This morning I checked my notes here on deviantART, to find one labeled "important." Normally, notes that say "important" are from someone who wants to use my stock in some sort of time-sensitive project and hasn't actually looked at my guidelines to see that they are free to do so. This important message, however, has totally crashed my good mood for the day.

I'm sure I'm a little late on the uptake here, but there was a major art theft from what seems to be numerous deviants. One of the pieces stolen was ~alx234's Lil Bit Fishy. This amazing piece of work, posted in 2009, was sold without out the artist's permission on the site art4love.com (the site is currently offline, but here is a screencap that ~alx234 sent me.)

That's one. Check on MASSIVE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, a deviation by `alexiuss showing the pieces that were stolen from him.

There isn't a whole lot I can do except be upset and offer my support to these artists. My stock was used in ~alx234's piece, but it's just one part of the final piece of work. The actual crime here is against these artists, and more - because there are over 500 screencaps by ~Kafai featuring the stolen pieces on art4love.com. This is the link to the album featuring the pieces found on art4love.

What can you do to help? Look through those screenshots. If there is ANY art you recognize, TELL THE ARTIST. If it's your own, `alexiuss is said to be working on a class-action lawsuit. Yes, there are a lot of them, but that's why it's even more important that you help out. There are fine lines and red tape all over the place when it comes to copyrights and copyright infringement and ownership of art and all of that, but this is BLATANT stealing. ~alx234's piece sold for over $300 - and the artist didn't see a cent of it.

I'm going to spend some time going through the screencaps and seeing if I recognize anything. Please, do the same thing. You can also show your support by helping out at #Major-Thief-Hunters. They are doing all they can to collect information and bring this to the media.

As a stock artist, this is an important cause to me. I provide art that toes the line across copyright infringement - I provide it for free with some guidelines, but what can I do if those guidelines aren't followed? That is different from the people who use my stock, other digital artists, traditional artists, photographers, anything - they create original pieces that are NOT intended to be used by others, whether it is used in another piece of art or not. NO artist, stock or otherwise, wants their work to be sold without our their permission or claimed as someone else's original art.

If I get any more information, I'll update, but until then, that's all I know. This is a heartbreaking situation and if what I've read about the owner of the site is true, this isn't the first time he's tried to pull this. That makes it even more important to teach this guy a lesson. Help out. Part of why deviantART is amazing is the community here. Help your fellow artists and friends out.