I've posted this on my tumblr but I'll post it here again. So upsetting that this has to be my first major post of the year. :/
Today I got curious about how people try to find their art/photos that get re-uploaded without credit and randomly went to do a search without expecting anything. But to my utter shock and dismay I found my art of Akura-ou on this website feed thingy (it's not Facebook).
As you can see my watermark is right there (when I watermark my art they usually go by “Akina”, “Shirayuucchi” or “Juaki”). And it was posted way back in May last year without my knowledge, and even worse, with no credit whatsoever. I’ll be honest here. I’ve never believed my art would get taken because it isn’t at all the best in my opinion but apparently this isn’t so.
I don’t know Russian so I can’t understand what the comment is saying and neither do I care what it says because I’m just plain upset right now. (Edit: I used Google translate for the website and I understand what was written now but I honestly don’t care what people think of my works plus that’s not the real problem here) Even if I don’t think my works are up to standard, I put in a lot of effort in what I do and like any other artist, I don’t like it one bit when my works are being used in such a way.
I’m aware that so many works are being stolen on a daily basis but now that I’ve finally fallen victim to this widespread practice, I can fully understand how unbearable it feels when your stuff gets stolen. Even though it may not be as bad as having my art being claimed by another, it’s still art theft, people!
And this is a very, very well-known nagging reminder but some people just turn a blind eye to it. It’s not that they don’t/can’t understand, they just REFUSE to. Social media has developed ways to appreciate people's works in the form of likes/shares/reblogs/retweets so there is no excuse whatsoever when it comes to the issue of re-uploading others' works.
✔ Shares (Facebook)/Reblogs (Tumblr)/ Retweets (Twitter): You SHARE the work from its ORIGINAL SOURCE.
✘ Re-upload: You SAVE the original work and UPLOAD it on your own site, usually without any credit or permission.
Some of my own sites where I’ve uploaded this art of mine:
** If you want my art by all means I allow you to right-click and save them into your computer, BUT PLEASE DO NOT RE-UPLOAD THEM ELSEWHERE WITHOUT ANY FORM OF CREDIT TO ME!!!!!!!!
A reminder to everyone in the creative industry (and to myself as well), please remember to always, always watermark your works. And please watermark them in such a way that art thieves will not be able to get rid of them so easily. Let’s also as a community help each other to alert and report stolen works.
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Adding on.
The comment according to Google translate is critiquing the art. I’m very appreciative of people’s comments and critiques on my works because I want to improve and work harder for my future art. But this doesn’t make me happy at all. In fact it makes me even more upset. Because it was written on a website where my work got re-uploaded instead of on my accounts where I originally posted them. And this isn’t okay at all.
I went to the site's Terms page and this was stated so if I understand my English well, I believe this also means not to re-upload works without permission.
I just did another round of checks because I was feeling uneasy since last night. I found out the same art got uploaded more than twice on the same website, but by different people. Along with all those other stolen works. =__=
Please do not support accounts/pages that repost uncredited works!!!!!!!
Please read and share! Thank you! ♥