What To Do If Your Art Is Stolen

I had so much better stuff to share with you; a new iZombie recap, #SaveRavi and a review of Other Space but alas, we're here again.

Thanks to an e-mail I found out today that my Starry Starry Tardis painting was stolen and sold by someone else.

Sold by this dickbag here

Looks a bit familiar eh?

The real one

Because one place isn't enough, this guy's also set up shop here:

You can find it here until he takes it down and runs

This has happened so damn  often I decided to write a primer for anyone who's facing the stomach churning realization that your stuff's been swiped.

Step One. Screenshots! Screenshots! Screenshots!

Take as many as you can to prove that someone swiped your art BEFORE you confront them because they will try to delete all evidence as fast as possible.

Step Two. Links to your own stuff

I've had people I've confronted come back with the stupidest excuses. One needed me to prove when my painting was created. Thankfully, DeviantArt proved that my painting was a good 3 years older than her candle image (though that's probably where it was ripped from).

Another kept obfuscating by blaming his staff and asking if I could prove it was me. Keep saying the same thing, with links to outside sources hosting and dating your art to prove it is yours. It's a pain in the ass, but liars will cling to anything they have.

Step Three. Tell your friends

Tell your friends, tell your family, especially tell social media. People love a good and crystal clear example of thievery to get self righteous about. This works to your advantage because one e-mail from a pissed off artist is easily ignored, a dozen from fellow outraged friends not so much.

Step Four. Do not get angry

Okay, you can get angry. Throw things, break counters, kick the ocean into the sun. But you can't let it show in the email you send. You have to be as cold as ice. Use short sentences and make sure to drop "copyright" "violation" and "DMCA" in there. The cold logic of a vulcan lawyer will send them scurrying to delete their shit far faster than you threatening to crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.

Step Five. Get the website host involved

If none of that works, and even if it does, hunt through the site hosting them for information on copyright or DMCA. It will be buried and be a giant pain in the ass, but they're more likely to take some kind of action and possibly even ban their IP...maybe. There are a lot of sites that honestly couldn't give a fart in Antarctica about copyright but they have to pretend they do.


Hopefully, with these steps you'll get your stolen shit taken down and can get back to that crushing enemies stage. I, for one, intend to kill many dragons.