Here we go again!!! Get the pitchforks..fire the torches...bring the rope!

[Craig D]

Crazy dude
I was sure you were joking, but unfortunately its hard to
know if everyone else does. (if that makes sense)

[Jason Manley]

You guys sure showed him. Man, banned from deviantart, I bet he'll never recover.

it wasnt about the banning...it was about putting a stop to the use of their tech for his trying to get work with our own.

it had happened repeatedly and deviantart didnt do a thing about it. My posting the letter kind of is a lesson for peeps to see how they can take care of protecting their own work.

that said..mr mouthypants...if ya got nothing good to say then ya know what you can do.

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

It's all good Craig, I know how things said in text lose a certain amount of expression.

[Ashtonw]

I don't have any problem with what you are doing. Thank you for working to protect artists' rights. My eyeroll was directed toward things like this:

Everything is already gone, haha. He got burned.

[Peter Coene]

it wasnt about the banning...it was about putting a stop to the use of their tech for his trying to get work with our own.

it had happened repeatedly and deviantart didnt do a thing about it. My posting the letter kind of is a lesson for peeps to see how they can take care of protecting their own work.

that said..mr mouthypants...if ya got nothing good to say then ya know what you can do.

I've still got to ask though; was he actually trying to get work with it? I mean, it seems to me that the guys on DA aren't trying to get a profession but just going "hey, look at this cool/funny/whatever stuff, I'm not even saying I made it but I'm a lonely awkward teenager and I crave the attention so I put this cool looking thing I found in my profile- please be my friend and actually vindicate my life by talking to me!"

[phoric]

I've still got to ask though; was he actually trying to get work with it? I mean, it seems to me that the guys on DA aren't trying to get a profession but just going "hey, look at this cool/funny/whatever stuff, I'm not even saying I made it but I'm a lonely awkward teenager and I crave the attention so I put this cool looking thing I found in my profile- please be my friend and actually vindicate my life by talking to me!"

I don't know if it really matters. Art theft is art theft. Whatever it takes to get DeviantArt's attention and remove a blatant thief is probably a good thing, whatever his actual motive.

[Ivory_Oasis]

I've still got to ask though; was he actually trying to get work with it? I mean, it seems to me that the guys on DA aren't trying to get a profession but just going "hey, look at this cool/funny/whatever stuff, I'm not even saying I made it but I'm a lonely awkward teenager and I crave the attention so I put this cool looking thing I found in my profile- please be my friend and actually vindicate my life by talking to me!"

And he can go make another deviant-art account with the same pictures in about 2 minutes hehe.

If someone were taking my work and posting it, I would probably send a quick email to deviant-art too ...but there are countless kids running around that can right click and "save as" a picture to post if they want, chances are I would never even notice it (unless they were trying to make money off it! That would bug me!).

Doesn't massive black do big business with entertainment companies? Why all the stress over some kid on deviant-art? o.O

[Eugie]

And he can go make another deviant-art account with the same pictures in about 2 minutes hehe.

If someone were taking my work and posting it, I would probably send a quick email to deviant-art too ...but there are countless kids running around that can right click and "save as" a picture to post if they want, chances are I would never even notice it (unless they were trying to make money off it! That would bug me!).

Doesn't massive black do big business with entertainment companies? Why all the stress over some kid on deviant-art? o.O

It's the principle of it.

[corky13]

@Jason Manley

Isn` t it a bit over the top to call for a lynching of a certain little art thief on devart instead of just quietly get him removed by the devart admins and forgotten ? This whole uproar is pretty useless imho <,< In other communities it would end in a ban of the user who encourages a "witchhunt" (and it is a call for a witchhunt after all....you told us who he is and where we could find him)... Even if MB and Conceptart.org is your creation I think it doesn` t make you look good when you behave like this.

(Also , why sue someone little that probably has no money in the first place ? To scare stupid youngsters of MB ?)

[Ivory_Oasis]

@Jason Manley

Isn` t it a bit over the top to call for a lynching of a certain little art thief on devart instead of just quietly get him removed by the devart admins and forgotten ? This whole uproar is pretty useless imho <,< In other communities it would end in a ban of the user who encourages a "witchhunt" (and it is a call for a witchhunt after all....you told us who he is and where we could find him)... Even if MB and Conceptart.org is your creation I think it doesn` t make you look good when you behave like this.

(Also , why sue someone little that probably has no money in the first place ? To scare stupid youngsters of MB ?)

I was gonna say that!...but figured the post would be deleted heh (like the post in the thread about cghubs "questionable practices" where I asked if it was really that bad what they did....and then...my post vanished).

*Sigh*

[Chris Saksida]

art thieves should be publicly put into shame in the worst possible way, they suck, we put so many hours and effort into the things we do, and work so hard to get better, and then some worthless asshole steals it and claims it as it`s own? no way.

[Black Spot]

If he's young and stupid, he's learnt a valuable lesson. If he deliberately stole to further his career, he now knows that there will always be the possibility that he'll be found out and exposed. It's a win-win situation.

