Looking for advice (art theft watermark removal)

Posts: 8 · Views: 202
  • 21603

    Hi!

    This post might be strange and long but I really don't know where else to discuss and I would appreciate if you could spend some minutes reading this post. It's about removing/replacing watermark and art theft. So I am making tons of wallpapers almost every day. I was happy to upload them here but then something happened. I realized my wallpapers are constantly being copied to other websites without my will (wallhere and others), almost after a minute I upload them here. Okay I can live with that. But there are websites that cut off the watermark from my works and even putting their own watermark on them. Not to mention that people are just using my work on their shitty youtube videos without the watermark of course and without giving me any credit, when I send them a message - no reply. I think my watermarks are already small as it is, if you have a solid colored taskbar and not a transparent one then most likely it won't be even visible when you use it as a desktop wallpaper. The fatal blow was when I seen my art being used on some russian apparel website. They are selling stuff with my own wallpaper on it. Meanwhile I struggled hard to make some revenue on redbubble and etsy but no luck with sales. Absolutely zero. It really bugs me how others are making money with my art, they treat my works like some sort of royalty-free stock material and I can't do anything about it. I am really just an ordinary human being with multiple health issues struggling to pay the rent and meds, so bringing these to court is out of question. I am really devastated to see how my art is being treated, how my name is being stripped away from my art pieces. I spent countless hours on my own artworks, I lost like 2000 abstracts and like 500 fractals last year due to a hdd failure. I now have like 1500 new abstracts sitting on my current hdd, they are much better than the ones I currently uploaded. I am eager to make them public, to upload them here, to show them to those very few people who are interested in these kind of works, but the thought of my art getting raped holds me back from doing so. I don't want to plaster my name all over them because that defeats the whole purpose of my art.

    Any thoughts, advices, anything apart from "deal with it" is appreciated.

  • 21604

    RammPatricia

    Hello. I am sorry this is happening to you. Unfortunately, dealing with the deletion of watermarks is hard. The only advice I can give you is to make them harder to remove. I made an example: But the disadvantage is this takes away from the... quality of the wallpaper. You need to find a middle way, an acceptable watermark opacity that doesn't ruin the wallpaper.

  • 21605

    Thanks I truly appreciate your reply and taking your time for showing the example. Unfortunately I think it will be off-putting to plaster my watermark all over my pices even with low opacity. Many groups on deviantart already rejected my wallpapers due to the current watermark is being too big (ugh excuse me?). Obviously the wallpaper curators on deviantart are mostly into my little pony, pedophilia and weird fetishes so no big deal. But seems like watermarks are putting off people. I thought about adding the watermark near the center of the image but maybe this site would reject it that way too? To be honest, I am baffled, i really don't know what to do. I am not joking, I have nearly 1400 pieces sitting on my hdd waiting to be uploaded but what's the point when it will be raped. Take a look at this example: https://www.imperiumtapet.com/tapeta/262347/windows-10/preview Mine: https://wallhaven.cc/w/2e6lom Just awful. Thanks again for the response.

  • 21606

    Honestly I can see why certain sites may be off put by the current watermark. If you look at many artist signatures and such they seem to belong to the artwork or don't stand out too much. Some examples would be yuumei and ryky:

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    With your current watermark, even if there was a wall I would like, you basically force people to buy it. Personally I had bought a ryky wall because I had enjoyed the artwork they put out in the past. I even uploaded it here so others could enjoy it as well. This is how I know what you mean by people stealing artwork without credit and using them in youtube videos and such. With youtube you can file a copyright claim if they're using it for music and such like I did, and within a few days the video should most likely be taken down. With websites selling merchandise it is a bit harder as different countries have different laws. You can try contacting these various sleazy websites, but honestly the results of that are always hit or miss due to the nature of the website and their country's laws.

    Realistically speaking though, if you have not seen any sales with your current artwork I would suggest you take a look at your target market and whether there are individuals who are willing to buy such walls. Personally, while I think they are interesting walls at a glance, many of them do begin to blur together and make me think that the type of artwork you're going for might be a saturated market if you can put out as many walls as you've described.

  • 21607

    404011xz

    I am not selling my wallpapers. Sorry if it wasn't clear, I was trying to sell print-ready seamless pattern packs I made with the same technique and redbubble apparel with my patterns on it (similar to my wallpapers, obviously without watermark), but they failed since I don't have instagram or facebook or any follower base. I know that I could never make money with my wallpapers because people don't even care about my art for free. I'm just mad how other's try to make money with my hard work so I tried it too - with no luck. At this point I don't care about the revenue of anything, I just want to share my artworks with all of you without my art being stolen and twisted. As you can see my watermarks are easy to crop out and idiots have already taken advantage of it. But if I place it to the center then who would ever use it as a wallpaper? Becasue honestly these abstracts have no other use than desktop wallpapers. And I don't think I can blend it into complex patterns especially when I am uploading them in batches, correcting the colors are painful as it is, I would not be able to hide my watermarks on all my pieces one by one. I just want to find a way to show my art again to people who like these types of art and I thought this website is a good place to share them, but whenever I upload something it will land on those toxic wallpaper sites that cuts off my watermarks. Each one of my wallpapers have at least 100 views and that's already much more than I could ever ask for. If at least one person likes them then I'm happy. No one in my family/friends have any interest in what I do be it patterns, fractals, illustrations or even music. That's why I'm trying to show my art online. But what's the point of doing so while other's treat them like stock images and pass along without my name and make money with it. I spent countless hours and sleepless nights experimenting and making my art, and to see them end up raped like this is just makes me fucking sad. Thanks for the tip though, hopefully my youtube report will be successful, but so far I had no luck contacting the russian website that sells my art on a hoodie. Sorry for my rant, but this is one of the few things I have left to enjoy. My art is my life and I just wish I could find a way to share them again but without the assholes taking advantage of it. So far I could not come up with any good idea. As for the numbers - I am not making this up. I made you a proof video about my folder. https://imgur.com/Ij1m2w5 I appreciate your reply.

  • 21609

    These guys hunt image thieves and if money has been made from your work they will even extract it from them on your behalf. The catch is that they take half of the proceeds - www.pixsy.com

    It's mostly for photographers who've embedded their copyright into their photos' meta data, but who knows? they might be able to help you.

  • 21632

    VitalBlurs Thanks, that's helpful, gotta fiddle around on that website.

    I am still not sure how should I publish my wallpapers here though. To think about how my long hours of work will be butchered by other wallpaper sites just makes me sad.

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