Russian Site With Stolen Art Works on..

Dear Marshall, <br />I have read the policy ! My point though was to create some &quot;Tos&quot; for the downloaders! ❤️ <br /> <br /> <br />Sara, I have written you a mail ! ❤️ <br /> <br /> <br />CA, <br />if you are able to do on request work, lucky you! Speaking for myself, I have never claimed to be able of doing it, although I have been asked by a member here not so long ago. I could not do what he wanted and honestly said so. But am I a worse artist because I can&acute;t? I do not think so, and I guess that is not what you wanted anybody to understand, or did you? That should not be a measure when doing art, no matter what style. ❤️ <br />

I guess the only way to stop this is stopping those sites activity,this is up to their isp of course <br />after investigating the situations,but again the next day another one will open and start to steal...just like before... <br />The internet can be sinking sands at times,i think what you said Nikos ,unluckily,is true <br />i saw the last link you gave Antje,it&acute;s another site.. 😢 ...this says it all..

Yes, I know all that from my mind..........still can&acute;t help it at this time, and I guess I have to learn my lesson myself before being able to agree with you wholeheartedly. ❤️

Sara, this happens if you try to go back with your browser after making a post.

Yes,usually but this time i went back to Messageboard after commenting a work and then after coming back from another site Antje :) ...not such an important thing anyways :Happy

You can&acute;t even imagine in how many hundreds sites our works are displaying, without our permission of course and the most of the times, the worst of all, with a fake author name on them... :(

Yes Nikos, I am about to learn exactly that currently! <br /> <br />Still, it makes me sad that several popular wall and skinsites, including Skinbase, don&acute;t do more to protect artists works more than they are doing currently. I am aware that it has to be mainly the artist himself to prevent his works being stolen. But there again, Skinbase has a policy of how members should behave and act...........but what about the people who freely download hell of a lot of material here daily, and that without even being a member? They don&acute;t even get noted that they are supposed to be downloading walls and skins ONLY for their personal use on their desktops and are not allowed to redistribute them somewhere else as their own stuff! <br />Now, don&acute;t get me wrong here........I will not start pointing out my finger in order to have somebody to blame. But I simply hold the opinion that there are in fact a few things that could and should be done from the administration of a popular site, which Skinbase undoubtably is. And with Gregor being the programming expert, it can&acute;t be that difficult to realise, even if it won&acute;t stop a lot of people who steal images as a hobby. <br /> <br />Another thing is, although I am not going to continue our discussion from BH..........about the rips. All I know is that one of the obvious rips I pointed out to you via SB-PM (including the link to the original drawing) is still downloadable at BH, although you said you would take care of it. Thus, what would you expect me to believe now? I still think that one supports rippers by allowing rips on a site and see it as a great responsibility a webmaster has. And the least I would have expected is that rips are being removed, let alone showing at least some concern about the ripping from this site which you are currently not doing in my opinion. Do you understand what I actually mean, Nikos? I am not blaming you, I simply ask you for some concern for the rights of artists who help making this site what it is? <br />Simply accepting it as unavoidable to happen, like you SEEM to do, is no option for me............that is why I stopped being an active member here. Everyone has to do his part, the administrator as well as the artist himself.............but what exactly is your part here? <br />And believe you me, I did love being part of this site. ❤️ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

Sara, I just received an email from the admin of artfile.ru.............all my 29 images have been removed after the ISP contacted him. ❤️

Dear Antje i&acute;m very happy for you,i didn&acute;t even reach the email address this Gregoriy at agava game me,all mails bounced back ,i decided to take it easy,looks like not even the isp takes me seriously 😂 ❤️

There is a submission policy in place here at Skinbase. <br /> <br />You can be proactive and do something like this link: http://ic3.deviantart.com/fs13/i/2007/100/5/7/Glasses_by_brokenangel.jpg <br /> <br />It is a shame that we have to resort to visible watermarks but it is an effective way to stop theft. It would take a lot of work to carefully remove the watermark and most would move on when they see this. I personally hate to see this,when some of my favorite artists put visible watermarks over the picture and I want to download for my personal use,but I fully understand the reason behind it. With the artist in the link;she knows me and when I send her a note,she will send me a clear copy. <br /> <br />Again,I say it&acute;s a shame we have to resort such measures.

