Art Theft

[Warrior]

Anyone had dealings with "red_sox_14" at ebay?

The jackass is trying to sell/aution t-shirts with MY ART!

http://cgi.ebay.com/SCI-FI-BATTLESTAR-GALACTICA-T-SHIRT-VINTAGE-VIPER-FLEET_W0QQitemZ8407782925QQcategoryZ28022QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The thread with the original art-

http://www.colonialfleets.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9764

(I also posted the chart over at LWG)

http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22357

I e-mailed him through ebay asking who said he could use my art.

I also e-mailed ebay themselves reporting this theft.

[evil_genius_180]

There's a lot of that going around right now. I was visiting a forum on scifi-meshes earlier that was talking about somebody trying to sell the Star Trek models of a bunch of well-known artists as their own. I hope that guy trying to sell shirts with your art gets banned from E-Bay. Hell, he should be banned from the internet in my book.

It's people like doing crap like that that really gets me mad. 'Cause then the rest of us that want to just download the files/pics whatever have to suffer because the artist might not want to keep sharing their work. I know I wouldn't. Fortunately, my stuff isn't good enough for someone to rip off :D

The ironic thing is that I just registered over at Colonial Fleets and I was looking at that same artwork this @#$!!! is trying to sell.

[Taranis]

Bastards ... I saw that thread at Sci-fi also ..

Go and get him .... I remember the picture from CF

[marxart2003]

It is actions like this jerk on ebay that make all artists reluctant to post any work online. Had a similar thing happen to me several months ago and it was a friend that did it.

[Kai]

from reading the experiences of others that have had this happen to them, (check out renderosity's copyright forum for details for example), I'm afraid your SOL dealing with EBay over this.
anyway.. good luck...

[Warrior]

They don't act right away, then they'll also hear from Universal *and* possibly Lucas Arts (he's got other stolen stuff up too).

[evil_genius_180]

That's it, bring everybody down on those f*rs. (I had a bad experience with E-Bay a while back and can't stand them.)

[mikala]

Real sorry to hear you are having troubles with the "scum" that are not able to do their own work.

[evil_genius_180]

You had any word back from ebay, Warrior?

[Warrior]

Yeah, I have. Heard from them on Friday in fact. Had to fax them a form/statement. No doubt they don't work weekends, so it won't be til tomorrow at the earlierst I hear back.

More than likely Tuesday if they take Monday off as a holiday.

[mikala]

Curious as to any responses?

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, what did those jokers have to say about your work being illegally sold?

[Moonglow]

I see the shirts are still for sale on e-bay as of today. What gives?

[evil_genius_180]

E-bay is run by a bunch of assholes, that's what the deal is. They don't care. Sorry, Warrior, but it's true. They're not likely to do squat about it.

[chrisis1033]

They only care when the big corporate boys come knocking....

The rest of us can complain all we want... last time it took eBay 3 weeks to act on a concern I had... that was two weeks longer than the listing.....

[Northwatch]

They are a big organization with a million items to police. There is not way for them to cover it all. The only way they know something is wrong is when people tell them. How else do body parts and wifes selling their husbands get on there. Not that I'm standing up for them, it just takes time for them to check things out and as stated before, major companies with complants get more of a response than a jerk selling a t-shirt with your work on it. You could try sueing in small claims court if you want but that will not go far and they know it. It's as much a part of life as that jerk that races his car up the merge lane just so he can cut infront of three people.

Sorry to be so negative but I was cut off twice today and if I had a gun.....no, I mean a LARGE AIR HORN.....

[Northwatch]

Looking back at that item's history, he has had it up for sale 6 other times and no ones bought it yet.

It's a neat picture, but I'm not sure it makes a good t-shirt.

[evil_genius_180]

They are a big organization with a million items to police. There is not way for them to cover it all. The only way they know something is wrong is when people tell them. How else do body parts and wifes selling their husbands get on there. Not that I'm standing up for them, it just takes time for them to check things out and as stated before, major companies with complants get more of a response than a jerk selling a t-shirt with your work on it. You could try sueing in small claims court if you want but that will not go far and they know it. It's as much a part of life as that jerk that races his car up the merge lane just so he can cut infront of three people.

Sorry to be so negative but I was cut off twice today and if I had a gun.....no, I mean a LARGE AIR HORN.....

I get what you're saying about E-bay and them being huge and not being able to police everything on their site. That's not the point some of us were making. The point some of us were making is that, even when stuff is brought to their attention by someone like Warrior (not a huge corporation whose ass they want to kiss) they ignore it.

