Fanart use and art theft [resolved!]

On the internet, it's always difficult to keep your images only available in places that you want. If it goes up on the web, it's pretty likely that it's going to get reposted or redistributed in some way digitally. When I was much younger, I would get angry if someone else would post my image on their Photobucket or on MySpace but really, it's inevitable. What harm are they bringing me, anyways?

FINNI'S FANART USE POLICY
Feel free to use my work for any personal reason. If you want to set it as your desktop wallpaper, post it on your journal/blog/site, go ahead. If you want to edit it into icons or avatars or site banners, I'm even okay with that. I would highly appreciate being notified and credited somewhere on your page but I understand that's a luxury.


What's NOT okay:
DO NOT use my Ragnarok Online fanart for private servers. I play iRO and do not want to appear affiliated with any pirated server, especially since many of the iRO GMs know me and recognize my work.
DO NOT use any of my work to gain profit.

This brings me to my point of "art theft".
When someone takes your work and reposts it on their website, that's not theft to me; especially if they leave all my watermarks on. Sometimes people edit out my watermarks and try to claim the artwork as their own, which is hurtful and easily dealt with, but don't be a retard and put my work with the watermarks edited out into your portfolio for a job interview or something. That's just your own stupidity that will backfire on you.

The other unfortunately too common scenario is the redistribution of fanart on printed products being sold in places like Chinatown or on Ebay. I've come across my own artwork for sale in little stationary shops, and it's kind of unnerving. Currently there are two sellers on Ebay making money off my Avatar fanart.

That's NOT okay.

I can't be scouring the internet all the time for these things so I really appreciate when people comment and let me know that this kind of shit is going on (special shoutout to Mana-Scienziato). If anyone sees someone trying to sell my work, please contact me with a comment or a note (or for a speedier response, email me at finni [at] fourthewin.org)

Now with my current scenario, Ebay seems to be unresponsive and the sellers still have their T-shirts for sale. Since this is fan art, I don't own the copyrights to the characters but like any intellectual work, I do own the rights to the image. I've contacted the sellers and contacted Ebay's copyright violation staff to remove the listing and/or ban these users.

I don't want to post direct links to the listings in case they do comply and remove everything in a timely manner, but it's been 24 hours since my report was filed and there's been no change.

If anyone has any advice on this situation and/or how to speed up the process and get these people in trouble, please let me know. I'd really appreciate it.

EDIT: 36 hours after the initial request, the sellers took down the listings. So it turns out that Ebay does very little to help with copyright violations, but threatening to pursue legal action on the sellers while stating how my work is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act probably helped the intimidation factor. The fact that one of the sellers edited out my watermark in order to sell the image on T-shirts probably made him/her conscious that he was violating some sort of law.

Thanks for the advice and the kind words, everyone!
This is why I don't like to post links and just recruit others to rampage for me, unless the situation can be resolved quietly and between involved parties only.

-Finni

__________________________________________________

fourthewin.org | LiveJournal | Art blog | finneh

Commissions: Please email for quote; commercial requests only.
Next convention: Anime Los Angeles [Jan 7-9, 2011; Los Angeles, CA]
Buy prints online!: finni.fourthewin.org/shop


www.FOURTHEWIN.org!