...it was..&quot;gave me&quot;... kind of freudian lapsus..:Happy ,ok last post,i promise :Happy ❤️

Well I say it only hurts the poster of the ripped art. When it comes time to back up those false claims with proof of skill they will then be seen for what they are, fake posers! They can&acute;t be comissioned to do original-by-request artwork. Sure it hurts when they rip! But we are giving away digital copys free. Forever will our work exist, passed on from one computer to the next. We know we have the skill and can be comissioned to do original-by-request artwork. Take it with a grain of salt. It&acute;s like worrying about people who add false qualifications on their work resume getting your job. The truth is there, were it counts! :Happy

You are right dear Antje, I have fight for these cases for 2-3 years, <br />but are so many and everyday too many new rips that make it impossible to follow... so I gave up... <br /> <br />I have seen that movie so many times, it is like the piracy of mp3, nobody can stop it ;)

Marshall, <br /> <br />does she do those watermarks with a special program, or does she simply use transparent layers? <br />Looks like a program to me though.......

Dear Antje; When one submits art at DeviantArt,they are given a choice of a license to impose on their artwork or none at all. It&acute;s the artist&acute;s choice. I believe the layer is part of the license,but don&acute;t quote me on that,because I never use the license. I see the watermark used frequently there. <br /> <br />You could make a watermark easy in Photoshop with the opacity setting. But I hate them,for the reasons stated. I think you are very concerned as you should be and I understand,so just trying to help. <br /> <br />Don&acute;t get me wrong,I&acute;m not trying to recruit you to DeviantArt. :Happy :fun <br /> <br />I for one,would like to see you return to posting your wonderful works here. ❤️

Thank you so much for your very kind words, Marshall! ❤️ <br /> <br />To tell you the truth, I am registered on DA but do not like it there. Not at all ! And as I said to Nikos earlier, I loved being here with all of you, but I would expect more support from the administration........at least see some good will to HELP preventing theft in order to pay their part resp. show an adequate responsibility. May sound naive for some, I don&acute;t care at all. I even would be willing to pay for some more security, at least I would not feel like standing alone like now. Friends who kindly support me, excepted of course! <br />The site benefits from the artists, and the artists benefit from the site, no argue about it! But is it enough to simply supply the platform? <br /> <br />I neither like watermarks, but it seems there is no way around them. At least I can see some kind of success after starting to put title and Copyright-Signature right in the middle of the image, because I have found none of those being redistributed anywhere...........SO FAR ! :, Thank goodness I am not able to check them all, I would likely be ended up in some psychiatric ward by now. ;) <br /> <br />And just in case somebody is wondering............. <br />No, I definitely cannot help myself! :fool

Antje; Well then...glad to here it&acute;s working better. All the best. :Happy ❤️

I have never tried this but it could work inplant a digital watermark on a blank transparent layer then add that layer to any work you want watermarked. Of course I am not sure if pasteing this layer on another will damage the watermark. Digital watermarks aren&acute;t really noticeable, because it usually is not an image. I don&acute;t know how readlly many programs support watermark reading, but I know adobe photoshop does. And you are right avy, one can also be limited by the tools and techniques they know. I know I can&acute;t do everything. But I can; within the reach of the tools, skill, and stile I have. :p

<br />Avy don&acute;t make wrong conclusions, I wonder why you do... <br /> <br />We don&acute;t accept rips in Skinbase, we delete them asap and we exile the rippers. <br /> <br />The members of SB have always full support from the administration, please stop the drama and <br /> hear what I am not saying...... <br />

Nikos, if you are seeing a drama here, then I wonder who is the one who is making the wrong conclusions. <br />And if you had read what I actually wrote, you would have noticed that I talked about one particular rip on BH which I notified you about, not on SB. But I am beginning to understand now what the actual problem is. Never mind, I&acute;ll do you the favour! I never thought I could loose my respect for you though......but I just did, Nikos. <br />

hey guys.. why r u seem in fight.. <br /> <br />i had also see many sites.. in (*.ru) (*.nl) (*.no) (*.ws) who stolen the artwork.. but that not mean they build that.. so .. just care of protection of ur art.. <br /> <br />protect data base.. & dont allow the ripper & grabber.. .. <br /> <br />With tention or fight we not protect any thing.. <br /> <br /> :magic

mhm yeah right!!!!, maybe sign a name on the picture, or your web something like that...!!! 👏 👏 <br /> <br />dont fight for this.. its just a web who dont have great artist like skinbase!!! ;) ;)

