has anyone stolen your design

Has anyone ever had their design work stolen and then repurposed for profit? And if so, what did you do about it?

I submitted artwork for a contest for a print-on-demand online marketplace and 2 days later, I found that 2 different shop owners had taken my art, repurposed it, and are now selling their products with my altered graphics. In both cases, they added a thing or two, but it's pretty obvious that it is my art work.

I did not file a copyright before submitting my entry into the contest. Is my intellectual property still protected in this situation? Any recommendations on how I should approach the two vendors?

your work is protected, once its created, its protected. I'd remind the print owners of this, offer a lawsuit;)

until its paid for, files transfered, all rites are YOURS.

Really sad to see these things happen. You should look if they are made by those shops o an designer had offered those.

I bet allot of designs are stolen by student to trick their teachers in believing that they designed it. Also lately found there is a whole sharing design network going on my school which is fairly a bad thing that can happen on a design school. This means allot of student arent learning anything and just submit homework of others and don't respect the works of others. I always have to keep an eye on my computer so that nobody would copy my files/works onto their USB stick.

yeah, I always experienced it on some online contest, when ur entry got the high rate .... eventually the next entries (submitted by ur competitor) will be a modified designs that stolen from my concept. so mostly, I still have to submit it... in a couple of hours, remaining before the contest ends up... but the consequence is, the contest holder already pick h/shes favorites.

Not sure if legal action will be upheld without a purchased copyright, but it's a good idea to contact the company about it anyways. Before you do, take a look at the terms of the contest. If you agreed to give away all rights by submitting your entry, as is somewhat common, that may put a kink in any plan for obtaining compensation.

I've had one thing stolen, and one thing that I designed consistently having it's copyrights broken (republished without proper notation / accreditation). I started using creative commons copyrights on all of my work. I feel like it offers a little more protection, because it makes the law very clear to people unaware of the laws.

I knew that by solely creating a work, you own the copyright to that work. Do you have to explicitly state that you own the copyright ? That's implied when you say that you are the original creator of the work.

Here's the update on my stolen designs...

I sent a letter of complaint through the online marketplace website. I received no response for a good week or so. I finally got tired of waiting and called the 800 number, where I was eventually transferred to an answering machine. I left a message. A couple days later, I received the response saying that the two shop owner's items have been pended.

Victory! Glad I didn't have to take any legal action.

Now back to the copyright issue, this was their response to my complaint regarding intellectual property/copyright infringement: "Please be advised that this issue is less about copyright and more about protecting the creative community of _____.com users."

Okay. Whatever. Atleast their products are no longer available for sale. =)

I did not file a copyright before submitting my entry into the contest. Is my intellectual property still protected in this situation? Any recommendations on how I should approach the two vendors?

According to this article - about copyrights in web you mustn't 'explicit' copyrights formula in your artwork.

"Everything created privately after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted “automatically” and protected for your lifetime, plus 70 years." (in USA only?)

I guess it's part of the business of design though. Atleast from what I've experienced at school. It's very much a community that grows together and it's hard not to be influenced by each other.

But outright stealing of people's designs and using them as your own can really be a problem. How did you even find out that these people had stolen your design. I fear this could happen to me and it would be very difficult to discover.

thanks for the tips! especially Gaelian's

But outright stealing of people's designs and using them as your own can really be a problem. How did you even find out that these people had stolen your design. I fear this could happen to me and it would be very difficult to discover.

Khristaino, I was able to find the copycats because my art was uploaded to an online marketplace, with a keyword search feature. See below. The first one is my original. The other two show how my art was used and repurposed.

(Ignore the stitch texture. This is how the artwork looks applied as a patch.)



This is as blatant as blatant gets, I think. The thicknesses of the stripes and the placement of the stars are a dead giveaway that they used my artwork. It's flattering, I guess, but it makes me want to throw up at the same time.

i would just copyright your design logo or something and watermark everything you design that way if someone steals it and deletes the watermark you still have proof you did it and copyrighted it legally at the time, and then you can file a lawsuit against them

On the internet is lot of people who copied, copy and will copy your art.. Bet on it.
I know lot of great artist who shown their works on intenret on pages like deviantart etc and they rather left it forever becouse of piracy...
Sad, but that is so easy steal somebodies else ideas and make little "rework" on it and then sell it or use for his own purpose..

This has happened to me 3 times. It's one of he downsides of displaying a bulk of your work online, unfortunately. I have only had to take legal action once in the 5+ years I've been working as an Illustrator and that is because the buyer refused to take down the work after I sent them a cease and desist letter.

Very, very few times do people actually go to court over something like this. Legal costs aren't worth the trouble unless you stand to gain a substantial sum from the end verdict (like if they were selling a product using your image or logo).

To echo some other people's comments on copyright, yes. If the image was created by yourself and the rights were NOT sold to someone else, it is essentially yours upon creation. This is US law, I am unsure about everywhere else.

It's sad to hear that.. I hope my work is protected on this site !!!

no, apprently my artwork isnt good enough?

According to this article - about copyrights in web you mustn't 'explicit' copyrights formula in your artwork.

"Everything created privately after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted “automatically” and protected for your lifetime, plus 70 years." (in USA only?)

very helpful. thanks, gaelian!

visualchemist - glad it worked out, cause that was pretty obvious!

This may be addressed on another thread but holds relevance here.

Many artists use flash websites/galleries to show their work, so that it's harder to copy and save an image (still doable, just discourages most). i think this is a step in the right direction, unfortunately it doesn't stop plagiarism from happening, but it discourages it.

Is there any chance you can use a flash gallery feature with a regular blogger blog? or is a flickr gallery the best alternative?

any feedback would be appreciated!

Thanks!

I used to have a myspace page, but bands kept ripping off my work for flyers/page layouts and, in one case, for album art. In most cases, they weren't aware that there was anything wrong with it. Since I dropped my myspace page, I haven't been aware of any more "borrowing."