Pls don't privatise my designs and here's why

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago by smooshkin

As in, designed by and bought from me. It makes it extremely hard to keep track and record of designs I've sold and it's been enough of a problem that I need to say something.

It also sabotages one of the main ways people find my work on Toyhou.se.

It also makes it harder to prove who owns a design in the case of theft and has caused me needless headaches.

It also causes people to DM me asking about designs they can no longer find, expecting me to go find them for them. Which is normally easy, so long as the design hasn't been privatised (which also removes it from my designs and art tabs, further sabotaging my presence, sale dates and work representation)

I can't make anyone do anything, but I can ask, because it adds up to a lot of annoyances throughout the month. So please just consider my end before you purchase characters from me during my sales with intent of privatising them or not, at the VERY least, authorising me to see them.

Comments

adxmania

ah, apologies I had no idea that... a designer isn't able to see their own designs :/ that's real weird. I still rather keep most of my ocs private just because I've had a lot of rampant theft going around with them, but I can go ahead and make the edenling I got from you public again ; v ;

smooshkin

Yeah it is weird :I

Check the comments also for a few examples from people saying how privatising characters works against you with theft. Might make more sense. in short, so long as the art exists somewhere on the net other than your account, keeping it private makes it easier to steal from you. You should actually want as many people to know you own the character as possible. Helps a LOT with when the community self-polices.

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smooshkin

Yeah, I've actually been in a lot of situations where I've had to spend a couple hours finding out if I sold a design already because it'd been privatised. XD I want to avoid accidentally trying to resell something I'd already sold.

I definitely get the maturity block thing. But there's no avoiding minors who lie when they make accounts on our end. >< *shudders*

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WolfenWares

oh shoot, i have a wildren that was a myo, that you allowed me to totally overhaul, so let me go make sure all the settings are correct on him just in case.
i totally understand where your coming from, and im glad i saw this post. I've been thinking of moving away from FA and trying to make more of a presence on toyhouse myself, so this is certainly something i can keep in mind. thanks for pointing it out
[edit] and i dont mean ill credit you with the design lol. i just mean i wanna make sure the credit ISNT on you so you arnt tagged incorrectly for creating it xD

smooshkin

I think if it's a MYO you totally designed yourself it's not as huge of a deal. HOWEVER, I did just have a situation last month where I was easily able to confirm the legitimacy of a design through the transfers list on a MYO because the buyer wasn't sure. So that's def handy.

WolfenWares

smooshkin
Totally understand. I went ahead and edited him accordingly. I cant change you as the 'creator' since your credited with the species, but I made sure all of his included info was easy to understand, just in case something comes up in the future lol.
Granted, I never plan on parting with him, BUT JUST IN CASE LOL

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smooshkin

I appreciate that... Yeah, as you can see in the comments, a lot of people managed to solve theft situations by keeping their characters visible...

Sleepy-Thunder

I private very, very few designs. I have like only 3 on private right now and one being yours. The reason I did it was because people would stalk it and keep asking after it when I stated in the bio it wasn't for trade or sale.

I authorized you and the design can be seen here. I would publically show him but my problem still stands. I tend to take these select few characters off of authorized/private when I develop them.

smooshkin

I know a lot of people really hate being asked about designs they bought being for sale ever.. But I think it'd be best to start seeing it as a compliment and just don't reply if it's that obnoxious. People never intend harm with it.. Owning a coveted design is part of the fun; knowing you have a gorgeous oc people love!
(That said, I'm totally on your side when you state it's not for sale right in the bio. People should read the info on designs they wanna offer on. U.U
But I appreciate the authorization anyway. That's at least enough for me to keep track of sales on my end, so thank you!

