My husband likened it to having a car alarm. I think the comparison is spot on. It doesn't stop those determined to copy. But is great as a deterent for those who would just do quickie copies.
I've received a lot of feedback that watermarking interferes with the image too much and clueless collectors think its part of the image (I did say clueless, didn't I? smile). That in a way, watermarking is kind of penalizing everyone in order to address a problem with a few (sound familiar, Sharon? Can you spell e-B-a-y? smile).
I also stopped watermarking. Because I got enough feedback from perfectly innocent people. All I can do at this point is keep the resolution low, so any blowups of the image will become pixelated, and live with the fact that there will always be sources who steal images. If I do happen upon a case, I write the person and the hosting company of where the occurance is happening if I don't get resolution with the person. That usually takes care of it.
The Chinese sweatshops stealing and repainting images has been a problem much longer than the Internet. It's just that now it is SO easy for them to resource images to steal.
Until you become an artist that has the financial resources to take someone to court and win, I think we all just have to find small ways of discouraging the casual violator and let the rest of it go. I like that Sharon has found a way to at least get some benefit from those who take her images to make them backgrounds for myspace and what-have-you.
Off-line world is the same way. People
can photograph a painting displayed in
public and put that on a projector and
copy the whole composition and any
skilled painter can make a painted replica.
A mother of a friend of mine is a professioanl
painter, and while he was walking around in an
art festival, all of sudden he saw an exactly
same painting as his mother's being displayed
for sale by a guy. He grabbed this
guy's business card. When he got home he asked
someone else (because he and mother have
same last name) to pretend to be interested in
commissioning a work from this "guy."
They set a studio visit appointment, and this
"investigator," pretending to be a potential
client, reported to my friend that this guy's
studio is specialized in copying "anything" into
any size, equipped with a good projector and
all, then the "guy" said that he can make
anything as long as a photograph of the piece
is provided.
For your information, the "guy" was not a
Chinese. He was a Caucasian and apparently
American.
Yes, the problem is not just Chinese. It isnt an ethnic issue at all. There are crooks everywhere. I mostly dealt with Chinese sweatshops on eBay. That is how I found most fraudulent listings. I just did a "search" for "paintings" originating from "China". I had to get auctions pulled almost daily. I searched he U.S. listings everyday as habit and rarely found American copycats. But that doesnt mean they werent doing it and just selling somewhere else.
I too had people have issues with my watermarks. They said it made it hard to visualize the piece well. And I dont like how it looks.
So again, I dont worry about it anymore.
And on My Space, I turned it into a positive when they use my work as background and several people have gone on to buy from me.
I think there is no way of preventing this sort of
problem. But, it may help if an artist doesn't put
high resolution jpg images. If something is 72 dpi
and 400 x 300 px then it is so difficult to blow up.
As far as a composition thief is concerned,
there's not much we can do.
A very expensive option is to go through the
registration of copyright.
http://www.copyright.gov/register/visual.html
Although it is $45, you can submit as a bundle of
pieces as a series. For instance, if you have 12 pieces
of paintings and they all belong to one series, then you
can submit it as a package.
I hear some well known artists register everything
they make, including crude sketches.
The problem that I see with this registration is that
when suing someone who stole your art, one must
prove that the entity did not come up
with the work by himself/herself and was indeed
copied. And it becomes a matter or lawyers' argument
not based on truth.
There was an artist who used the image of blown up
US dollar bills. The US government sued him for
using the dollar bill's image. This poor guy had to go to
court with a lawyer and all, and after that I don't know
what happened to the case. But I think someone who
was jealous of him reported to the US government
because he was very successful. I cannot imagine
those who work for the government looking for someone
who is using dollar bill images for the intention of law suit.
Copyright can get just crazy. There are all sorts of loopholes too. Read up on "fair use" and your head will spin. :)
I dont worry about anything that isnt on my "turf" anymore. That would just be a fast track to sleepless nights and the looney bin.
I watch BG, Yessy, Artspan and Etsy for copycats because that is where I make my living.
