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Somebody stole my art and is selling it on your website

A topic by TorusDonut created Mar 08, 2024 Views: 455 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 4
(1 edit) (+1)

Hey!

Somebody stole my art and is selling it on your website without my permission. I already sent an email and reported it, but so far I haven't received any response.

This is the store page that contains the stolen art.

That person is using my fan art for a game called Strange Horticulture.

They initially claimed the art is their own (webarchive link of the comment, I hope itch.io stores deleted comments internally), since then they have deleted that comment and deleted my comment as well. It is now impossible to post comments on their page because somebodies approval before the comment is visible. Either way, they have never received my permission to distribute my art in any way.

Link to the fan art which was created by me

If I wanted to sell assets like this I would do it myself instead of on some account that has a completely different username. I would also not use somebody else intellectual property (Strange Horticulture plants) to create art I want to sell.


edit:

The request id I received after writing an email is 193823. The email I sent it from is the same I use for this account.

Moderator(+1)

Please see the rules of this category for what to do if support takes too long.

I'm sorry, I updated my post with the required information. Thank you for helping.

Show post...

The user Torus Donut informed me about the problem in the comment. I replied that I didn't know it's his art because it was an art I found somewhere long time ago and decided to re-edit it a bit and sell as my own. I did not mention to violate rights, that's why I offered:

1) transferring all money to Torus Donut user
2) removing paid option from asset
3) giving credits to Torus Donut as original creator

However, I will not allow being offended and lied about on other services like reddit (user Torus Donut wrote there about me). 

Thus, I will contact moderators of reddit that I do not agree on this situation. I want to end this problem peacefully but now seeing your attitude (we are talking about few $ at most and a one asset..) from now on I am just going to protect myself. Violating of my privacy will not be tolerated.

I want to start by saying I noticed you have unlisted it (again) from the store again - I appreciate that.


I never saw any of your comment other than the one I mention in my post.

You unlisted the asset instantly after you wrote your reply, so I never got to see your offer.

This is what I see at the moment, at what I saw at that time. (webarchive)

The asset was unlisted for some time, then (without ever receiving a reply from me, I have no way to message you by the way) you made the asset public again and decided to go with option 3 (giving credits to Torus Donut as original creator). You made the asset public again. Why did you make it public without receiving a reply, when I clearly informed you what I want in the comment?


To reiterate:

- I asked you to remove that asset, in a comment on that asset page.

- You wrote some comment which I never had a chance to see.

- You unlisted the asset instantly after writing your comment (which is great).

- After a few days you made it public again - I'm not sure why you unlisted it without ever receiving a reply from me.

- I noticed that the asset page is back again and my comment is missing from it.


1. I don't want any money from you or itch.io for this. I want you to understand that what you have done is not legal. You cannot take random pictures from the internet and sell them, no matter how much you change them. The changes you made are insignificant anyway and it is obvious that it is the exact same art. Diving it into 77 different files and removing the background does not make it legal.

2. Removing the paid option does not change anything. Firstly, people can still optionally pay you for something you have not drawn. Secondly, even if it was 100% free, you gave people permission to use the art in almost any way they want - you do not have the rights for this, you did not draw this art. (link to your comment allowing people to use it in any way they want (webarchive)). 

3. I'm not sure how this is a solution. People still will think that they can use this art however they want. They are not allowed to use this art, commercially or not. If somebody ends up using that asset in some game or application, that's the biggest thing I am worried about. I will need to pursue that as well, and it's just annoying to have to deal with that.


"from now on I am just going to protect myself. Violating of my privacy will not be tolerated."

You are not the victim here. You do not need to protect yourself from anything. Your privacy is not violated at all. 

"https://crocodile-coconut-alpha.itch.io/pixel-art-plants-77-colorful-plants-in-pixel-art-style

https://web.archive.org/web/20240117135129/https://crocodile-coconut-alpha.itch.io/pixel-art-plants-77-colorful-plants-in-pixel-art-style

Somebody has stolen my art and is selling it without my permission. It's not like they are making any significant money off it, it's just something that should not be allowed to happen. I reported it and wanted to post a message about it here as well."

(Here is the comment) The comment is factually correct. I wrote that comment so that itch.io support is away that I am the author of that art and the asset is not permitted to be on itch.io.


 I am willing to remove or edit that Reddit comment once this situation is settled in a reasonable manner. 

- I want that asset to be permanently deleted from this site, unlisting doesn't count.

- I want you to understand that what you did is illegal.

- I want people that have downloaded the asset to be made aware that they are not allowed to use it - and hopefully refunded, but that is between itch.io and the  buyers. This point is something I'd rather discuss with itch.io support instead of here.


That is all from me at the moment. I'm awaiting an email reply from itch.io support.

Show post...

I removed your comment as well as mine because I already understood the situation. I also removed my other comment allowing other to use it. You are right - if you don't give permision to use it, I cannot do that for you. I also removed this asset from listing, because I cannot delete it permanently (because it's paid), however I don't want others to download it since now I know it's yours.

I made it public again because I wanted you to see that I credited you O_O. Now it's removed again and for good (the asset - not the credits).

Few things from me:

1) I didn't ask you about if its illegal or not - you have rights to not allow selling it because it's yours, but that's it, save comments for yourself

2) I don't care if you write truth on other pages or not - I don't want my profile to be listed there in bad view, it should end here on itch, more than that is violating my personal rights, I requested reddit to remove your comment because of personal harrasment

You must be really sad person because you spend most of your time on something worth nothing (well... or at least few. $). I will happily give back all received amount money and take the consequences of my actions (account suspension/remove as I suppose). However, your attitude shows that you must be very young, because you spend like hours on topic that should be solved in few minutes.

Next time write something like "dude, its my asset, please remove it and give all the money to buyers" and I would do that without hesitation.

Long story short - grow up. Peace.

This topic has been auto-archived and can no longer be posted in because there haven't been any posts in a while.