CAUTION: This pieces contains a very long text about Plagiarism. If you respect the rights an artist's have to their works and know how we feel about people stealing our art, please read.

You just created an amazing piece of work. You put countless hours into it, perfecting every bit of detail you can until you achieved personal accomplishment. You sign and date the piece as the finishing touch. Feeling very proud of what you created from nothingness, you archive it and uploaded it online to share it with all your friends, family and fans. They too can't believe that you made something so amazing. Your piece starts to go viral and gain more impressed watchers and fans.

Later, you come across a piece online that strikes you as something you have seen before. Upon closer inspection, you realized that the image you are staring at is a copy of your own art piece you created not to long ago. The entire piece has been copied and transformed by this random person. To top it off, your signature has been removed and replaced with the other's. You read the description about the piece, coming to the conclusion that this person created the entire piece from scratch and that he claims that he is the one who made it. He also shares links to where you can buy prints of his "original work".

Something that you worked on, something that you made with your own imagination and energy, has been ripped off and stolen by a complete stranger online - a piece of you now deformed and debased. No words can describe the frustration and determination you feel in you as you, the original artist, start to put together legal actions to make sure that this anonymous art thief knows that you have rights to your artwork and to teach him the meaning of the word plagiarism.

Over the course of several week, I have several clients and fans telling me that my artwork has been copied and rendered by random others. Those "others" claim to be the original artist of my piece and refuse to acknowledged that they copied it from another source. Instead of talking like civilized human beings, they decided to go through lengths so I wouldn't be able to contact them or see more of their collect of art they copied from, aka blocking. This all ended with several reports as well as warning legal statements to those people, advising them to remove their "original artwork" from their gallery. In the end, they removed the copied pieces from online.

I got a few replies from those who stole my artwork in the past, saying "They didn't know who the original artist was", that "any artwork online can be used in any way, shape or form to their own pleasure", that "it's not stealing if it's online", that "they just want to try to be as good as the original artist ( or ) want to be just as popular." All of these excuses and reasons behind their actions are not valid nor logical. When an artist creates a piece of artwork from scratch and from their own imagination, they are the sole owner of that piece as well as the rights attached to it.

Put yourself in the artist's shoes: You made/created something no one else made before, only to realize that someone stole it from you, claiming it as their own and completely flipping you off. How would that make you feel? If your answer is "I Don't Care", then you are basically saying "Feel free to take what you want from me and I won't put up a fight. In fact, I will help you so I have nothing left and you will reap all the reward that you have taken from me." Very blunt, but that is what "I don't care" means. If your answer was anything then a brush off remark, that means you feel something for what you created - you feel cheated on and used by someone who you don't even know, and you wish for justice to make sure that you right the wrongs and what was stole from you, you wish to have back. Sounds like something from an action/vengeance movie trailer, but that is how artists feel with their own work. If their own pride and joy was stole and used poorly, they would want to fix this and want justice for their stole creation.

Some artists find that their art good enough to be stolen to be a form of “flattery”. If someone came up to me and stole something that I personally feel attached to, “flattery” wouldn't be the right word to what I would feel.

What is the difference between copying someone's art for practice and plagiarizing it?:

All young artists ( young as in children ) start out drawing by copying something from an existing image – something popular they have seen in the cartoons they watch or the comics they read. They do this to learn how to draw and the ways to draw and perfect their style. They learn how to color and use different media in order to find their own niche. This continues until they have perfected their style and became connected to what they draw.

Staring ADULT artists do this too, but there are rules and limits one must know when copying another's work since they have a better understand of the difference between RIGHT and WRONG. Yes, copying someone's image for the sole purpose to learn how to draw is harmless, BUT when the starting adult artist posts the traced and rendered version of the image they copied online, claiming it as their own unique piece without any mention on where they copied it from or acknowledgment of the original artist that help INSPIRE that piece, then there is a problem. In school term papers, you have to write several quotes from various authors and books and how to do it. Within those quotes, you say what book you got it from and/or who said it. That same rule applies in ARTWORK as it does in WRITING. Neglecting this simple rule means that you are oblivious of your actions as well as the consequences that follows, both social and legal.

If you see someone using your pieces on their website and nothing is edited ( the piece itself, your signature, date and source ), and you as the artist is credited for the original image, there is no problem and you should thank the person for respecting the artist's rights . However, if you come across a piece of your work that has something edited or rendered to it, including your signature removed or replaced, then there is an issue.

What if the person who copied my work now sells it for profit?:

There are people out there who leech off others hard work for personal financial gain. They find something they like, steal it and try to make money off of their theft. With the vast amount of digital material in cyberspace, a thief can pretend they are on an apple picking trip and the apples they plucked they can sell for their own profit. When it comes to something like artwork, something that they didn't create, it's called PLAGIARISM, also known as ART THEFT. This is a serious crime both online and offline.

Being an artist, you have rights and protection over the artwork you yourself created from your own imagination. These rights help your cause in defending your own creations from theft and plagiarism. You have your own personal copyright to it, giving you control on who can sell it and make profit on it - your own shield of artistic protection. You yourself own the original piece of artwork, marked with your signature, your watermark, everything. It is yours and no one else's, and you have the right and legal matters to protect your creations from those who wish to steal what you made and try to claim it as theirs.

You have your own rights and artists have theirs. You don't want people treading over or violating your rights, correct? Then don't tread on or violate the artist's.

What if I recognize artist's work that someone copied or sold?:

Report it to the original artist. Support the artist if needed to help take down the stolen/rendered piece in a dignified non-violent manner. Report to others who know of the artist's work that something has been stolen from the artist and you wish to help the artist protect his/her own works from being defiled on.

Whats the point of this?:

Simple: STEALING WHAT DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU IS WRONG AND ILLEGAL! Plain and simple!

If you really love the artwork someone has created, there are other ways to show your gratitude and appreciation then stealing their art and claiming it as their own. Artists are humans too. We live through our artwork. What we create is showing everyone a part of who we are as creative individuals. We use our talents to get by day by day. If you like what we create, please do the right thing: don't steal our artwork, don't sell it without our permission, don't render it and say that its yours. If you wish to have the artist do something for you, ask or commission the artist. DON'T STEAL THEIR WORKS.

artwork © 2015 Alex Cockburn