Had a week where every digital painting I uploaded got picked up by a bot that reposted it without credit

Three days in a row last month I found my work on random art pages with my signature cropped out. One of them had 2,000 likes before I even noticed. I spent the whole week filing takedown notices and messaging accounts. Has anyone else dealt with this happening more often lately?

2 comments

2 Comments

rubyj1119d ago

Hold on, I gotta push back a little here. Posting art online for free means you're basically giving it away and hoping nobody takes it. If you're that worried about bots grabbing your work, maybe watermark it in the middle of the piece or put lower resolution versions up. The platform isn't designed to protect artists, it's built to spread content fast. You're fighting a losing battle if you expect every random page to ask permission first. Isn't it just part of the deal when you put stuff out there for the whole world to see?

thompson.tyler19d ago

Feels like a lot of artists online are treating their Instagram feed like a locked gallery and getting surprised when people treat it like a public bulletin board. I've had friends screenshot my car photos and post them as their own, and yeah it's annoying, but I also put those up knowing full well that's a risk you take. Watermark in the middle seems like the obvious move if you're that worried about it.