He told them about this a couple months ago and, as far as I know, they've done nothing about it.

As for the car thing, there's nothing wrong with venting every once in a while. Where do you live that traffic is that horrible? Or was this just an abnormal thing?

[moovok]

Bloody hell Warrior, I am sorry. Damn eBay, you can anything nowadays but usually at the cost of the original artist

[F1Racer]

Unbeleivable ! How people can blatantly steal like this is nauseating. I hope Ebay sort things out for you very quickly.
Dunno what gave him the balls to try that and even think he would get away with it. Good thing you spotted it.

[the3dgm]

This has been an on going problem for a long, long time! Years ago, when the web was very young, I went by a different name and used to put my 'A' work on the web. There was this guy who was always writing me and asking me to let him use my renders, I had no interest and told the man no.

Some time after that I was talking to a person I knew and noticed they were wearing one of my pictures. Yep the 't-shirt' no talents were at it back then also.

Long story short, lawyer ('stolen copyright'), judge ('if you didn't want it taken, you should not have put it on the internet').

The times have changed, the laws have changed, the web has changed, thieves are still thieves and the web has more outlets for them!!!

I never put my 'A' work on the web anymore, and always the lowest quality I can get by with.

As for the person who took Warrior's work. . .just shoot the s.o.b.!!!

Just my two cents!

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, the law sucks. So, Warrior, any word? Did they tell you the same crap?

Basically, I'm such a crappy artist that I'm not sure what I would be more; pissed off or really friggin' proud if someone stole my artwork or meshes. I mean, it is sort of a compliment that your shit's good enough that others want to take credit for it, even if it is wrong. I haven't run across this problem yet.

:phaser:

[Acadia]

Lots of this kind of stuff going around unfortunately.

The internet has opened the door to a whole new world to some people and has made so many things, including stealing, much easier, and seemingly "legal" in some people's minds. Many figure that they pay for internet service and whatever they come across during their online time is there for the taking and that the internet world is their oyster so to speak.

[Sealtm2]

Ebay has become scam central. I used to be a seller on ebay mostly rare coins along with a few other gentlemen. I and a few of my friends dealing in coins have had our auctions copied and used a few times by scum suckers like the one who has stolen your art. This type of thing has become common place on Ebay and Ebay is very slow to do anything about such volations or will not do anything at all. Between the conterfit items and the constant email and phishing scams that place has gone to the dogs. All Ebay cares about is collecting their fees. I wish you the best of luck getting any response from Ebay.

[evil_genius_180]

Yes, Ebay seems to be the con artists' paradise, doesn't it? Dirty bastards.

[Acadia]

Ebay has become scam central. I used to be a seller on ebay mostly rare coins along with a few other gentlemen. I and a few of my friends dealing in coins have had our auctions copied and used a few times by scum suckers like the one who has stolen your art. This type of thing has become common place on Ebay and Ebay is very slow to do anything about such volations or will not do anything at all. Between the conterfit items and the constant email and phishing scams that place has gone to the dogs. All Ebay cares about is collecting their fees. I wish you the best of luck getting any response from Ebay.

I've tried searching for stuff on eBay and have never had any success, so I've never bought anything from there.

However, even if I could manage to find something I wanted to buy, I'd rather go to a store and pay retail price and take it home the same day and have some kind of recourse if the item is defective or broken. Besides, I'm not really gung ho about handing over my money to a stranger and taking them on faith that they will send me the item I have paid for.

I've seen too many documentaries about scams, and many of them involve telphones or online.

eBay is still very successful, but it's also a medium that is easy to get involved with and either scam or get scammed. Call me untrusting, but ...

[the3dgm]

Part of the problem with places like e-bay, is that some companies don't or wont do anything.

Case in point: About 4 or 5 years ago, I bid on a render package that was on e-bay, the picture showed the box, unopened, and was being sold by a vendor with a very high satisfaction rating! I did not win, but was contacted by the vendor and told he was a business and had a few more of the programs and would sell it to me for my high bid, I'm stupid, I bought it and received a boot legged copy of every bit of software a now defunct company sold. I reported it to the company, three times, and never got a response, a few days later I had an e-mail from someone who wanted to sell me one of Adobe's programs, I contacted Adobe and their response was; 'if you don't have a name and an address what do you want us to do!'

Well, I've never got asked to buy pirated software again, and I make sure of what I'm getting now and I check out companies and don't buy from e-bay.

What can ya do? :nonono:

[Sealtm2]

I've tried searching for stuff on eBay and have never had any success, so I've never bought anything from there.