Saara ♢ Packfang Valkyr

I privatise to try to stem my own anxieties over my slow pace in developing OCs / my shitty art, but I'll put this girl back up in the soft locked public eye so you can find her / see where she is. If you can't see her lmk and I'll fix it!

smooshkin

Aw, so that's where she went! Valk, noooo one's judging you on your gorgeous ocs... You can totally take your time with developing them. Ty for opening her up <3

Valkyr

Yeah she’s with me! I love her a lot 💙Thank you for making her in the first place!

dawnpainterz

I've made some of mine login only, meaning only those with a toyhouse account can see the oc. It's not the most effective thing ever, but has had some success in keeping NFT scrapers at bay, i dislike the legal gray they operate in and if i can make it too hard for them to take the art in the first place I'll do so. I think that holds a nice compromise. (And nfts may not be around long enough for it to matter anyway)

While I've not had the kind of issues you have had, it seems, i do like to go back and look at the adopts ive made and genuinely love looking at what people have done with them and the art drawn of them; now people change them over time. I have a few that are now privated by their owners and that doesn't allow drive by admiration.

I do agree with you, though, privating everything is actively hurting the people doing it.

smooshkin

Yeah there was a convo about login only on the discord and I think it's a pretty good middle ground imho. I agree with you c:

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smooshkin

Generally making the characetr private works against you. I've seen at least two accounts of people using a privatised character against the real owner and claiming it as theirs because no one could find the real one. I think it hurts you more than it helps you to keep it hidden away but my experiences might be different since most of my personal situations were solved by having more people know about the character and I keep ending up on the observer's end of seeing my designs stolen from people who've bought them.

which luckily has been resolved, but I always had to step in which is stressful for me. >

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smooshkin

The people who aren't the type to read will offer anyway. It's rude, it sucks and I totally empathize with you. I deal with people not reading clearly/often stated info aaaall the time in this "industry" xD. I think part of the issue is it's often a young crowd- which means selfishness and rudeness is part of the territory...
I respect how you've chosen your boundaries and appreciate being at least authorised so I can keep track of past sales. Thanks! <3

Varinki

I've only ever had one of mine stolen. I think the thief thought she was fair game as although my character is on Toyhou.se and listed on the Royal Vernid Masterlist her original non Royal Vernid ref sheet is still on the original creators dead DA page.

I only found out because the thief sold her to someone else who then started commissioning art of her. Having the Toyhou.se profile helped me prove ownership.

smooshkin

oof yeah that's an annoying situation!! Glad that got resolved X.X!

Varinki

Yeah. We sorted it out between ourselves and then they went after the scammer.

honeycove

That last part is definitely a good point - it'd be cool if characters could be authorized on an individual basis instead of the whole account, but since TH isn't there yet it leaves you in a tough spot... I get being private about characters, but my personal way of dealing with that has been to just not upload them... I've seen designers mass upload designs themselves for masterlist purposes but really? That's too much upkeep for little gain for the designer in scenarios where they're sold/traded frequently.

tl;dr much agree

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honeycove

ohh? good to know there's a workaround, even though it still sounds fiddly for myself... thank you o:

smooshkin

yeah, what seteth said. You can kinda do it through lists but I agree. I wish people didn't have to feel like they were giving up their whole account's privacy just for one or 2 artists. :(
And sadly, if it's an adopt, so long as the art exists somewhere online (like the original artist's gallery somewhere), I think it does more harm than good to not upload/publicise it since it removes more proof of ownership and there's no dates to prove anything if the worst happens. >

Momma-Lucifer

This. I recently had this EXACT situation happen to me. Someone took the artwork of a character I had privatized, but since it was posted to other artists accounts, there was really no way to verify that it belonged to me. It was a very long and tedious process to claim authenticity.

honeycove

Oh yeah, hard agree that with adopts it's best to have the visible timestamps on your side - for everyone's sake. (I just probably should have been more specific up there; by "characters" I meant ones I made myself, for myself ~~I've never been the sharing type with them, so it's kind of wild I ended up into this community to begin with~~, but since this IS an adopt conversation I can see the mix-up, sorry)