furoora

[furoora]

The painfully predictable process of bringing art theft to light within the furry community...

Me: *someone lets me know my art has been traced or copied, so I decide to confront the tracer/copy-cat privately and politely*

Art thief: *denies any wrongdoing, feigns coincidence, or tells a sob story of why they were driven to do it*

Me: *asks for the art to be taken down, or at the very least give credit where credit is due*

Art thief: *refuses or makes excuses as to why they can't do that*

Me: *makes a public post, complete with evidence proving their wrongdoing*

Public: "OH MY GOD it's not the same! Look this line right here is 3 pixels off. They didn't trace or copy you! Gawd you're such a bitch. This should've been handled privately! You're always whining about your art being stolen. Don't like it? Don't upload your art to the internet. It's that simple. Grow the hell up!"

Me: "Umm... I actually did try to handle this privately. Here's all the proof you need."

Public: "Lalalalala we're not listeniiiing..."

Art theif: *eventually comes clean about tracing/copying, and apologizes in a completely victimized tone in order to vilify me further*

Public: "It's ok, bebbe. Orange04 is just a loud-mouthed cunt because she's a popufur who thinks she can bully smaller artists. Tracing and referencing is something even the best artists do, and it's a part of learning to become better. We understand."

Me: *receives anonymous vitriol, bullshit accusations, insults to my ethnicity or appearance, childish death threats, people tracing or using my character to further spite and antagonize me, and even underhanded comments from people who apparently still hate me for something I did back when I was 13 years old*

[furoora]

This is PRECICELY WHY INSTAGRAM IS TRASH

[furoora]

❗❗ Hey, please DO NOT buy from Milkybread’s online store. (twitter: @milkybreads_ , tumblr: milkybreads ) Their most recent product is a set of haikyuu acrylic stands, and the Bokuto one in particular was blatantly traced from another artist’s work. Most of their drawings were in fact traced from works of other artists, including oldxian, gusari, etc… They have been copying for over a year and the line was crossed when they started MAKING PROFIT from something that was TRACED.  When someone direct messages them to stop copying, they brush it off with excuses that their style is just “ mixes of other artists [they] adore too…” Clearly their drawings are traced and they don’t even remove them.  It is really upsetting to see someone with over 4k+ followers on twitter and tumblr get away with tracing art.

[furoora]

❗❗ Hey, please DO NOT buy from Milkybread’s online store. (twitter: @milkybreads_ , tumblr: milkybreads ) Their most recent product is a set of haikyuu acrylic stands, and the Bokuto one in particular was blatantly traced from another artist’s work. Most of their drawings were in fact traced from works of other artists, including oldxian, gusari, etc… They have been copying for over a year and the line was crossed when they started MAKING PROFIT from something that was TRACED.  When someone direct messages them to stop copying, they brush it off with excuses that their style is just “ mixes of other artists [they] adore too…” Clearly their drawings are traced and they don’t even remove them.  It is really upsetting to see someone with over 4k+ followers on twitter and tumblr get away with tracing art.

[furoora]

Some clarifications regarding milkybreads

I received quite a few messages in the past few hours about if this blog is going to be about art tracers/thieves in general. The answer is no, I just made this dummy url tumblr blog to post exclusively about the whole milkybreads situation. Why? Because she is an immensely popular “artist” on tumblr, twitter, facebook, etc… This means she has deceived thousands of fans who looked up to her and her “art” for years. She constantly ignored/brushes off and blocks anyone who privately and politely tell her to stop deliberately copy art for over 2 years. Did she ever grow out of this habit? No…

Even though the url has “stop tracing” in it, by no means am I saying that all tracing is bad. In this case, milkybreads is clearly plagiarizing other artist’s works. “But tracing is what helps an artist with anatomy? But–” The key term here is OTHER ARTISTS. Which means she has traced artworks that are NOT of her creative property. I repeat, she copied images that DID NOT BELONG TO HER and thus she DID NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO TRACE THEM WHATSOEVER AND CLAIM THEM AS HER OWN. She has already made profit from selling merchandised featuring traced artwork on her online store and in public conventions. Majority of her “drawings” are a mixture of stolen fan art from well-known and mostly non-English speaking artists (who mostly draw characters from sports anime.) All of the evidence of her traced drawings are shown in the visual evidences presented on this blog. She has traced artwork and claimed them as her own. Period. Stop sending me pointless messages saying that she didn’t. And one last thing. Please don’t send her any unnecessary hate messages. I know for a fact that she has seen the main post from this blog, and so far (as of 9/15/2016 4:31pm EST) she only deleted the posts off her blog that were explicitly shown on this blog. She has yet to post anything about this on her twitter.

