Art Theft on a Grand Scale!

www.designwar.net is distributing massive amounts of artworks from deviantART and artists' personal portfolio sites. Although they give credit to a few of the artists, all of the images are being posted without permission.

This presents problems because visitors to that site get the wrong impression that the artworks are copyright-free. Even though the site policy prohibits sale or commercial use of the images, it says that the images are "creative resources" for "educational or entertainment reasons". That's an open door for anyone to download the art, exhibit it on their website or deviantART page, and claim it as their own. And of course, there are people out there who are willing to ignore the site policy and use the artworks for commercial purposes anyway. Lovely, isn't it? Making an easy profit out of other people's effort, time and creativity. Whoop-dee-frickin'-doo. To top it off, some of the artworks have had their artists' signatures or watermarks removed, and covered up with the site's logo. How's that for art fraud?

The following pages from www.designwar.net contain numerous images from assorted dA artists, and professional artists outside dA:

Stream of Creative 1
Stream of Creative 2
Art Pack
Super Big Art Pack
Design Works 1
Design Works 2 (For this one, the artworks can only be viewed if you download the file, which contains 300 images. You can do this by signing up with the site. It's free.)

There are many more of these "art packs" available on the site-- browse around and you'll find entire photography galleries lifted from the artists' personal websites. There are literally too many pages of stolen works to list here.

These are just a few of the dA members whose work is being posted on that site without credit or permission:

alexiuss
BleedingStarClothing
guava
tasharoot2009
lithiumpicnic
Raven30412
nighty

CIRCULATE this article and check out the site links posted above-- you might find YOUR art being distributed there. Or you might find the works of a friend, colleague, mentor, or role model. Spread the word so that the affected artists know what's being done with their works.

If you find that the site is distributing your art, or the art of someone you know, you can do either of these things:

-Tell the site admin to remove the images entirely.

-Tell the site admin that they can show the images only if they give credit to you, and give a link to your deviantART page or personal website. You may also want to tell them to post only small, low-resolution copies of your images, so that they can't be sold or used commercially.

Personally I'd go with the first option. With the second option, you can prevent your artworks from being sold without your consent, but you still run the risk of people downloading your art (because they think it's a "free resource") and claiming it as their own work.

Keep sharp, everyone! We live in the age of electronic thievery-- let's protect ourselves and each other!