[Ilaekae]

As someone who's had his entire portfolio stolen twice by someone going for a job, my corporate name KNOWINGLY stolen and sold to an another agency's client(!) as the basis for a campaign, and interviewed four young artists who came to interviews at MY agency with MY work in their portfolios, I agree with everything and anything Jason Manley does that involves the protection of an artist's intellectual property. Is it overkill? FUCK NO!

I drove the fuckin' agency I mentioned above out of business and in the process embarrassed their client publicly after both of them tried to defend their little games, and made sure that all six people involved in the sample thefts never worked in the business again. My work isn't a gift to some mother-fucking freeloading bastard to use as they wish without my permission or knowledge.

Youth is no excuse. Do it once, and you'll find yourself doing it again. The "landing my first job" excuse is no more valid than "I can make half a million off this idea with no work at all. Who'll know?" You steal--you "die." You deserve no sympathy. You deserve no understanding of your "situation." You're a fuckin' thief, just like the guy who mugs people in an alley or breaks into homes and rips off everything not tied down. You can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned, whether you're 14 or 60.

[Straight Edge Ryan]

an even better punishment for anyone trying to get a job with someone else's work would be to alert the employer so he can "hire" them and then ask them to reproduce the stolen work so they can go "oh you mean you CAN'T draw this well? That's a shame, because your portfolio indicated you had the skills to get the job done. So since you obviously can't get the work done, you're fire. Also, we know you ripped this off from someone else."

but that's just my humble opinion

[ALH]

an even better punishment for anyone trying to get a job with someone else's work would be to alert the employer so he can "hire" them and then ask them to reproduce the stolen work so they can go "oh you mean you CAN'T draw this well? That's a shame, because your portfolio indicated you had the skills to get the job done. So since you obviously can't get the work done, you're fire. Also, we know you ripped this off from someone else."

but that's just my humble opinion

Im pretty sure if anyone makes the mistake of hiring a fraud it will become pretty damn obvious as soon as they fail to do even the simplest of tasks.

[Azurelle]

Hello,

DeviantART treats everyone the same way who sends a theft report. That is because they have around 4 million members and it is impossible to monitor each one of them seperatly.
Plus that the guy who gets your request might be an anime & Japan freak and his heroes are Joji Shinkawa and Akira Yamaoka so He cannot tell by whom the artwork was originally made, just because noone can know everything, no matter how famous it is.

This is the only reason why he needs linked proof.
Here is an example what happens when they just go straight after the request and they might be wrong: Lacoste got one of his paintings removed some weeks ago because some prick found it on the Asssassin's Creed webpage and linked it as "the original author" from whom Lacoste had supposedly stolen.
(Just for the record, Lacoste Art Directed AC, so this was obviously his painting)
Of course Lacoste was pretty pissed and threatened to leave DeviantART if his artwork wouldn't be restored.
His fans helped with this issue, and so his artwork was back within a day.

Your fans is something you can really rely on when it comes to DeviantART. Often they spot stolen work, and by the time they note you that they found it, dozents of messages have already been sent out to the DA HQ by your fans.
Of course for such a big company like yours it might be no problem to send a lawyer, - that will scare little thieves of big time, no doubt - which I truely envy you for since "smaller" artists have to hunt down every thief by hand, or send their publishing houses, but it doesn't change the fact that on first glance DeviantART will always be slow in removing stolen pieces and banning accounts in question because of the mentioned points. :/

@Ilaekae Yeah, I can understand your angryness, and maybe I am just thinking that way because I am so young, still. But I think that there might be people among those "pricks" who really meant no bad, and I want to find and educate them rather than anything else. Maybe because I am also a teacher, and I want them to find "the right way" rather than none at all.

On top of that, @Straight Edge Rian, you usually don't run around and make others bad at companies. Just because at some countries this is illegal, no matter if you are character assassinating a thief or not, so I would be careful with that if I were you.

[Jason Manley]

I find it amusing when certain vocal members here run their mouth when they have no idea what they are talking about. This is a major problem and has been many times on this site, and in the field, as Ilaekae illustrated with his story. It has happened here before and raising the issue in a fun way is a good thing. Education of how to deal with the normally unresponsive deviant art is also a good thing.

His deviant art page also had a seperate portfolio which labeled himself as "the future weapon designer". It was pretty clear to me that it was organized to get him work. Even in the chance that it was not, there is one thing the art community responds to and that is a public outing.

When people do this, the companies often fly them out (as was the case with Magic Pen and the quake 4 leak). Independent developers were flying the guy in, who was also fairly young, and spending their budgets on nothing...multiple times. Not only that but then that work got leaked out and caused damages too.

Those of you who defend art theft, piracy, or the like have no clue how such things are kept out of this community. CA will continue to make examples of those doing such things.

Rest assured. if your work gets ripped off and you post here for a little pitch fork fun, your thread will not be deleted.





Jason