From time to time, I get the odd note saying “your art’s been stolen – go see the filthy thief here and give them a piece of your mind!”. 9 times out of 10, it’s some 14 yr old kid’s photobucket account, where they’ve dumped a bunch of pics they like, blissfully unaware of copyright infringement. Other times, it’s some Russian (don’t know why, but it usually is!) image site, where there’s a collection of images surrounded by advertising. In both cases, I usually ask politely for those people to remove the pics and promptly forget all about it.

Today, however, a fellow artist pointed me at the Second Life marketplace, where someone is making money selling items with promo images made by doctoring my artwork. Badly. I think I’m actually pretty angry. It takes quite a bit to rile me, but this was no innocent mistake by someone who just liked one of my pics enough to repost it – this person has gone out of their way to find the image, paint over it, and use it to sell their skins.

I’m narked. I shall be putting forward a copyright infringement notice to Second Life.