<br />The enthusiasm of a novice author is a good thing and it is acceptable. <br />But having a novice author playing the role of the <b> only defender of authors rights </b> and trying to give us lessons, it is at least not acceptable from the Administration of Skinbase! <br /> <br /> <br />I am pointing out the wrong conclusions by you avy: <br /> <br />“Still, it makes me sad that several popular wall and skinsites, <b> including Skinbase , don´t do more to protect artists works more than they are doing currently </b> ” <br /> <br />“I still think that one supports rippers by allowing rips on a site and see it as a great responsibility a webmaster has. And the least I would have expected is that rips are being removed, let alone <b> showing at least some concern about the ripping from this site which you are currently not doing in my opinion </b> . Do you understand what I actually mean, Nikos? I am not blaming you, <b> I simply ask you for some concern for the rights of artists </b> who help making this site what it is? &quot; <br /> <br />&quot; <b> Simply accepting it as unavoidable to happen, like you SEEM to do </b> , is no option for me............that is why I stopped being an active member here. Everyone has to do his part, the administrator as well as the artist himself” <br /> <br />I was talking about myself above, as the author adni18 and the rips of my work and not as Admin of Skinbase, another wrong conclusion by you avy!!! <br /> <br /> <br />Any way, you blame us that we don’t care about author rights as much as we should and this is a totally wrong conclusion! <br /> <br />WE CARE A LOT ABOUT THE MEMBERS OF SKINBASE AND THE AUTHOR RIGHTS! <br /> <br />You have asked me to delete your account from Skinbase avy, (if this and the above statements by you are not creating a drama, then what a is a drama? ) <br />I will do it, because you gave me no other options and I want to make it clear that it is your request and not our decision. <br />

Hi Etype, my were all watermarked with my copyright image under a transparent layer, in fact on two of them it&acute;s still on and the third image as been cropped to remove it. :(

Thanks for reading this saretta and Mr Uvah, hope it helps you both :)

I wrote my mail yesterday and my 28 works are still up. The site had been taken off line a couple of weeks ago because of massive complaints about copyright infringement. But now a lot of the works that were deleted have been resubmitted again. <br />I had my images removed from at least 7 different russian sites in the last weeks, not only artfile...........and it was no problem, most site owners showed very cooperative and even apologized. The thing is that the images spread very quickly once they are shown on one site, and to think one could avoid or even stop that happening would be an endless battle.........the day only has 24 hours. <br /> <br />I have spent hours and hours on various russian sites and spotted a lot of images I know who the artist is............like Serge, Richard, Sally and hell of a lot of stuff weboso made. Also Vladstudios and many more I know from other sites. <br />Please be aware that you cannot fight this!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are not careful, you will start getting paranoid about it. If you find your works, try and write a mail to the admin, but don&acute;t let it worry you too much. In most cases the people are not bad, they simply do not have such strict laws in russia, and they think they are not doing anything illegal as long as they don&acute;t use the works commercially. <br /> <br />First I was furious about all this, it didn&acute;t do me very good though. Whatever you think or do, just remember that if you don&acute;t want this to happen..........don&acute;t submit your images in the first place. There is no alternative in my opinion, although I still think that some site owners could do a bit more to protect their artists. <br /> <br />Take care everyone.........miss you all! ❤️

You are absolutely right... posting work does come with risk of this nature. So, if I understand this correctly - people are posting these works on the Russian site as their own?

I can speak for myself though luckily i only found one rip,Poppies,the false author is Kattrin,i saw many works from Antje there,it&acute;s really a shame that nobody cares to protect autors&acute;works!!

Fred, <br />they don&acute;t say that it is their own, but they neither tell anybody who the origin artist is. A lot of artists do not bother with signing their works visibly for they seem to think it spoils the art or simply don&acute;t care about their copyrights. Some even feel flattered that their works were worth stealing which I personally find naive, because one site with a massive amount of rips even offered prints of the stolen images. Two weeks ago I found one of my earlier 3D renders on which the signature had been removed. That is why I started to put the title and my full name on my images..........right in the middle where it can&acute;t be removed that easily. But as I said earlier, the ones that were signed down the right bottom are still flying around the net and are continiously spreading, because there are such a lot of sites. <br /> <br />The people who submit rips are so mad about it, they do not even notice that they submit the same work three, four or even more times. Artfile.ru has a lot of categories.............photography, 3D, Fractal, Aviation........you name it, it will be there. And each category contains thousands of stolen images. <br /> <br />

