about 2 and a half months on each painting. I love enriching the surface, layer by layer. Happy painting to you!
This shit is RAMPANT everywhere! Like, it has been going on forever. A friend and great photographer, Hermin Abramovich on DeviantArt got so frustrated about it he wrote in his Journal:
Everything in my account is for free
by ahermin, Apr 15, 2013, 5:01:50 AM
Journals / Personal
You may use any of my creations in any way or form you wish. You may modify them, use them in your blogs, websites, projects, for CD/books covers, whatever.
You may pretend they are yours. You may sell them or whatever. I couldn't care less.
You have my permission for everything you can think of regarding my work. Every file is downloadable in original size. No link-backs, credit or copyright notes, mentioning of my name or nickname are required.
https://ahermin.deviantart.com/
like: his stuff has copyright written on every upload: ©2018 ahermin - what is so hard to understand about that?
And you know what's the worse? There were a whole bunch of jerks who did not get the sarcasm in this note, and wrote thank you notes in the comments!
On Facebook it happens all the time, but one I turned in and had her banned blatantly downloaded photos from well known artist Andrew Gonzalez (who is also a good friend of mine) and uploaded them as her own! Bathing in the glory of fawning accolades from her "friends".
Not long ago I did a search of one of my more prominent paintings and found that someone had posted it on Redbubble and sold T-Shirts and stuff - it was only after I threatened legal action, it was taken down - now that user likely has ripped off others, but was not banned.
Regarding legal action: this could be costly to pursue. I am fortunate that here in Austria, I am a member of a Government sponsored agency called Bildrecht that would look after this for you for free!
How do I find my images on the web? Google image search is fine, but even more effective is this Canadian site: https://tineye.com/ - the search is free, but subscribing to their Alert Service is beyond most budgets except maybe high earning professionals and corporations.
I think that some people are ignorant enough to believe that you can just use whatever you find on the internet for whatever the hell you want. The rest just want to steal shit. lol I'm going to check out these resources you posted later today when I get a chance.
Thankyou.
Someone had to say it loud. I dislike my art being stolen and even traced...
I had no idea there was tons of people outside that really do grab my art and make a mess out of it.
I hope all of those persons get some lime on a small cut. ;w;
Dang that sucks. To my knowledge nobody is trying to pass off my art as their own, but I have had people try to tell me that a few of my drawings weren't my own.....I was like.....This one is a self portrait, and here is a photo of me in my studio next to said self portrait. Lol
I think I just fell in love. ;)
Thanks for stopping by :)
Ahaha! I had a case where I was walking on a mall on my city and I noticed someone using a shirt with my art on it. I literally was staring at the girl for minutes until she came to me and said "What do you want creep?" I just replied "You're wearing my art on your shirt... where did you buy it?" She laughed so much because she was 100% sure the art was done by this dude who stole from the internet to sell shirts. OH BOY.
;) Im a very evil tiny person. Rawr. haha!
In a comment on this tread I related a similar experience. Someone ripped off a painting of mine and sold shirts on Redbubble! There is more - just scroll (up or down - depending where the comment will wind up, should someone upvote it) and read the rest.
Damnit! Why is nobody putting my art on tshirts? lol
lmaaaooo Its not a good experience trust me. I need sbd to pay my hospital bills atm and I see people wearing my art or using it to gain money and I get VERY very sad about it.. :/
I hear ya. I was just being a smartass. If there is any justice in the universe they are going to stub their toe straight off........or get lime in a small cut. ;)
Its okay! Hehe. Yeah they do deserve that lime. :( I am selling my art at the moment and nobody buys haha.
That is a sign that you make awesome designs. The thievery sucks, but evidently you need to be selling shirts. ;)
hahaha @art-mess you must admit how inventive that thief you posted is, he fliped image so he made something by himself...
Just kidding off course..Stealing art unfortunately is becoming common this days not only on Steemit..
But I agree, those things should be flaged and maybe with more posts like yours some people will be aware of it.
I seen lots of that (and commented on this tread as well) - on Facebook I do image searches from time to time and find that some are even cropping off the signature and/or copyright notice, or else clone over it with a healing or cloning brush.
hahaa Yeah @jungwatercolor they really went all out on the edit. It must have taxed the resources of the computer from the massive render.
I fear if we don't stay on top of it there will be no room for the people actually creating content for all the piles of stolen art. I really like the ideas that normok threw out there about a negative curation list and the curation trail.
It's good idea with negative trail, but it should be handled with care, since like everywhere people may use it the wrong way ..Like putting there someone they don;t like for personal reasons etc..People are just people
Haven't seen anyone using my art that way still, and if I do, he will be put on wall of shame for sure :)))
I don't have problem with protecting original artist loud @art-mess.
Sometimes my boyfriend jokes me that I am revolutionist and fighter against injustice in every topic in life :)
Yes. We definitely don't want to start something that doesn't have a solid system in play to verify users work. Time to dropkick those thieves.
@art-mess flipping and cropping is no massive editing - it's done with a couple of mouse clicks in a few seconds.
That is just my sarcasm leaking brother. :)
I think the mayor problem is that you can´t educate every single user to look for legitimate art before voting, but maybe we can educate artist to spend some time registering their art under a creative commons license or something like that (starting by myself) and use some space (signature for example) of the blog post to acknowledge it. I don´t really know but it´s true that IP protection should be something that all of us should be more carefull of.
You are dead on about that @javicuesta , you can't educate everyone. That is why I think that maybe the best way to approach this is to attack it from multiple angles. Through raising awareness about good posting and curating practices we can take a small bite off it. By creating a negative curation list for naughty authors we could take another bite off. Then creating a flagging curation trail you take an even bigger bite. Add steemcleaners to that along with any other services at our disposal and I think that we can finish off most of the plagiarism pie.
I guess I try to avoid war, but it´s true that you often don´t see it until it is in your frontdoor and then it´s too late. Thank you for raising awareness of this problem and actively looking for solutions. I´ll try to keep updated on the measures. :)