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A few months back I made what I thought at the time was a unique conversion. I bought the Skitarii Dragoon walker pretty much the day it was released and set about looting it for my Orks (I had a restless Big Mek who was without a ride). Uncharacteristically, I managed to get the model converted and painted up in no time at all (my motivation was thanks largely to the unofficial Dakka paint challenge). Another big motivation was, and I'm sure many other Ork looters will associate with this, just wanting to be the first to pull off such a conversion.

Anyway, as I said, this was a few months back. Last week, out of curiosity, I decided to Google 'Looted Skitarii walker' or something of the like, and was delighted to see my model pop up among the top image hits. However, when I clicked on the link, it didn't take me to Dakka; instead I was taken to a Russian site which, with a quick Google translate, informed me that it was 'Time to loot Skitarii!'. Here, without any accreditation to me, were all the pictures I'd taken of my pride and joy, re-hosted on a weird Russian site.

Now, I should make it clear that this isn't a "Outrage!! Vitriol!! " kind of post. I'm actually quite flattered that someone else liked my work enough to re-post it. I guess some credit might've been nice (not least for my gallery votes ) but overall I suppose it's harmless enough.

I was wondering, though, if anyone else has any experience of something similar happening to them? Would you be angry if someone used pictures of your work without crediting you?

I'm fortunate to be in a position where this is just a hobby, but I've seen a lot of professional studios (and even hobbyists) add watermarks, logos or other images to their photographs to prevent them being spread without accreditation.

It's rather the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. I'm sure it doesn't occur to a lot of people to accredit work they re-host. Like you, I find it flattering when people use my pictures, but occasionally find it a bit rude; particularly when the picture is used to illustrate something with which I disagree.

Generally speaking, I think this is a very social hobby, and so I'm very much in favour of sharing my ideas. For that reason – plus the fact I suspect trying to prevent it would be a fairly sisyphean task – I don't mind too much.

That said, if someone does use my work, I'm always very happy if they link back to my blog (or wherever they found it). That's all I really ask.

Yeah my work/quotes have been used half a dozen times on different blogs to my knowledge. There may be more out there though? Half of the time I have been asked for permission and the other half the work was correctly credited so I've never been that bothered.

Oh yeah and then there was this....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/557792.page
That was less amusing.

Well, I guess there's not much you can do about it, especially if the site is in another language. I simply feel bad for such people; they often don't even have the minis in question and lack painting skills or are too lazy to paint their minis decently. And obviously, the only place in which they can show off "their" work is the Internet. So don't worry much about it, it's proof people really like your work and you did a great job with the mini!

cheers
Kahnawake

Generally I contact the modeler before using their pics in an article or the like but I can't swear I did it every time.

I also try to mention the original modeler's name but again, I may have lapsed...

I once had an entire article cut and pasted and lightly paraphrased on another site. That site's mods noticed it and banned the offender.

Angry? No. It's nice to be credited, but the way images wander around online it's entirely possible for someone to wind up with a bunch of pictures and no way of knowing where they came from. So not really worth getting worked up about.

Yeah this has also happened to me a couple of times.

My Macragge PDF pics have been used by a couple of sites, one French and another Russian.

I must admit I know what you mean, for a split second I was a bit like "Oh, those are mine, but you didn't ask and credit would be nice", but then I realised they were using them in the context of fluff and i was quite flattered they had used mine for reference.

And obviously no colour scheme is unique but AFAIK mine was the first Macragge PDF to use that particular scheme and i hadn't seen any other armies using it - so imagine my surprise when the Solar Auxillia FW army used exactly the same scheme....

Yeah, but it made me laugh, I took a snap when at forge world of a display TV, lo and behold I find the same pic (edited slightly) on the dakka news and rumours section, I'd uploaded it to Facebook, somehow it ended up on dakka.

This happens a lot in the art community. Most artist would be fine with just accreditation, just ask. If they're using your image for their business, though... that's a different problem entirely.

Every now and then I get bored and search online regarding one of my Video Game model threads. My images are hosted un-credited on Tumblr, various blogs, Reddit, a couple of image hosting sites which the user's claiming credit, and (randomly) a Russian tattoo site.

Bother me? Well it doesn't bother me enough to escalate the issue beyond leaving the odd out of place comment regarding WIP pictures I never actually bothered to finish. I could chase people up about it, but I don't see the point. The ones who decide to repost every other image of mine as their own are up Gak's creek at the moment though, as I haven't posted much myself in ages, so leave it to them to find an excuse for why they aren't posting anything too.

Does remind me to actually post something in one of my blogs today though. Let's see which requires the least amount of effort. =P

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:Yeah my work/quotes have been used half a dozen times on different blogs to my knowledge. There may be more out there though? Half of the time I have been asked for permission and the other half the work was correctly credited so I've never been that bothered.

