Another Artist Using Doll Likenesses Without Crediting?

I've contacted Artgerm and also reported this picture.

http://artgerm.deviantart.com/art/Korra-Aura-313531425 (original)
http://artistmattnelson.deviantart.com/art/Fyre-and-Ice-426143470 (his "painting")

Frankly I am disgusted, and i'm glad the BJD community has handled this so well so far.
Really makes me want to stop posting things... or to slather giant watermarks everywhere.

 

I haven't used watermarks before, but I think I should start putting them on.

 

There are still some pics on his fb profile's photos, let's see If he realizes what he has done and ashame about it.

 

Well I *just* reported some of his Marvel images a couple of hours ago and already some are gone from his Deviant Art page. Also some of the Disney images. Also, I can no longer see his Facebook page.

 

he used one of my pictures of my Dollzone Stramonium. it's the one i use as my avatar and can be found here: http://kaalii.deviantart.com/art/Moonchild-180122818
i'm not on facebook so i can't ask him anything or report my picture as stolen

 

Yay for getting the kickstarter checked, good work everyone! I hope for everyone who's being ripped off by this guy that he gets to deal with the consequences of his thievery.

That being said, that guy and his actions made me realize just how great a community this is. You guys are awesome!

 

Ugh. As a professional in the comics industry, it disgusts me that he's so popular. His older art isn't anything to write home about, either. I feel greatly distressed that his terrible, ripped-off Kickstarter made its goal yet I know friends whose Kickstarters full of wonderful, original art have failed.

Anyway, I reported him on dA and linked to this thread and Lachlana's tumblr post. It can't hurt, can it?

It's just so disgusting that he has the nerve to call himself an "artist"...

 

Yes, I've seen it too and directly warn Chad & Marina about it... (Chad is the one that does all the pics...)
Hope we'll be able to definitly shut him down...

And a big group hug to the BJD community too !
Together we can do miracles !!!

 

Wow. Looking through some of the comments on DA makes me ashamed, depressed and disgusted. We have started a real witch hunt, haven't we? Please, please, DO NOT troll this man. Not only is it childish and vindictive, it is illegal, at least here in the UK. Let's be adults about this.

Anyway, glad to see the KS project is under investigation. And he has taken down the photo of mine that he used.

 

I agree with MadamMauMau. All we can do is report the stolen works without being disrespectful. I know sometimes it's easy to say but not to do. Let's show we are a polite community

 

I agree, the punishment he will face for stealing work is getting that work removed. It is rare they lose their accounts. However if people harass him then that is more likely to get you banned. It is really not worth you suffering.

 

What is also does is throw the BJD community into disrepute. He may be a callous art thief. We are now cyber bullies. Which is worse? I can understand the anger this has generated, but this is disgusting. Having been proud that the community was working together to alert the affected people, enabling them to take action, I am now ashamed to be a BJD collector. *shakes head*

 

Careful, 'cause I don't see anything illegal about this project. It is shady, but only because we know about his 'artistic endeavors'. Based on what he's written here, we have nothing we can contact gofundme with. Don't go harrassing him and don't place anymore comments about this on his personal pages. Stay professional, otherwise it's going to bite us in the ass.

EDIT
Just read MadamMauMau's replies. It's safe to say that I agree with her .

 

I agree with MadamMauMau and Silk too.
We do not want to "play" stupid with him : Here is, IMO, what we can (must ?) do : saving as much evidence as possible, warn all the stolen people so they can act legally...
And keep warning the community for attention and awareness...

that's my 2 cents !

 

I agree, I am also really proud for the most part of people in the community have looked out for each other. That is a really positive thing! Please don't turn this around and bully or harass someone. What he has done is very wrong, and it is a subject that is close to my heart because I want to make money out of my art in the future. I know people like this lose artists money all the time.

Plus it is not worth getting into trouble because of a thief, we can use the system to stop his wrong actions. However they also have systems to deal with bullying.

 

I just took a quick look the DA comments, and I may have missed some, but the ones I saw weren't bullying him as far as I could tell. Just saying things like 'hey man, it's disgusting to steal somebody else's art and pass it off as your own'. Which I think is just telling him that it's wrong what he's doing. I mean, there's no need to be mean about it or call him names, let's all be mature and polite, but at the same time, I don't see how people telling him that what he's doing is wrong should make one ashamed to be part of the community.

 

Little Lost Pixie, a very large proportion of the comments on his DA are abusive. I am not going to single out individuals for scrutiny, as that is not my style, but abusive terms have been used to describe him. And there are 15 pages of this. The comments made were designed to cause him distress. This, under UK law, counts as harassment and is illegal. It is likely that similar laws exist in the US.

I saw earlier in the thread that someone also identified his employer. I very sincerely hope that no one has contacted them and lost him his job. Friends and family will have read the posts on his FB page and, possibly on DA. One was even contacted directly. As has already been pointed out, we know nothing of this man and his state of mind. People have committed suicide for far less than this level of bullying.

For those who have posted these comments, you have got it out of your system, you have shown your solidarity with the people, like me, who have been affected, and he has almost certainly read your post. Now, please, I beg you, for the love of all things decent, delete your comment, .

 

I looked at the DevArt comments and especially the earliest ones were pretty rude, that's true, but I think the newer ones are actually pretty calm.
But it's true, please stay nice and polite guys, there's no need to call him names or be rude because it will only backfire onto us.

While I think we shouldn't harass him more than necessary I don't really think that just reporting the pictures is enough.
People need to know that they are being fooled by him, that he lies and in one case also tricked them out of a lot of their money, because else he will continue doing what he's doing (which doesn't mean we should make his life a living nightmare (I decided against writing to his agent in the end because of this), but ONLY reporting the pictures without saying something publically will not help in the long run).
Also please leave out things like "but what about his family"/"his mental state", there is no need to coddle him while there are hundreds of people out there who got their work stolen by him, people who also have families or need to make a living with their work. People with REAL mental illnesses need our help, from his behaviour it's clear he knows what he's doing. He's a 44 year old family man with a wife and thousands of fans who were willing to throw money at him for some badly shooped pictures. He's not some poor unfortunate soul who needs a hug, especially because it's clear as day he knows what he's doing, else he wouldn't be so "clever" and just hide his Gallery on DA instead of actually deleting it or blocking everyone who dares to speak up. He's not even defending himself, neither publically nor in front of us, he instead tries to hide everything that digs up his wrong behaviour.
Sometimes we need to accept that some people are just assholes, as sad as this might be.

We are basically sitting all in the same boat as artists, but he's the one who decided to eat all the rations and kick us off the boat.
But still, stay nice people. We need to keep the upper hand and present us as a strong and polite community, because else we will be in trouble, and we shouldn't just because of some dude who decided to rip us off.

 

Ara, I couldn't disagree more. There are proper steps that those affected can take. If anyone wants to take him to court over copyright infringement, that is the way to go. That would be a serious disincentive for him to continue. Organising a lynch mob is not.

I have expressed my feelings enough on this, now, and will step out of the discussion.

 

Completely agree with you two. I can understand the feelings of the people affected but I think this is going too far. There's no need to do this.

It's the same as always, someone sees some stolen pics, alerts the community he/she is in, everything starts fine but then people get mad and finally something that was done with an idea to alert the pic's owners becomes into a chaos. Let's hope everything goes through in a decent and polite way.