Following on from my posts: 'Art theft and stealing images online' and 'Art theft and further criticism of pod sites', I’m raising awareness of online art theft, while battling against sites who have taken and used artwork from me personally, along with hundreds of other artists, without permission.

I mentioned my plight on the DeviantArt forums - asking how can I/we, as artists, can stop this?

The general opinion was to not upload high quality images on to the net and use watermarking to at least help prevent this. Fair enough advice, and something I'd already started doing anyway. But it was interesting to find many of the replies indicated that they felt the onus was on the artist to minimise the damage beforehand and if the damage had already been done, then tough luck. There was a lack of criticism or interest towards the companies/individuals that steal or the sites which allow them to sell an artist's stolen goods on their platform, or the fact that these platforms (e.g Facebook, Instagram, Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay) make it difficult to either report cases of copyright infringement or do very little, if anything, to act upon it.

Sure, there are ways for an artist to minimise the chance of their work being stolen and used by third parties, but if that fails, then what? We sit back and allow crooked individuals or companies to take our images to profit from while perpetuating the idea that if it's already on the internet it's free game? And should the artist be seen as the one at fault in such cases when they are ultimately a victim of the crime? You can make your home more secure- lock the doors and install a burglar alarm, but if you are still burgled anyway, there is at least a police force in place whose duty it is to investigate and hopefully apprehend the criminals responsible. Online there should be a similar system or authority in place...

Well, there is. But you've got to pay for it. One forum member pointed me at the DCMA - The Digital Millennium Copyright Act which works though a business, whereby if you pay them $199 they will initiate a take-down request to have your content removed from an offending site. For small scale theft this is obviously too high a price to pay. Especially if you're an independent artist living on a tight budget as it is. Plus what happens when another site or seller pops up and uses your image? Do you pay yet another $199 to get that one taken down too?

It shouldn't be hard to to get offending content taken down- I have a reputation, can prove I created it and have the original Photoshop files or sketches to boot, meanwhile I know for a fact the offending art thief does not have these, and would fail, if asked to produce any kind of written agreement stating permission to use the content in question. And then you just have to look at what else these jokers are selling to put things into context- a jumbled mix of artwork produced in wildly different styles (and arguably of different artistic abilities), obviously created by a wide range of artists with no mention where the artwork was sourced from, poorly edited or Photoshoped on to products. Sometimes still retaining the artist's signature or watermark, which is typically removed if licencing art to third parties. And it's being sold from China through unofficial channels and we all know China doesn't take piracy particularly seriously.

So as it stands, according to some artists, the blame seems to be primarily with the artist themselves. If you're a small independent artist being ripped off online, you often can't do much about it. The DCMA is there if you don't mind forking over $200 for help.

In a ideal world, perhaps there would be some kind of block-chain system whereby the rights to every image, film or piece of music could be traced back to a registered owner. This information would be embedded into the file itself, with a registry of previous owners being attached to each file. Might sound like a crazy idea, and I haven't spent too much time thinking about how logistically possible such a system would be, but surely help with digital piracy of images, music and video?

POD = Print on demand. A service that prints art and designs on products on an individual basis rather than batch printing in greater quantities.

Check out my 'Art theft and stealing images online' post if you've not done so already. I'm trying to make people aware of the fact that all of the artwork floating around on the web is property of the person who created it unless a license or rights transfer has taken place. Unless this is the case or permission has been given by the owner, such work should not be used for monetary gain by third parties. 

However it does get used and I suspect more art is profited from illegally than legally and that's not something to be ignored! The internet as it stands is never going to be stopped. Perhaps in decades to come a block-chain style attachment to all digital content including images will come in to place whereby digital data can be traced to it's origins while leaving behind records of every time that data has changed hands, been bought/sold and so on? Such a system would at least prove ownership in disputes. And personally I don't have a problem with people printing off an image for their bedroom wall, using it in an online avatar or generally small-time, non-profit, personal or private use.

It's directly profiting from another person's efforts which I find so repulsive. It's something that these unscrupulous individuals or companies should not be allowed to get away with. Artists can take steps to help safeguard themselves by being aware of the issue and making sure to reduce the resolution of their files online or watermarking. The art they display might not look as pretty but it's an option.

Unfortunately I also know some artists who have a much more relaxed attitude this, and allow the occasional small-scale rip-off to take place, passing it off as an inevitable reality of sharing content on the internet. A top-tier professional, with an endless supply of high-paying assignments or commissions may be able to get away with looking the other way, or not feel triggered into doing anything about art theft, but the art game is tough and the last thing artists should want is to compete against their own stolen artwork and living in a world where this kind of thing is allowed to happen.

To quote Snazzygaz - a designer on DesignbyHumans (an online POD t-shirt store.):

"I’m not exaggerating when I say I believe almost every single listing on DBH and Redbubble has been scraped by what I believe to be an automated chinese operation and being applied to products there for sale on Aliexpress and the like and as a consequence listed against official listings on Amazon, as well as Spreadshirt and potentially more PODs.

