Character Theft

I haven't had it happen to myself yet but I know a lot of people who suffered from it. From straight out stealing the OC or art to tracing over the artwork and shittily editing the artwork. I also herd enough of people who get their art stolen by companies for mass production, often in china or somewhere where it's hard to contact the company and even get through...I always watermark my stuff(unless I forget it woops) and always ON the art and not...idk...conveniently next to it so it can be easily edited or or something. Better be save than sorry.

EDIT on the topic of tracing...I also firsthand saw someone do that. Like...they fucking screenshoted their process and had the layer they were tracing over visible.

I usually put watermarks on my OCs' art, at least with the tank people. But the reason for that isn't to stop people from stealing them, I have no illusion of being able to stop them from doing that if they really want to. It's more like... if someone stumbles upon the art randomly and likes it, they'll know where to find more of it. I don't think anyone's ever stolen anything from me. My OCs are just not very usual so I guess no one's really interested in them like they would be in more popular designs. Sucks to hear that some people seem to have to deal with this a lot.

I guess if someone really wants to steal your characters or art, even a huge watermark won't stop them. I remember a long time ago, there were communities of people taking pictures and photoshopping the watermarks off them. And they were so good at it that even big watermarks that covered most of the image just ... disappeared. Scary shit.

UUUGH... YES..... i totally can't say to a degree of which many of these people have - they are all Terrible - but i gotta say that there are SO many levels of this occurring!

yyou've got the blatant reposting and copypasting, which is usually battleable, but on the other end of the spectrum you've got this horrific culture of people with no creativity of their own who will just grab and run with your designs or characters to an extent where it's CLEARLY a bootleg, but not extremely outright and it's Hard to call it out without lookin' like a dick ;_; (as usually people tend to deny character stealing is a thing)

i am personally Very self conscious about it now and have grown into a very cautious habit when it comes to befriending people, blehbleh, every time i have a falling out with people it always seems as if they try to snag concepts and the like of Very dear-to-me characters (and those of my friends', even!)

@sakuragx4nina

Ay yi. Just icky all around. Like, I get if they were inspired but that's where it should it stop and then they should go on to make their own thing. But there's those that go around saying nothing is "original", well I wonder why? Seriously. Inspiration and Straight up copying/stealing are two different things and unfortunately people seem to confuse the two.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone else has encountered this...but the people who cry "you can't name your character that because that's MY character's name!" Now that's another all kinds of annoying.

You can generally tell if someone has a history of stealing; they're just not very creative people in general. They lack a sense of cohesion -- something that makes their artwork or storytelling their own. Also, tracers (especially the dreaded 'hack and flip' people) all have horrible skill. Their technical skill (either shoddy linework, or a lack of knowledge of forms and color) is just sub par to whatever source material they're tracing. Sometimes that's not the case -- but usually it's pretty easy to see.

Nonstop That's an excellent point. It really makes me pissed when people justify theft with 'inspiration.' No -- inspired people have respect for the source material, and also some dignity as creators. People who just flat out lazily steal shit do not.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I'm passionate about this, haha. I've been stolen from quite often in the past, and it's always been very sneakily, because I'm a confrontational person in the communities I've been a part of. I don't like to do it, but I can be Capt. Hardass and I won't hesitate to message whoever and tell them to knock it off.
Mostly I've had ideas wholesale lifted from projects I work on, designs I've made... or little bits and pieces outright stolen from my artwork, like an expression, a hand gesture, clothing, etc. 

Personally it hasn't happened to me (hurray for having an unpopular choice of species no one even wants to steal!) but I have seen it happen to a great deal of people. I watermark my artwork out of principle and because I actually love the watermark my friend drew me, especially on characters I feel are more likely to be stolen. Let's hope it stays that way!

I've had artwork stolen, most frequently this eevee seamless piece. At least twice? Once was as a DS skin by a company in China, and I think some other company that sells on Facebook. Prob not gonna upload that kinda artwork on DA anymore! Can't say it bothers me too much though.

I've also had art I've made of some adopts I've bought stolen by a thief to be sold as a new adopt, which was pretty weird. And I've had chibis I've made for guild members on a private RO server stolen and used as "commission examples". 

one time someone copied one of my designs but they like... at least drew it themselves LOL but it only happened once & when i called them out they changed the characters hair/eye color and called it a day. it's like... annoying but shrug. i've never had an actual character/any art i've purchased stolen.

i think things are much more likely to be stolen when you are very well known or comm a very well known artist because the work is just more visible to random ppl searching the internet, or if the character/work is part of a popular fandom cuz again... just more easy to find. ppl google pokemon, find someone's pokemon oc & copy it cuz of the mindset if it's found via an internet search it's free for anyone to use

Once had someone try to commission me to draw a character that was a 100% rip off of Ben, down to the placement of every piercing, even the exact same skintone swatch. :/ Like, what, you thought I wouldn't notice???

I've had my character princess' images ripped and spewed across the Internet simply because I didn't watermark them, that was a hassle to get over. I don't typically get bothered when people rip my ocs designs to tack on their own but I get hella bent out of shape when people just straight steal my actual character (and literally change nothong about the design and even keep the name) or the designs I've made for other people. It's not that I don't get "bothered" but more like "well if they're gonna steal it at least it's a shitty rip off" and just try and go about my day.