Oh yeah and then there was this....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/557792.page
That was less amusing.

Wow, man! That is really not cool. Funnily enough I think I may have seen that auction. I remember thinking: "Who in their right mind would want to sell those awesome Nids?!

StraightSilver wrote:Yeah this has also happened to me a couple of times.

My Macragge PDF pics have been used by a couple of sites, one French and another Russian.

I must admit I know what you mean, for a split second I was a bit like "Oh, those are mine, but you didn't ask and credit would be nice", but then I realised they were using them in the context of fluff and i was quite flattered they had used mine for reference.

And obviously no colour scheme is unique but AFAIK mine was the first Macragge PDF to use that particular scheme and i hadn't seen any other armies using it - so imagine my surprise when the Solar Auxillia FW army used exactly the same scheme....

The more I think about it, the more I feel that someone else using your pics to show off stuff they think is cool is totally harmless. As you say, credit would be nice, but I guess in this case that them pinching pictures of your models is the sincerest form of flattery.

It's where there's a more sinister motive, ie someone trying to 'sell' minis using your pictures or, as Kid Kyoto said, someone just blatantly plagiarising something you've written.

PS Straight Silver, where are your Ultramarine PDF pics?! They're not in your gallery and I'm curious now. Am I gonna have to search for them on the dodgy Russian site?

Yeah I must admit it is flattering but at the same time whenever i get my Macragge PDF out now everybody goes "Oh you've painted them like the FW Solar Auxilia..."

My Macragge PDF are here in this Ultramar project log:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/323859.page

But also if you google image search Macragge PDF most of the images are from my various plogs... or elsewhere...

I had sold a single painted model to someone at my local store years ago, then he entered it in a painting competition in that same store ... The staff, when announcing the prizes, gave it to me instead of him (which was rather amusing since there were lots of people there). So that was fun

Few weeks ago, I found out that one shop uses a picture of one of my Warzone Resurrection models in their webstore... I'm still not sure whether I should feel flattered, or whether I should mail the shop and ask them to change it.

If he was trying to claim your work as his own, the Swedish newspaper in the background kinda gave him away

I've never had pictures of my miniatures "stolen" (cause I don't upload them ), but people did steal my VK pictures. I find these things more flattering than annoying though.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If he was trying to claim your work as his own, the Swedish newspaper in the background kinda gave him away

Ha! Excellent observation, good sir! Pretty damning evidence if and when I take the curmudgeonly so and so to court

After reading some Dakka posts about their disregard for other's IP, I'm not surprised at all about this. Unfortunately, once something's out of your hands, you have very little control over it. Watermarking seems to be the only good idea, although how you'd do that for a painted miniature someone passes off as his own I dunno. ):

 anticitizen013 wrote:
I had sold a single painted model to someone at my local store years ago, then he entered it in a painting competition in that same store ... The staff, when announcing the prizes, gave it to me instead of him (which was rather amusing since there were lots of people there). So that was fun

Lol. And they did very well to do so imo :-)

ced1106 wrote:
After reading some Dakka posts about their disregard for other's IP, I'm not surprised at all about this. Unfortunately, once something's out of your hands, you have very little control over it. Watermarking seems to be the only good idea, although how you'd do that for a painted miniature someone passes off as his own I dunno. ):

I thought I'd share my own in this from the view of a manufacturer.
When we had first launched at the very very start -and without a fraction of the knowledge we have now-, we watermarked or had writings on practically everything.

This was done in order to gain time on releases but also avoid legal issues if someone falsly claimed reproduction of foreign property etc -you can see it still in our artwork section, lol!
Afterwhich the lawyer assigned to us by the law firm protecting us did some research (they too were clueless on miniature manufacturing issues as is most of Greece). With the dates posted in our FB page plus the greens in our possession they told us we were good to go and show off and sell anything we liked, even if we had not yet registered the item to protect our IP. The law allows us an entire year to do so, starting from the very second an item (image or whatever) has been pubblicly made available.

It's all better and easier now, our "attitute" was considered strange and you can even see this here, since abroad they are probably not used to such actions.
http://www.beastsofwar.com/shieldwolf-miniatures/shieldwolfs-goblins-great-wolves-year/

Reproduction and re-castings are an issue however, we have already shut down two recasters of our busts on eBay (one was European and the other Chinese) and yet we do feel overwhelmed by the power the internet can provide.
Just thought it interesting to share this experience.

 anticitizen013 wrote:
I had sold a single painted model to someone at my local store years ago, then he entered it in a painting competition in that same store ... The staff, when announcing the prizes, gave it to me instead of him (which was rather amusing since there were lots of people there). So that was fun

Hahaha, what was the guy's reaction?
Cheers
Kahnawake

 Kahnawake wrote:

 anticitizen013 wrote:
I had sold a single painted model to someone at my local store years ago, then he entered it in a painting competition in that same store ... The staff, when announcing the prizes, gave it to me instead of him (which was rather amusing since there were lots of people there). So that was fun

Hahaha, what was the guy's reaction?
Cheers
Kahnawake

Haha, he left rather promptly. I'm certainly not the best painter in the world, but I still take pride in my work. I paint really slow because I put lots of effort into my models no matter what they are, and for someone to claim that they painted something I had done is just rude. The public humiliation was the icing on the cake.

