PSA: Nonspake selling stolen designs

Posted 3 years, 9 days ago (Edited 3 years, 9 days ago) by Lainebrary

03/19/21 - Update by Ikayuro

"Looks like they deactivated their account on dA! A good thing for those they were trying to scam, but I worry for the designs they were trying to resell. Definitely keep an eye out for them."


--EDIT--
This user blocked me some time while writing this, so I can no longer access their page or any of the links below.


I want to warn everyone to stay away from the user named Nonspake on Deviantart, and request help finding two artists to inform them that their art has been stolen. This post is possible with the help and consent of Lou-Known on DeviantArt, who brought this issue to my attention and provided sources for two of the four adopts Nonspake has listed. Also, I want to apologize in advance if this post is a little messy. I'm pretty upset while writing this, and I've never had to post a PSA before. I have tried my best to make this clear and easy to read, but if you have questions don't hesitate to ask! I will do my best to answer any question posted here.

Without further ado, here are the events as I know them.

I placed a bid on one of the designs Nonspake has listed. I was suspicious when they closed the auction immediately, but I have had other artists do that for adopts that had been posted without bids for some time so I didn't really think too much about it. When I asked them about it, they said this was the case. Shortly after, however, Lou-Known messaged me with sources for two of the designs which were posted last year. When I told them I had filed for a refund with PayPal and cited the original sources, they first tried to say that they had purchased the art, and when I persisted they were incredibly aggressive--calling me a bad buyer and threatening to report me to DeviantArt--and refused to provide any proof that they owned the art and had the right to resell it.


Designs

At the time of writing this, Nonspake has four designs listed on their page total. I have original posts for two of their designs but am missing original posts for the other two.


The first is the pair of twins I bid on: https://www.deviantart.com/nonspake/art/OPEN-Adoptable-Auction-24h-873163930

The original post is here: https://m.vk.com/wall-144788241_24169
And the auction for the design is here: https://m.vk.com/wall-145951282_90594

As you can see, the posts on VK were made in November of 2020, four months prior to Nonspake's listing. The image they used in their auction is identical to the one posted on the VK auction.


The second is a wolf design: https://www.deviantart.com/nonspake/art/OPEN-Adopt-AUCTION-24h-873657465

The original post is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35177126/

In this case, the art is more than a year old, posted in February of 2020. Additionally, this appears to be an OC belonging to the artist, and Nonspake didn't even bother to remove the text boxes--only to block them out. The formatting is identical on this one as well.


I do not have sources for their other two designs, so if anyone has any clues PLEASE share them and/or try to let the artists or owners know.

There is this wolf design: https://www.deviantart.com/nonspake/art/OPEN-Adopt-Auction-12h-873339973

And this human design: https://www.deviantart.com/nonspake/art/OPEN-Adoptable-Auction-12h-873213351



Documentation

In case they remove these pages, I have PDFs of all of Nonspake's pages I linked here. I also have screenshots of my entire conversation with them, and the individual images for each stolen design. All of these are in a sta.sh for easy access. Additionally, for those who want the offline HTML I saved from the adoptable pages, you can find them in the google drive link (along with all of the other files I listed above.) The google drive is not as nicely organized but I want to make it available as I know the PDFs can be difficult to read. I know screenshots are normally standard (rather than PDFs and offline HTML) but I couldn't get clear screenshots of the full pages. 

Sta.sh: https://sta.sh/21c2bb332w4x?edit=1

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15oEAjpFSJIypkN3i0SEtpWLwzVXZ-4Sk?usp=sharing


VincentTheServal

This is horrible! I have a FA and can contact the artist owning the wolf design if no one else can. 

Lainebrary

VincentTheServal

Thank you for offering! I'm actually writing to them now, as I not sure if Lou-Known has reached out to them yet and I figure hearing about it twice is better than not hearing at all.

VincentTheServal

Oh that's good at least! I am afraid I can't do anything other than help signal boost in that case. Hope this gets cleared up ASAP! :(

Lainebrary

VincentTheServal

Any signal boost/bump is appreciated! Paypal resolved in my favor, so I did get my money back (and they didn't profit off me) which is really the best I can do other than share here to hopefully help someone else avoid getting scammed.

VincentTheServal

That is the best we can hope for. I'm glad your's resolved quickly at least!

Ikayuro

Looks like they deactivated their account on dA! A good thing for those they were trying to scam, but I worry for the designs they were trying to resell. Definitely keep an eye out for them.