I have been working hard… in an office. It’s going well, but beyond a few doodles, no artistry has been done. So why is this blog post?
Last night I received an email, reporting that my Ackbarpography design can be bought for $23.94 here on RedBubble, an online art community / shop.
I didn’t put it there.
I generally use a simple non-commercial attribution license: Marvel all you like, if you share mention me, don’t modify, personal use only. Still, someone crudely lifting my work and slapping their own name on is bad. Add onto that that I sold the commercial rights for it to online clothing company SplitReason.com. They’re being nicked from too.
RedBubble have a handy DMCA reporting link on every page, so gathering my evidence and flinging them an email was a piece of cake. I’ve also sent a heads-up to SplitReason. Acknowledgment have been received, and I await the hammer to fall.
A big crude watermark is now plastered over Ackbarpography here and on DeviantArt, but i’m not fully convinced by this action. It was covered on several blogs, so several smaller but unobscured pictures exist. The copy I exhibit on Flickr is also currently free as a bird. It could still be pilfered from those places, and the art’s very origin will appear as the most unattractive of all Google Images results.
There may still be clones out there, on tiny outlet sites i’ve never heard of. It’s not all about ol’ fish head either – My other works could have been nabbed. So what’s a guy to do?
Well, I guess it comes down to vigilance. If you see a design somewhere, then, erm, somewhere else, figure out how free it’s allowed to be. Trace the origin. Let the starving artist / fancy business know!