Hi guys, an update on this art theft:
Seeing as Instagram doesnât seem to have any kind of help support for its users other than countless sub links to âhelpâ pages and various online forms, I ended up filing a report without providing my personal details. Instagram has promptly removed their post of my stolen artwork, however, they did in fact give out my email address to steel_butterfly2 as I had received an email from them with a âWhat?â in their subject line but otherwise empty in content.Â
Clearly they have not learned anything from this experience as they have continued posting other artistsâ works, todayâs target being Mano-chan.
Whatâs concerning is they have responded positively to followers who have enquired about commissions and art trades- up until now Iâve assumed they only wanted attention, but if theyâre hoping to get paid for stealing, we have a big problem here.Â
(Those are sketches by Alphonse Mucha for crying out loud)Â
I have uploaded a screencap of their gallery at the bottom of this post. I would like to ask for anyoneâs assistance in identifying the original artists of the stolen works in this personâs gallery and to report them.Â
It sounds straight forward, but things to note:
This personâs instagram is locked. You will need to follow them first to see their gallery (they accepted my request pretty quickly). I suggest you use a locked account or a fake account to follow them.
Instagram requires you to be the original artist in order to report a violation of copyright. There is an option to claim the copyright on behalf of âyour organization or clientâ, but Iâm not sure if this requires further evidence. In my case, they did not further question me for proof of my copyright, but they may be more swift to act on those reporting for their own works.Â
According to anotherâs experience, sending this person a polite request to have them remove your work will only result in them blocking you, thus losing the link to the post you need to report. This is why I think silently reporting them without warning would be best.Â
How to report your stolen artwork:
Go to the online form here.
Itâs pretty straight forward, but this is what I ticked off
DO NOT enter in any of your personal details if you donât want the person youâre reporting to get a hold of it. I only wrote initials for when a name was required.
Provide a valid email, but make sure itâs not an email you would mind getting leaked (or just make a dummy email).Â
Follow through the rest of the form and send (again, I just wrote initials for the electronic signature).
This is their gallery of stolen images. Please help identify these pieces to their rightful owners and inform them!Â