[furoora]

Milkybreads Tracing Evidence Pt. 2 Even though milkybreads deleted most of her pics off from her blog and twitter, they are still floating around as reblogged posts and/or reposts. This evidence proves that even milkybread’s most recent drawing (the Sugawara Koushi one, which she just deleted) was traced. Please note that the first image shown (one with glasses) was sold as a print on her online store around a year ago. The original artist clearly stated this on their pixiv: “I wholly forbid the reproduction and manufacturing of my work without permission.”

!! Submissions are finally open on this blog, if you know any original sources then please submit them. Be sure to provide the original source/artist. !!

Sources: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=4302523 http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=11937939 https://twitter.com/__kiyomaru http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=4855598 http://ohprcr.tumblr.com/ http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=598731

[furoora]

[furoora]

[note: pictures are meant to be read left to right, top to bottom]

i am so PISSED. i dislike when my photos are reposted without credit but what i hate even more than that is when people try to defend themselves and claim they’re not doing anything wrong when they’re called out. just own up to your mistakes and do better in the future, jfc.

this girl blocked me before i could post that last comment and now i can’t see her IG page (but ya gurl still kept her receipts and took screenshots tho HAH) and i would really appreciate it if you all either reported her account or commented on her pictures telling her to cite her posts from now on! (or even just scroll through her account and tell her where a certain picture is from if you recognize it? honestly, anything at this point to get her to acknowledge this problem)

it’s not even like i asked her to delete all of her posts or go through each one and back search it to find the source?! like literally what i said is “cite FROM NOW ON”. that’s a completely reasonable request. i didn’t even report her right away - i offered her the chance to stop doing what she’s currently doing. like!!! i am being so fucking reasonable!!! and she’s just blowing me off!!! what the fuck!!!

so yeah. please tell her to start citing her pictures otherwise you’ll report her. she doesn’t fucking understand why what she’s doing is wrong and this is NOT okay. (like really though. go tell her. don’t just like this post. that won’t help anything.)

[furoora]

When someone tries to pass off their ugly traced version of your art as their own…and proudly slaps their own logo on it. Even worse? She’s a tattoo apprentice. And all designs she has ever done are stolen. Please report her on insta! https://www.instagram.com/p/BRJkdAkjXLo/

[furoora]

That lovely feeling when reposters are rude to you when you’re very nice. The tags on the posts are awful too; “I could be nice but that’s too much work” how lovely. And now they’re just reblogging reposts of Gearous exclusively now. Some are with permission, but most are just reposts. I love the excuses they use too. Art reposters and thieves are their own brand of awful.

[furoora]

“It’s not your business kid, go home,” said the tracer/art thief to the original artist.

[furoora]

Time for a little story on art theft!

It was recently brought to my attention that an Instagram account had a piece of mine posted without permission, without credit, and with my watermark cropped out. After checking the account, I found not one, but five pieces of mine. 

Just like any other case of art theft I come across, I fill out a form for each piece and let Instagram take care of the rest. By the next morning I had received word that they had all been removed. 

Just to be sure, I went back to the account to find this: (I highlighted the parts I found particularly ironic)

Not too long after, they reposted two of the pieces with “credit”. (The account credited did belong to me, but it was also renamed months ago. Googling the name they credited won’t take you to my art.) However, “credit” or not, I just don’t want my art on Instagram.

So, as requested, I sent a message. This was their “apology”:

I gave them a full 24 hours to remove the art. They did not.

Moral of the story:

As an artist, I have full copyright over every single thing I draw, if I don’t want it reposted, then I have every right to remove it. Posting art without permission and without credit is copyright infringement, which just so happens to be a crime.