OK... now I got the whole picture. I don&acute;t understand what sense of accomplishment a so-called artist can get from posting a work that was done by another. That is one that I&acute;ll never understand. But I am an honest soul... always will be. :)

Well Fred,to tell the truth i also didn&acute;t understand, i ended up doubting those artists phisically exist ,looking at this from a commercial point of view,those sites are full of banners aka:the more visits the site gets more clicks on the featured commercials... ;)

sorry it was,&quot;the more clicks on the featured commercials&quot; and i add...there are lots of &quot;happy&quot;ladies on those banners :,

Very true, Sara! <br />And if you look at it from that point of view, the site owner actually makes profit with all those stolen images. As for the &quot;Happy&quot; ladies.............sex sells.........always has done and always will do, and all those adverts hit just the right target group, don&acute;t they? <br /> <br />Thank goodness there are Firefox-addons like AdBlock Plus (which is free, of course). I have eliminated them all before I started searching. <br /> <br /> <br />Fred, <br />they do not claim to be artists, but they do seem to get points or ranks for posting images that get downloaded a lot.

What Nr. Uvah said, is also very true ! Everyone who goes there should make sure to delete their temps and cookies and scan their system with adaware or spybot or similar afterwards!

You can embed a digital watermark in your art. You can also add a visible watermark over the main part of the image that is translucent. This will discourage anybody trying to improperly use your images. I personally do not like to use the visible watermarks,but it&acute;s an effective deterrent. :Happy

Site Adviser shows this site as red. Use caution!

For my photos I simply put my name on the bottom right or left corner that I realize could easily be cropped or masked with the use of software. Sounds to me the unfortunate reality is that the only way to prevent it would be to &quot;plaster&quot; your name or watermark in selective areas all over the image. This of course would make it less desirable for a legitimate user to have it on their desktop. So, it is probably not a feasible or realistic fix to the problem. But it would stop theft. That is a safe bet. It would also make the work less popular or desirable. Its damned if you do, damned if you don&acute;t... :,

Hi Auline. Ugh,that&acute;s not good. It shows premeditation. :( (Thank you for favoring &quot;Contact&quot;) :Happy

Thank you everyone for your views on this problem, at the end of the day there are people out there that will steal no matter what it is they are taking. And I guess our work on the interent is very vulnerable no matter how we copy right it. I for one cannot afford to pay for the digital watermark, and at the end of the day still not sure what good it would do. Anyway folks I hope you all had a look to see if any of your work was there. Not that writing to them as done me any good mine are still on there.. :p

I have tried to contact the ISP/Hosting provider now. If that is not going to be successful, I &acute;ll ring them up tomorrow. I might be only a small and unsignificant internet user, but there are more ways to make them act.

I just received an answer from the support of the ISP, telling me to send them the links to the original works..........now, that was quick! :congrats <br /> <br /> <br />Everyone who wants to have his image/s removed from artfile.ru, will have to write to: <br />support@agava.com <br /> <br />Please put &quot;InGoNsOpRaEm&quot; plus (eg) &quot;Copyright Infringement&quot; or similar in the subject line, otherwise they may bounce. Happened to me twice. Don&acute;t forget the links of the stolen works and also the links to the originals! Good luck everyone! ❤️

By the way, although not important.............another one of my works has been uploaded there today!

Thank you Antje for this precious hint,i just wrote to support@agava.com,let&acute;s hope they will <br />take care of this, i gave links andi also attached screenshots of both pages (original and stolen) 👏 ❤️

It is just a never ending story... ;)

Hello Nikos, <br />I guess you are right.........it still does not make it right to resubmit images you were only allowed to download for your own personal desktop use. And as long as I keep finding my artwork somewhere I will have them removed from there. I want to decide myself where my artwork is shown, and I definitely don&acute;t want it to be shown on a site that hosts x-rated images and adverts. <br /> <br />By not doing anything against it, I support those people. Just imagine this in life beyond the internet...........where thieves can steal and never get punished cause they will do it again anyway. But that -of course- is a decision that everyone has to make for himself.

Here is another example, dear Nikos! <br /> <br />http://wallpaper.rc-welt.com/view3541426_1280_1024.html <br /> <br />My signature has been removed on that image and has been replaced by &quot;rus-chat.de&quot;. <br />This is theft, nothing else!