Working on over coming another fear: Selling custom works.
I have soooo many ideas I would love to make and post for sale. I'm sure something would be most loved and bought. However, there's that fear that someone will see the love it's been getting, steal it, and then turn around and say I stole it.
Now the thing is, this is a common fear among some artists. To the point it holds people back from ever posting original art work and all they ever post is fanart. Which they think is safe but we all see that's not always true as even though you hold the IP for the creation of that art, you do not hold the IP for the characters you used. Time and time again I've seen people's fan art used by the companies who own the said characters. They just take it, edit something small or don't edit anything at all and claim it as their own. It's hard to go up against a company. Some succeed while others fail.
Now, I may not have gone up against a company, but I have gone up against other people. I will share one experience:
(Mind you, this was some years ago. Those mods who dealt with this no longer are apart of the site but names will not be stated)
I had bought an adoptable on DeviantArt. The rules where once you bought it you owned it. They cared nothing for the creations they created. You could use the same art piece they done in commercial work, OCs, etc. The character was now your own.
A friend wanted the one I bought in the worse way. They didn't have any money to their name as at the time they were homeless, living on what little they got from SS, and had been trying to get into a low income home but needed a job first. So, it was just $2 in points and I bought it for them. In all rights, according to this adoptable's rules, I owned this character now. It was mine. As if, I, myself, had created it.
My friend wanted me to create fanart of it, so I did. I posted it, did a little blurb about the reason behind the character, that I was giving it as a gift, etc. They were over the moon and the fact that he made them happy made me happy! However, it was short lived.
I was contacted by some random person claiming the character was owned by them. I looked on their DA page and saw nothing linking to the character. I replied to them, "'Where is the character on your DA page, I see nothing stating it's your's'." They linked me to their scraps. There was my art along with the character I had bought. They claimed I had stole their art as well.
Now this was the first time this has ever happened to me. I was both terrified and angry. I went to DA's staff about it. I explained what was going on, showed the proof I had bought the character from this person here, I showed the Paypal payment, the art from the program I had did which showed the 100+ layers, and the reply from my friend asking for them to make them fan art of the character. I even showed the time stamps of the art of me posting it almost 3 days before them.
You would believe that this is more then enough proof to show that my art was my own, I owned this character, and I did the fan art of the character for my friend. However, this did not fly with the staff.
I was warned, my account had a warning added to it, my art was then blocked and put into storage, and I was not allowed to remove it from storage. I explained that I am not in the art thief! All what I showed was my own, that's my proof! They didn't believe me. At all! I argued with them. And yes, my temper got the best of me…I was not very good at controlling it when I was younger.
This person claimed something else of mine as well, a custom piece of my own creation. Same thing, I went to DA staff about it, showed my poof in my art program, and I even had a video showing proof I had drew it! Nope, didn't fly. I was on Warning #2. One more warning and I was banned from the site and my account deleted. That was it. I left the site. I put all my art in storage and left.
Come to find out the person who was stealing art, claimed it as their own, then turning around and selling it for a profit was cousins to the staff member. They were allowing them to do this. It was rather a semi-big thing at the time. Granted not many knew about this. The only way I found out about it was a different staff member messaged me, explaining everything, and said the art thief was banned from the site and the staff member removed from their post. The warnings on my account were lifted and I was allowed to repost my storage locked art.
At this time, the damage was already done. My faith in staff was lost and I never returned. I didn't trust any of them. It was because of that all is what started my fear of posting anything original.
I still have that fear. I'm not sure if it will ever go away. Again, I have sooo many cute and neat ideas I would love to post and sell. Because heaven only knows that I could really use the money right now! But that fear is waaaay stronger.
However, I am trying with the help of a friend. She creates the character and all I do is the art. Would you like to see it?
https://ko-fi.com/zero_83/shop
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