Animation Source Forums

Just a warning to members who make edits/renders of their Spirit Characters, or even members who make digital pictures close to the ''Spirit style'' . . .

Watermark your work.

Sign it clearly with your signature.

Or Put your character's/s' name on it.

I'm afraid, as you may or may not know, there are people on sites such as Chicken Smoothie, Facebook and Pinterest, who will take your picture and post it on one of these sites - and/or rename the characters on the picture.

For instance, this character - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/552253973037505427/ - has been called/renamed Frankie. His real name is Aragorn. (/spirit/en/chars/._Aragorn_._FIMH/56337.html)

There are many more renamed characters on Pinterest, many from Spirit Source. And, in the case of Pinterest, some people will simply place 'Roleplay' underneath the picture, I'd guess with plans to use the featured character for RP on another site (such as Instagram (?) ).

- I notice that most, if not all the pictures that are taken, are not watermarked or signed by the artist. So the ''character thieves'' seem not to prefer signed pictures, which would far too evidently belong to somebody else.


- It is wrong that these characters are renamed in this way, and used for such purposes as RPs, and I'm not sure how it can be stopped.

- However, to best prevent this happening, I would recommend that members who render/edit, or draw digital pictures (because people who rename characters seem to like digital, ''Spirit-style'' pictures) put a watermark, their signature, or the original character names somewhere on the picture.

- It is not only an issue for the creator of the image when these images are wrongly used by other people, but it is also an issue for the creator/s of the featured characters. E.g. if you make an image of somebody's else's characters without signing it in any way, that somebody else will be having an issue as a result.

It really is quite frustrating how people will take other characters (and even artwork) and claim them as their own. I understand that kids will be kids, but it seems now, more than ever, that they lack any respect for the creator's effort (and I'm talking about good characters, not the poorly made ones).

I generally don't spend much time on Spirit Source, but it's a good practice to get into for any drawing/image that you send to any site. I know I tend to not sign the drawings that I send, but I think I will try harder to do so now.

I think it's a shame that many thieves are not very young at all, some in their late teens I would guess.



Definitely sign your art, especially digital art and especially a drawing that is meant to imitate the art style of a particular movie (thieves seem to like characters/art that have that ''movie'' feel, and that may be why renders are popular).

I don't think thieves go for much traditional art, actually. Not really sure why.

i just went on CS to see whats been stolen as of late

i'v got a big job ahead of me.

i think perhaps a global thread might be usefull as i dont know who owns some of these characters.
maybe even asking the admin of CS to block images and/or link to AS untill one of there mods can make sure it is not to just an image of a character

A global thread might be good, advertised on a Source-wide News.
Do you know any members on CS who could help you?



I've been wondering if a special ''Notice Board'' would be good to have on the Sources. I know that the LEGO Message Boards (a nice little community), have a special notice board on the side, with the basic rules, and some announcements on it sometimes.

It might sound a bit childish, but I think it's a nice idea (there are all ages on that site! ), just to have some guidelines to easily access at all times. If we had a little tab with messages. I think people would take notice of them. Be nice for younger members too.



Also, a tab with important announcements?

it could work.

would be usefull for things that need to be known but have not got the content for a full news post

Perhaps if somebody passed the ''noticeboard'' idea to Steet, and if the idea was carried out, we could have that to post a news about, as well as the theft report, warning members about the image/character thieves.

It's a process.

However, I'm willing to give it a shot if nobody else has the time.

I noticed that whoever created Frankie no longer has an account here. Characters that don't belong to anyone anymore should be deleted. It makes it harder to know who the characters belong to when their account is deleted. I mean, there is a good chance that the user left because they longer wish to be here, so I don't see the harm in removing said characters.

Has anyone tried contacting the admins of Chicken Smoothie? I think the first step would be to contact them (if they have an e-mail, I would suggest using that. I'm sure they gets TONS on PMs everyday, as they're running a large website) and let them know that their users are taking characters from this site and claiming them as their own. If they aren't already aware of this, I'm sure they would appreciate you informing them.

I think having a way to inform people of stolen creations is a good idea.

i spotted that, i thought it better to keep it up for a short time so others can see it here then delete it (when spotted i do delete characters to a deleted account)

i can't find an email for the 3 admin but they do have a thing to message the admin on there website, ill contact them and see what they can do about it

edit: i have now messaged them

Even though I can technically delete characters myself, I don't have Steet's permission to do so. I can go through the characters section and report the ones with deleted accounts.

Having a look through sites like Google Plus, I see that some people steal rendered/edited images, as well as use photographs of real-life horses. Luckily many use their own artwork.


Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/communities/105 ... a5f21ccacb


Here's one picture I found with the original artist's name (TheOpposite, a member of Animation Source), but the Google Plus user (or somebody else) also added their name to it (claiming it?).

That person even admits that it isn't theirs.

On Chicken Smoothie, there is a ''Spirit: Stallion RPG'', and somebody used the pictures of two Spirit book characters . . .

/spirit/e ... 48357.html

/spirit/e ... 53519.html

. . . renamed them both, yet still gave credit to Troll Berserker for creating the images.
(Both pictures (and most other official character pictures created by members) now have a copyright caption underneath, which should hopefully protect them - hopefully.)


In all, although we can ask the webmasters of all these sites (C.S., Google Plus, etc.) to make rules against using images that don't belong to you or something other, I think prevention is better than cure.

We ought to spread the word about signing (and especially watermarking) renders and edits. On the Sources, D.Art (where quite a few edits are taken from) and elsewhere. How about on Chicken Smoothie, if anybody's got an account there? An article could be posted - even if things aren't stolen from that site. Thieves there might think a bit and be more careful, if they saw something like that.

(I think a member called ILoveJetta wrote an article years ago on the subject of watermarking to prevent stealing. Shame it's not around any more.)

Certainly. Informing the Chicken Smoothie staff is a start. After all, they have to create their own drawings and designs for their pets, so I can see them understanding the issue. But as for Google Plus communities, I feel one may or may not do any good. If the pages were made by people who simply don't care, they'll pull every trick in the book to try and persuade you into believing the content is theirs. But I do think it's worth contacting them. If they fail to comply, the best thing one can do is just watermark their work.

I think, since this covers the site's content, that it would be an appropriate exception to allow a news article (a global one) to be posted. But if that were to be done, I think the poster (perhaps a mod could post a news article) should ask for Steet's permission.

Worth a try contacting as many people as we can.

I'll ask a mod about it.

I think I could post something on Google Plus - either my own article, or a link of the news article. We'll see how that goes.

And Pinterest . . .
The trouble with Pinterest, is that while most people ''Pin'' pictures from other websites (which means that when you click on a picture, you go to its original site/source, and thus making it obvious who might be the original owner) you are also able to upload pictures from your own computer. So what's to stop a Pinterest user from saving a render from, say, Spirit Source, and uploading it as their own onto Pinterest? Nobody who wants to can track its original site. Perhaps the Pinterest team should be contacted about dismantling the ''Upload From Computer'' tool.