Did you really think no one would notice?
mod
Recently it came to our attention that a user was responding to threads in the Work Opportunities section of the forum with a portfolio filled with stolen art, so I wanted to make a short public service announcement.
For young artists looking to get an edge, think twice about passing off someone else's work as your own. You will be found out, and it will hurt your career.
For clients looking to contract freelance artists, make sure to do your due diligence, reverse google image search is good place to start. If a portfolio looks too good to be true, or shows a suspiciously wide range of art styles, this can be a red flag. It's not uncommon for scammers to make fake portfolios, agree to contract work with an upfront fee, and then vanish into the night.
If anyone sees a portfolio with stolen art that they recognize being posted on Polycount, please let one of the mods know.
For young artists looking to get an edge, think twice about passing off someone else's work as your own. You will be found out, and it will hurt your career.
For clients looking to contract freelance artists, make sure to do your due diligence, reverse google image search is good place to start. If a portfolio looks too good to be true, or shows a suspiciously wide range of art styles, this can be a red flag. It's not uncommon for scammers to make fake portfolios, agree to contract work with an upfront fee, and then vanish into the night.
If anyone sees a portfolio with stolen art that they recognize being posted on Polycount, please let one of the mods know.
Replies
I'm also afraid of naming names because I don't want to give the studio any more publicity than they deserve. (And frankly, legal backlash.)
It DOES HELP to have an online presence with your artwork so that others can more easily recognize your work as being yours. You can even do this by asking for critique and frequently posting your WIP updates on Polycount and other sites.
Hopefully if this does happen to you, someone will be able to stumble upon it and report it.
Good to know people are on the lookout!
It would be hard for them to get any positive publicity for their game if they stole your stuff. and they would not have any real legal legs to stand on if you can prove they stole your art.
lol what a dumbass.
A good way to watermark your art is to go one tone colour off in the picture and put your name or email on it, and of course never show all your wips lol.
I'm not sure how useful a "blacklist" is, because it's fairly easy for someone to create a new online persona (and I imagine that's what a lot of the real scammers do as soon as they are found out). I think a more proactive approach from the community is what we really need.
I'm not sure watermarking is a very good solution either. I don't know about you guys, but it always annoys me when I see it, and leaves a bad impression if it's over the top when I'm doing portfolio reviews for hiring purposes. I've never watermarked my work, because I figure if anyone takes credit for anything I've done, it's a short term issue (these people tend to get caught), and is unlikely to hurt me in any significant way, as I can prove ownership of my work relatively easily.
I feel like watermarks unfortunately tend to take away from the piece personally if it's covering up/overlayed on most of the piece, as I'll remember it as that highly-watermarked one versus that amazing sculpt.
That and depending on what it is, it probably can easily be photoshopped out with the heal brush/curves etc. in 15 minutes or less. I mean if we can take photographs of differently sized brick walls at an angle with shadowing going on and turn that into a seamless usable texture in photoshop, someone who has the time can certainly remove any trace of a watermark.
Then again, I wouldn't say watermarks are an entirely bad idea to discourage it from being "too easy" a steal. Something like that though where it competes with 80% of the piece might be too distracting though. I guess it's up to the artist to decide on how to handle something like watermarks.
Not sure if it would work for all examples but when I have used watermarks I find covering the whole image in a repeat of my name for example but overlayed "screen" to a level where it is visible but not that destructive can work quite well
The worst i've heard isn't people stealing work cause that's generally not that bad, but people stealing work and actually convincing other people that the work is theirs resulting in all kinds of BS.
I ad my name and such to work all the time but my main rule is just limit the release to a max resolution when posting online for most things. I personally think water marks do more harm then good in terms of promoting your work.
But it's nothing new, art theft is rife - we're on the internet you know.
One thing you can try to deter people downloading images is, if you've created your website portfolio then I believe it's possible to create a javascript module which disables image downloading on a website. But again this can be circumnavigated...
Something I started doing is to actually watermark a segment of the texture and have it visible in the render. If you have the original texture sheets (PSD files) then you can easily remove it when needed. But it certainly makes it more difficult for people to steal the art. Clone tool ain't gonna work in this scenario.
I have to admit that when I first started 3D work when I was 16'ish I was also a culprit to this, I think you'll find that the people that do this are either young or frustrated with their work progress, so they look to altering other people's work and trying to pass it off as their own.
Just keep your eyes out fellas!
In case of PyrZern example they could just change the name and keep the big A3D as it is.
Step 1: Open your image in Photoshop and click on "File Info" in the File menu
Step 2:
Fill out the appropriate fields and click ok
Step 3: Make sure the copyright symbol is showing on your image tab
Step 4: Next Save your image for the Web and make sure the copyright and contact information is included in the metadata
Again this won't make it impossible for someone to steal your work, but it adds an extra layer of protection that may be overlooked by an inexperienced person.
in their portfolio you probably have created some nice stuff, which means people will like it and if you spread it they will know you, if you later want to prove it's your stuff I think people will believe the guy with a couple of thousand followers on artstation rather than the guy with 2 followers on cgsociety, also if you upload your stuff it's already dated and safe.
My previous 3D art teacher also got rob his artwork, but later he became an art lead, the "stealer" applied for a job there, he know who he was.
It's really nice to have a very active community where people can see other's works and progress. I came daily on Polycount when I was in college, it was easy to recognize who made what. An advice for students, please, don't take bad shortcuts like that, it would hurt your career and reputation way before entering the industry, and the world is small, we pretty much know everything that goes around this field!
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/175288?hl=en
But I think that automatically happens if you submit your website for it to crawl and index (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url).
Blacklisted forever.
I don't know if there are any privacy rights/laws that prevent actual name posting on forums, but then again, if you use other folks work that right is forfeit in my opinion.
Depending on the country you live in, where the USD and EUR are worth a lot, you just have to do this a couple times a year and there's no need to have a job.
it really isn't worth it.
artists will have to keep making art, thats what we do.
i got my art stolen many times, but never got bothered enough to put even a single watermark on any of my work.
- It's much harder for anyone to know it was made by you.
- You don't build a reputation as being a good artist.
- You'll almost never get referrals because nobody knows you exist.
All that so you don't run the risk of someone putting something of yours in their portfolio? That's silly.Put yourself out there, build a reputation, and people will instantly know who and what they're dealing with when they see you and your work. It's a very small industry, so you're not doing yourself any favors by hiding.
If you don't want your best work to be stolen, just keep it to yourself and present it when the time comes. That's all I'm saying. Obviously it doesn't apply to aspiring artists, freelancers and those looking for critique.
@Aristides the people who don't bother to have a presence online, tend to have been those who have lots of experience and credits to their name, and there aren't that many that have that luxury.
The industry is actually pretty small and in an age of reverse its pretty dumb to risk passing off work that isn't your own.
If your work is good enough for someone to steal, that person realistically isn't going to be infringing on your job opportunities so hiding your stuff is pretty useless.
@2Dartist - Mind providing a source for that?
some people call this free advertising . well except for the shirt printing thing xD