I'm changing my username to avoid any possible future retaliation. If you must know, my last topic was 'holiday slump'.

Anyway, the punishment was brutal and swift. This contributor took my some my work, made some small tweaks and sold it as his own. I don't mind people copying my ideas. I don't mind people creating knockoffs. But I do mind when someone steals my work, tweak it and sell it.

I was searching my own images and found the stolen work. He/she even had similar names to my images, which made it easier to find. Not all of his work was stolen from me though. Only about 10-20 images. His entire portfolio was inconsistent and I can tell he stole from other contributors as well. So I report him and they delete his entire portfolio of over 900 images. I feel bad...he spend a lot of time uploading and I think he did had some original work, even if it was low quality.

I can't show any of the work and I can't say which website it was on. But wherever it was...it's completely gone. I don't know what compels people to steal another contributor's work.

You do the right thing. If someone steals your content you should report it, especially if he resold it.

Im from south america, but i lived some time in Europe and USA, south American people have a very strange behavior about this kind of crime or improper conduct that you cannot see in the rest of world. For example: if somebody steals something to you or somebody else and you report it with police, you are some kind of traitor, you must feel bad with yourself and others will accuse you as traitor. This allows many criminals to manipulate certain people.

Dont feel bad, improper behaviours must be reported to live in a just and orderly society.

Never fear doing the right thing. The individual is a thief pure and simple.

c



quote author=Minscer link=topic=26518.msg441224#msg441224 date=1452322393]
I'm changing my username to avoid any possible future retaliation. If you must know, my last topic was 'holiday slump'.

No reason whatsoever to feel bad
If someone theives work and sells as their own, they pay the consequence. Period. We all know the rules when we sign up
I wish all theives get their just desserts

-- me too.

Don't feel bad, you did the right thing, @Minscer -- although I don't get it either what all the "secrecy" is about.

This brings up an interesting question. If a person steals an image  and uses as one of his own, whats the likelihood that a significant part of their portfolio is stolen work? Is there a chance it only happened once or twice?

I reported someone from using images almost identical to a couple of mine in various sets i sell online and the agency took the portfolio down quick. But after some time the portfolio is back up online with the offending images gone.

I wish there is a stricter policy regarding theft from the agencies as i feel that once you go the route of benefitting from someone else hard work, you would do it more often than once or twice but then again, i do not know the mind set of these people so I'm just guessing at this point.