...damn now I want cake.

Not really a painting/modelling issue, but i used to be (not so much these days) interested in game design, and back in my warseer days would post rule and codex designs (mostly half-finished) up on their games design page. Maybe less than a year ago i came across one of them on one of those 'pay to download' writing sites. I found the whole thing disturbing on a number of levels.

Yup, I've had someone take one of my old models and use it for some rules. Not the end of the world, I actually stumbled across it accidently while google searching for some ideas/pictures when the Knight was released.

Funnily enough, I have just found my pictures used again elsewhere ona forum, though that one is fine as it was someone posting pictures of Knights for reference.

Rules sheet using my model/photo uncredited


Forum page using the gallery shots I took.
http://forums.tauonline.org/1367911-post10.html

I don't think I've had people post my art as their own, but if I type in "iron man mantic enforcers" on Google, my images from Dakka are the very first two to appear. And I have work thrown on various game store Facebook pages. And models appearing in game store displays (Chef and Rosie from Dust Warfare in my friends' store). I whore my work out. Lol

I rarely have anything someone would copy but found a couple items.
Since it is not a work as income I am not concerned and I usually still retain the piece so ownership proof is readily established.
My needs are usually met by making the item, anyone else gaining a side-benefit of it's use is gravy.

What I tend to do is if I find artwork in the wild to illustrate something I tend to make a link and "img".
Articles with images I prefer to make an actual link to click-on.

It would be rather sad for someone to try to pass-off my work as theirs.
I can readily make more items in my "style" I figure not so easy for the "infringer".

I think this is a topic more around the line of good manners.
Credit where credit is due, we all worked hard for the skills we got.

 NidLifeCrisis wrote:
A few months back I made what I thought at the time was a unique conversion. I bought the Skitarii Dragoon walker pretty much the day it was released and set about looting it for my Orks (I had a restless Big Mek who was without a ride). Uncharacteristically, I managed to get the model converted and painted up in no time at all (my motivation was thanks largely to the unofficial Dakka paint challenge). Another big motivation was, and I'm sure many other Ork looters will associate with this, just wanting to be the first to pull off such a conversion.

Anyway, as I said, this was a few months back. Last week, out of curiosity, I decided to Google 'Looted Skitarii walker' or something of the like, and was delighted to see my model pop up among the top image hits. However, when I clicked on the link, it didn't take me to Dakka; instead I was taken to a Russian site which, with a quick Google translate, informed me that it was 'Time to loot Skitarii!'. Here, without any accreditation to me, were all the pictures I'd taken of my pride and joy, re-hosted on a weird Russian site.

Now, I should make it clear that this isn't a "Outrage!! Vitriol!! " kind of post. I'm actually quite flattered that someone else liked my work enough to re-post it. I guess some credit might've been nice (not least for my gallery votes ) but overall I suppose it's harmless enough.

I was wondering, though, if anyone else has any experience of something similar happening to them? Would you be angry if someone used pictures of your work without crediting you?

That is called plagiarism. !@#$'s do it all the time.

Only thing you can do is patent your photos, and watermark them.

Sorry bro, welcome to the 21st century.

If its miniatures, I'd tend to be happy that someone liked my work enough to feature it. As for my artwork and other intellectual properties, if that ended up on anywhere against my interests...it'd be time to bring out the big guns!

 Grot 6 wrote:

That is called plagiarism. !@#$'s do it all the time.

Only thing you can do is patent your photos, and watermark them.

Sorry bro, welcome to the 21st century.

Do you mean copyright instead of patent?

 warboss wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

That is called plagiarism. !@#$'s do it all the time.

Only thing you can do is patent your photos, and watermark them.

Sorry bro, welcome to the 21st century.

Do you mean copyright instead of patent?

Yes, But then we can go ahead and talk about the models themselves, so the two go hand in hand.

Only talking photos, copywrite. (Gak, I see what I did there. )


And I also mean watermark them....

Photos are one of those cruddy deals that as fast as they go out there, they become almost instantaneous public domain.

I googled- "Copyright protection of photos". The attachment here was the first thing to pop up.

Link provided. I don't want to bore you with details, but there is a good bit of issue with photographs, as you'll see from googling the discussion.

https://www.pacaoffice.org/copyrightInfo/PacaCopyrightProtection.doc

Take pictures that you dont release to the public, and when someone doubts you, show them the unreleased photos of different angles/before paintjob ect..