These people are not only stealing straight from the artists but also the legitimate PODs like DBH by offering the “same” product much cheaper and with inferior quality on what looks to the average person like an official outlet via Amazon and the like, they’re taking money out of your hands by DIRECT sale and pushing inferior quality work which severely dampens the average public opinion about what the company offers.This is like the most criminal shit I’ve seen relating to copyright theft and counterfeiting and it’s absolutely insane."

There's a few of us that are aware of this issue, but unfortunately not enough and I feel both artists and authorized retailers of their art and designs do not take this issue at all seriously enough.

I contacted Society6 to see if there was anything to be done about my stolen artwork being used by online retailers-

"Hi there, I've found my artwork which I had submitted to Society6 having been taken without permission and sold by Chinese retailers via Aliexpress.com. Would you be able to assist in getting these products removed from Aliexpress?

Artwork in question: [Link to Artwork]

Instances of it being used without permission by sellers outside of Society6:
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Dragon-Ball-Tattoo-children-s-T-Shirt-Pure-Cotton-Short-Sleeve-O-Neck-Tshirt-Tees-Boys/32797095017.html]
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/T-Shirts-Free-Shipping-Saiyan-Dragon-Ball-Tattoo-Men-s-Organnic-Cotton-Shorts-T-Shirt-2017/32816945296.html]
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Dragon-Ball-Tattoo-T-Shirt-XXXL-Short-Sleeve-Custom-Men-s-Clothes-Fashion-Street-Wear-Cotton/32815144101.html]

It's also been stolen by Hoodietime: [https://hoodietime.com/collections/dragon-ball-z-3d-hoodies/products/dragon-ball-super-z-super-saiyan-blue-tattoo-goku-hoodie-pullover-3d-hoodie].

I have contacted Hoodie time asking to remove it and still awaiting response.
I have submitted a report on each of the Aliexpress items, but was told there is not enough evidence that I created the work. I hoped that S6 would be taken more seriously than a single artist like myself.

Regards

Ben"

Society6's reply:

"Hi Ben, Thank you for contacting Society6 Support. Unfortunately, Society6 has no legal standing in this matter. So we are unable to contact the websites in question.

As the copyright owner, it is your responsibility to contact the infringing party. We are unable to provide legal advice and recommend you seek counsel if this matter persists.

We are sorry we are unable to help any further. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,
S6 Legal Team"

I didn't expect help with this, but thought it was worth a shot and would at least make S6 aware of yet another instance that this practice is still taking place. The trouble with S6 for example is that they require high-resolution files for their products and don't protect the artwork used on these items (as of 2017). The art uploaded by artists and designers to POD sites should be automatically scaled down and watermarked making it harder to steal and make use of while keeping the original submitted clean, larger images stored offline and completely inaccessible to scrapers (people or systems which extract content from the net to then make use of). If POD sites aren't doing this then they should have a responsibility to help resolves these cases.

If I effectively licence a design to S6 and the design is stolen from S6, I would argue that theft was due to negligence on their part. And after-all, if for example 1000 S6 or DBH designs get scraped and added to shirts and sold elsewhere, S6 and DBH lose out too. More so, since they often take a larger cut then the designers.

I would guess that most (more than half, but possibly 90%+) products that display art and designs of which are sold on the internet (as well as comic conventions) are counterfeit, illegally unlicensed, infringing copyright or stolen from artists without permission.

The state of affairs regarding stolen artwork on the internet is ridiculous. An epidemic one person on their own, or even thousands together could never hope to even reduce by a tiny amount. To say this upsets me and to attempt to make people aware of what's going on here seems like a wasted effort while the sounds of a thousand virtual cash registers ring from the profits of stolen art every second of the day!

I don't even look for it, but I see it all around me. I often recognize my favourite artist's work being used on questionable products by relatively unknown online marketplace retailers and know a lot of the fan art and concept art I see isn't being licensed to certain low-grade knock-off merchandisers. Instead it's simply been saved off of the internet and slapped on top of a product...

And then it happened to me. I did a reverse image search on one of my works to find it for sale by three different Chinese retailers on Aliexpress and two other separate T-shirt and apparel stores! I'm attempting to get these works taken off, but it's not always easy. Stores often ignore or don't seem to take these kind of complaints seriously~ so long as they're making money and aren't getting an official 'cease and desist' letter through the post, they'll carry on profiting from a stolen work, while the original artist gets a zero percent share of the income it generates.

To help combat this in the future I've spent a few hours lowering the resolution of each image in my portfolio on this site. They should still look fine, but originally I was hoping to future-proof by posting larger sized images as screen resolutions continue to get bigger and that's something I won't do anymore. I've also applied watermarks to the bottom corners of selected works. The only trouble is, I can't stop people stealing 'without watermark' images I've already supplied added to my online 'print on demand' stores such as Society6 and DesignbyHumans :(

I appreciate that most buyers wont even consider there could be an issue with the items a shop has to sell, but I just ask that before you buy a print, t-shirt, mug, key-chain, etc, please do you best to find out if it's legit and make sure you're not lining the pockets of a thief. Buy from original creators or verify the products being sold are official and licensed. In the world of anime, comic and gaming merch it doesn't take too much practice to spot a fake from higher quality original.