It does not matter if you have never been to the original artist’s page before, it does not matter if you found it without credit on someone else’s page, it does not matter if you found it via google. If you are posting something that does not belong to you without credit, then it is theft.

Don’t be this person. Please respect artists and their wishes. 

[furoora]

If an artist tells you not to use their art?

Don’t fucking use their art.

If you want something for a character?

Commission the artist.

Do not use art without artist permission.

Do not. Use art. Without artist permission.

Do not alter a piece of work without artist permission.

Do not.

I -cannot stress-.

[furoora]

Unfortunately this a bit of venting on my end, so my apologies in advanced.

I recently had someone post my art without permission or even sourcing the original. When I asked them politely to remove the post and reblog the original… Well, they convicted me of not drawing the original.

I will refrain from posting their names, but I will quote them.

“ I never got that from your account actually. I got it from Google. Nice try though.Never heard of your account Anyways XD”

My reply:  “"Nice try though?“ That’s my drawing. Could you please reblog the original rather than reposting it without credit?“

“I got it from Google. So honestly I can’t believe you unless you ACTUAL proof that it’s your drawing.”

“I… JUST gave you proof it’s my drawing. I sourced it from MY account. I posted this months ago.“

“Just because it was on YOUR account doesn’t mean YOU drew it ya idiot. I don’t believe you. :) Bye now.”

I… am a little peeved, admittingly, but this sort of thing has happened more than once, though most have not been as rude as this individual.

Please, try not to post my art without source. Just doing some research and reblogging the source would be far more beneficial. I would very much appreciate that. Thank you very much.

[furoora]

On the issue of reposting art and supporting reposters

Some people from the YOI fandom have been asking me what is so bad about reposting art? 

They were new to fandom (or Tumblr) and genuinely didn’t know the consequences of reblogging reposted art and how one would classify a post as art theft/reposting in the first place.

Reposting is basically when you take an image and post it onto a website ie. you are not the original poster 

Reposting with permission and giving credit/sourcing to the artist is not a bad thing, obviously 

Reposting without permission, with or without credit is the shitty thing that we call art theft

Double shitty points when the artist already has a tumblr/twitter/etc that you could easily reblog/retweet from

If the artist doesn’t give you permission, then don’t repost. 

They have their right to autonomy. It’s not your work.

Also, every time somebody reblogs/likes that reposted image, they’re contributing to this culture of art theft.

Just take a few seconds to check if the original poster is actually the original artist. It doesn’t take long. They probably tagged it with every generic tag out there (eg. yaoi, bl, character name) to increase the number of hits. It’s also a dead giveaway if they post works that are Japanese but the rest of their blog is in English etc with no indication that they’re the artist - which is so shitty because the Japanese fans: 

1. Most likely can’t speak English very well so can’t hold a dispute easily or go through the DMCA process

2. Will have no idea unless their fans tell them of this

3. They always find out in the end and it’s always sad when they do

I’ve seen many fandom artists leave the fandom, stop posting art, stop drawing altogether because of this, and it’s really up to the fandom whether or not they want to be a supportive one.

Please don’t repost. Please don’t support reposters.

It’s the decent and supportive thing to do.

[furoora]

That lovely feeling when reposters are rude to you when you’re very nice. The tags on the posts are awful too; “I could be nice but that’s too much work” how lovely. And now they’re just reblogging reposts of Gearous exclusively now. Some are with permission, but most are just reposts. I love the excuses they use too. Art reposters and thieves are their own brand of awful.

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I don’t care if it’s the artwork of some undiscovered artist or a famous company’s renown artist.

I don’t care if the artwork is fanart for a huge fandom or an artist’s original ideas.

I don’t care how popular the artwork is, I don’t care if it’s been stolen multiple times already and that’s how you saw the artwork or you’re the first person to do so. I don’t care if you found it during a Google search or the artist’s website or what.

YOU DO NOT. HAVE ANY RIGHT. TO REPOST, TRACE, OR COPY AN ARTIST’S WORK.

Artists should not have to “get used to” people always stealing and tracing their work because they’ve made a name for their selves and there work is finally getting seen by people.

There are no valid excuses to stealing someone’s work.

No matter how talented or popular they are. Respect all artists.