However, even if I could manage to find something I wanted to buy, I'd rather go to a store and pay retail price and take it home the same day and have some kind of recourse if the item is defective or broken. Besides, I'm not really gung ho about handing over my money to a stranger and taking them on faith that they will send me the item I have paid for.

I've seen too many documentaries about scams, and many of them involve telphones or online.

eBay is still very successful, but it's also a medium that is easy to get involved with and either scam or get scammed. Call me untrusting, but ...


Many times you are better off going to a store to purchase what you want. Not only because you can return or exchange the item if you don't like it or something goes wrong with it or the purchase but in many ways you can get it for less. Sometimes I am amazed at what people will pay for something by bidding for it on ebay PLUS the shipping when they could have found the same item in a department store for far less. I think people get caught up in the excitment of bidding that they don't think until it over. I bet there is much buyer remorse via ebay.

It used to be you found a trusted seller and did business with them. There was a group of us that bought and sold coins on ebay and we knew the good guys from the crooks. Some of the good guys are there but now have become very picky on who they let bid on their auctions. The rest, like me have just walked away from ebay as have many of the old time sellers who have gotten fed up with ebays tricks and lack of policing their site. Today you have to be so careful on ebay becuase they have let so many counterfit products and ghost sellers, who put up fake auctions then take your money an disappear only to return under another ID, that it has pretty much destoryed what ebay once was.

But I must tell you I do a lot of on line shopping becuase the nearest mall to me is at least 4 hours way in all directions. I live in a very small town and in the next town over there is a very small Sears outlet store, a walmart and one car/truck/snowplow/snow moblie/boat dealership and a Shaw's. SO alot of items people use around here are ordered on line or through catalog at sears. If I drive about two hours east I'll hit the only home depot in the area. Yes we do have electricity, phone, running water and inside heads (toilets) AND we just got cable! I choose to move to the boonies the to escape my former profession, crowds, noise, crime...basically hunmanity :cylon:
Not only that my wife is from this area and wanted to move back home after living in the rat race. Uh...sorry I got off topic. :arrow: Just be careful when shopping ebay.

[Acadia]

Thanks :)

I have no intention of buying anything via eBay. I too prefer to go and pay for something and take it with me once I've handed over my money. Sometimes I go to flea markets and pick up some nice used things, but again, I can inspect the item and see the actual condition of it before buying it and take it home with me.

I do shop online quite a bit too. Mainly because I haven't been well and it's hard for me to get out to the stores, plus it's convenient to have it delivered to my door. However, usually I buy from places I know such as Canadian Tire, Staples, Office Depot, Amazon, The Shopping Channel. A few times I've bought things that needed to be sent by snail mail, from other sites, but I find that most of the time the "stores" are in the USA and sometimes the item is subject to border fees/duty, brokerage, taxes etc before it arrives at my door, and then there is the currency exchange rate on top of all of that.

I'm a nurse and a few years ago I ordered a cardiac stethescope. A really good quality one. I paid for it by Visa and after 8 weeks I still hadn't received it so I contacted the company. They said they shipped it by UPS. I waited some more and 4 weeks later I still didn't have the item (12 weeks total), so I called again. They said that they hadn't received it back and was going to check into it for me. They found that it was hung up at the US/Canadian border.

A few days later UPS shows up at my door asking me to pay them $175.00. I told them that I had already paid for the item with my Visa and it was just to be delivered. I was told that the $175.00 was UPS's fee for processing the border papers at customs, plus taxes.

The stethescope was something like $250.00 or $275.00 plus exchange rate at that time of 1.67%. Now UPS wanted to add $175.00 to that?!!! I refused shippment and called the company and told them what happened. They agreed that I should send it back and they gave me a full credit on my credit card. They said that they wouldn't be using UPS anymore after that.

I ended up buying the stethescope here for about the same price as the US base price plus exchange.

So I know what you mean about things can get expensive if you use eBay, and I'm sure many eBay sellers use UPS and UPS rips off Canadians with that stupid border processing fee based on dollar value of the item being shipped.

[Sealtm2]

I used to hate to send things to Canada. It was always so expensive and then all the paperwork to get it across the border only for it to get hung up in customs in Canada. I always marked things I sent as "gifts" so the folks I was sending it wouldn't get taxed. IT just takes so long to get from the U.S. to Cananda. I sent a friend of mine in Quebec a camera, mind you I live just about on the Canadian border and Quebec is about 3 hours from me, anyway it took 5 months before she got the camera Je ne comprends pas! I told her, "Je devrais être venu là" (I should have come there) and gave it to you..LOL!