I am sure if I went to eBay right now, in 5 minutes I could find copies of my work from 20 different sellers. The only way for me to deal with it is to just let it go......
I'm really appreciative of all your wise lessons. I sold some of my own art on Ebay. Make a nice profit and then spent it all on Ebay fees. That was enough for me. I use to digitize my art and sell the one of kind images, not art of RebelArt.com. I wouldn't even bother to print them out...I would earn about $50-$100. per month and never loose any art supply money. But that went site went out of business. I miss that. It was fun. I now pull a royalty fee from image.com in NYC Again, nothing much, $300 for 6 months. But then Boundless came along. I am hoping for more sales and haven't really been able to be that successful. I sell about one a month. Not great but then I'm still learning. I love painting, always have. I have always had a job in the arts. I was an interior designer, a fine art librarian, an art supply store owner for 27 years, and for over 25, taught drawing and painting in many schools, recreations centers, OSU, and others. I love a long relationship with my paintings! I never throw out anything, and believe in art is never really finished. It's always capable of improving. I mend paintings after 10 years of ignoring it. It's fantastic to focus on painting over selling. That's ususally when they sell, you know. My husband is Ron Newman. His most recent sale was $10,000 for a large 5'x6' oil, during a museum one man show in Springfield, OH. Learning from him, I can tell you, art is going to sell at any price. Ron never undercuts his art. He's now 70. (I'm 60). But art is something that brings us peace, not security. There is no security in art.
I think it's a good thing too. An unchallenged mind is miserable.
I can't worry about being ripped off all that much. I could end up loosing alot of time. I have been ripped off big time too. Artizan.com recently used my image in a newspaper, half page on Christmas eve of a white poinsettia and never paid me for it. I learned about it indirectly from a stranger in Canada, who wanted to buy it. I got this email wondering if I have a print of it. It's probably bad karma for all the music I duplicated on my CD burner! Any way, I have this ernomous log in my eye and can't see straight enough to complain about it much anymore. Look, you roll the dice on this stuff, and the honor is not in the selling, but in the creating. I love the creativity. Just don't quit. Die in the middle of the process of making art. That's my motto!
Hi Melinda, how can you be 60? You look about 25 in your photo?? I love what you said about having a long relationship with your paintings. I have that problem, too. I get so attached to my paintings. They are all different phases in my life and different feelings. I love it that you said you mend paintings after ten years.
I have to get into a certain mind-set to sell my paintings. I feel like a hardened mother, who has to let her children go. And when they start to cry or scream, I just try to look the other way! I tell myself 'I will not be precious about my paintings'. Usually, I listen.
When it goes to a lovely home and someone gives such lovely feedback, and you know they're loving it and appreciating it, more than I could, you know it was the right thing to do. But it's always hard. Especially, if I do really cute doggie paintings. :)
It is interesting to hear how people relate to their work. Excluding commissions, the work I create for myself is like talking. To me art is about communication. I am speaking when I paint. And like real words, I WANT them to be received by someone else. Keeping my words all to myself makes me feel trapped. So I am always MORE THAN HAPPY to see mine go. In fact, I dont like to see work hang around her for too long. If a piece is here for more than 3 months, I might put it on sale. There are only a few that I have kept for myself ONLY because Hubby wouldnt let me sell them. :)
I'm the same way. Once they are done, the thing I was working on, the painting challenges I was working through, and the thing I wanted to communicate (to varying degrees of success) is also done and I'm already addressing new things in a new piece. So if I want to keep exploring, I need to move the completed pieces along to an appreciated new home so there is room for the new! They quickly feel "old" to me if they sit around.
But I keep a thorough archiving of images digitally in case I want to re-visit what I was doing at a particular stage. I have only wanted to keep my very first painting attempt and one I did about 3 years ago that spoke a very personal thing to me.
And more recently, my mom died New Years Eve (she was a watercolor painter and where I got my interest in art and her house walls were all filled with her own paintings) and I took back a plein air painting I had given her last spring (the only painting hung in her house that wasn't her own) where she had taped what I wrote in my Mother's Day card to her to the back of it. That will stay as part of my possessions now because of its sentimental value.
