Should I make this a news article????
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Due to recent (and less recent) events, I felt the need to make this stamp.

A lot of people are still 'robbed' from their art. Most of the time without even knowing. So this stamp is to make people aware of the problem and not only report art theft of your own but also other artists.

Here's my advice:

What can you do to protect your art?

1.
Put a watermark on the image. On DA this is very easy, the website can automatically add a watermark to the fullview images. You can select this option when you upload your image.

_{Pro: It will be protected
Con: The watermark is huge and disturbs the image}

2.
Add a watermark yourself. You can add a smaller watermark yourself, for example your name and/or your website at the edge of a picture.

_{Pro: This will not disturb the image, and if people post is somewhere your name will be visible
Con: People can easily cut away the edge with your name on it.}


Someone put my artwork online, what should I do?

First of all you'll need to find out what sort of website they put it on, and what the purpose is.

It the image is just there to share, and your name is mentioned as the original owner, there's no further action you should take, except maybe thank the person for sharing your art with other people.

If the image is put online to share, but your name isn't mentioned, you can kindly ask them to put your name and/or website with the image. In my experience these people will be happy to do so. If not, you should try to contact the site's admins, and they should be able to handle the problem.

If the image is put online and the person that did so claims to be the original artist, stay calm and friendly, and ask him/her to get it offline. If he/she doens't respond to that (within a resonable amount of time), you can contact the site's admins, and they should take care of it.

If the images is put online here at DA (which is to share YOUR art only, with exception of clubs), you can contact the person responsible about this and kindly ask them to remove the image. If they don't respond to that (within a resonable amount of time) you can click the link 'Report Policy Violation' under the technical details of the artwork. Fill in all the required details and DA should take care of it.

I've seen an art rip from another artist, should I do anything?

Yes!
If you see an art rip, you should always take action. You'd be happy if someone informed you about someone stealing your art, so you should do the same.
This doesn't mean that you should spend hours to search the internet for possible rips, but if you would come across one, don't ignore it!

You should contact the original artist, and give him the information.
Wether you contact the thief or website staff is up to you, usually metioning it to the original artist is enough, and he or she will take care of it herself.


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I hope this is enough information about this subject.
You can add the stamp to your journal to make more people aware of this.