[Acadia]

Shipping to Canada isn't bad. Shipping to Canada via UPS is bad!!!!! Many people think that UPS is the cheapest route to send by, but they don't know about the hidden border processing brokerage fee that UPS dings the recipient with.

It's actually cheaper to send things to Canada by FedEx because FedEx fees are all inclusive and there are no hidden charges to the recipient, unless it's "Duty Fees". But they work their paperwork into the actual fee that is charged.

For example, I ordered that Poser 5 Demystified course from 3-Axis, and they sent it by UPS. It took 2 months for me to receive it. The S&H that 3-Axis charged me was $9.99. When UPS delivered the parcel, they wanted $50.00 for brokerage fees (for processing the border papers). The course itself was only $59 or $69 USD.

Had 3-Axis sent me that parcel via FedEx, I would have had it next day and the whole S&H and border processing would have cost me $21.00.

I really wanted the course so I paid UPS their stupid fee. The total cost of the course for me after exchange, S&H and UPS brokerage fee was $160.00

[evil_genius_180]

The best, cheapest way to ship anything in the U.S. (with destination all over the world) is the United States Postal Service. USPS charges as much for next day air as UPS does for ground shipping. It's clearly the best choice.

[Acadia]

The best, cheapest way to ship anything in the U.S. (with destination all over the world) is the United States Postal Service. USPS charges as much for next day air as UPS does for ground shipping. It's clearly the best choice.


It depends. The postage rate might be cheaper, but do they charge the recipient a processing fee for the paperwork at the border? UPS is cheap, but they charge a brokerage fee based on the dollar value of the item being shipped (new or used, it doesn't matter) in order to process the paperwork at the border. The recipient must pay this fee before the package will be delivered. And sometimes this fee works out to almost the same price as the item's value.

So paying $5 or $10 for shipping doesn't make a difference if the recipient has to pay $50 upon delivery.

[evil_genius_180]

I don't know. The only time I ever received anything in another country was when I was deployed to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. We didn't (and shouldn't) have to pay for our mail. So, the only people paying were the people sending us stuff. And, it was all Postal because UPS and FedEx don't exist over there.

[Cryptie]

Im glad my work isnt good enough to steal.

[McAfee2000]

Warrior I hope they resolve this issue. This was also an issue at Deviant Art someone was selling pictures of various artist. I hope E-Bay gets on the ball on solves this.

[Oovebei]

The person is still selling this stuff - so I assume e-bay took no action, or was it deemed legal (i.e. credits where appropriate?)

[VidFX]

Just send them an invoice for your costs, follow up with a debt colletion agency, then break their legs.

[Sean Kennedy]

Warrior, I feel for you man.... As you probably heard, someone tried to rip off my Space Jockey mesh back in December. It's a very disturbing trend....

[p.s. Cargile]

Hey guys,

It's been almost two years since I poked my head in hear long enough to post. I came here to post art, but I saw this thread. Here is a link to the US Copyright Office (http://www.copyright.gov/) that has information that every artists/writer should learn. Copyrights in the US protect all works even those not registered. It is illegal to use anyone's art without written permission. The Fair Use (http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html) page has this interesting fact: "Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission."

I know its not always an option to register works, or to get a copyright lawyer to sue infringers, so informing others of theft, and confronting the thief is another option. Sometimes directing them to the copyright office website and threating legal action can get results. Many countries are together in copyright treaties and honor copyrights from outside their borders. But some aren't and don't.

I'm not an Ebay user, is there a place where you can leave comments? Telling other users that the person trying to sell items with stolen art might sway them from buying.

Also, if you don't think there are enough protections for works on the web, complain to your representatives. I haven't done this, but maybe I should.

This is a serious issue, and we artists should be able to display our work without fear of infringement.

Paul

[chrisis1033]

Thanks for the info and link Paul!

[kpoche]

Now thats just a damn shame .. some people. :fume:

[cyclone]

You know, a threat of sueing someone might do something. People hatethe work lawyer and court.... Just my two cents here. BTW HI ALL.

[mbeers]

Whats the story with that You cant take pride in stealing and selling or playing it off like the art is yours. I guess what ever it takes to make the mighty buck. Artist theese days need every penny they can get out of the time, effort and skill they put into their work.
The old man thats great work and the pat on the back doesnt pay the bills.

[mbeers]

THANKS FOR THE THE ABOVE LINK. WE NEED TO PROTECT OUR WORK EVERY WAY WE CAN.

[Fretslayer]

You want I should track 'em down and break their fingers?
:)