Inuyasha & Sonic Heaven!

Ever make a nice drawing, put it in your gallery, and X amount of time later you find some idiot with attention problems has claimed your work as their own? Fear not, because even though the internet is plagued with these pests known simply as "Art Thieves" this guide will cover some of the ways to recognize, chew up, and spit out these internet nuisances.

First of all I should say what an Art Thief properly is.

Art Thief: 1) Ten-year-old kids who want attention and praise, 2) People who steal the hardwork of someone else and claim with all their might that they made the original work.

Usually, in most cases, an art thief is just a little kid who wants attention and does so by saying "Ooh, pretty image!" and puts it on their page with no recognition to the original creator (some of them may say they made it, but usually its just they give no credit). In these cases the best thing to do (ONLY if you're the original creator) is just notify the kid and tell them "Hey, that's not right to take my work and not give credit to me, so either take down the image or give me credit." If the kid is good they'll immediately do what you say, but some of them will be stubborn in which case just pull out the big guns (evidence of being the original creator) until the kid surrenders.

Sometimes, however, there will be people who steal art for the sake of stealing art or for the sake of making themselves look all cool. They aren't, of course. This type of art thief is normally the most ruthless and may take a whole army of people to bring down. These kinds of art thieves can be very clever at times and can easily conceal identity or the fact they stole anything. Below are some simple tips on how to recognize these kinds of thieves and what to do to make sure of their thievary.

Tip 1-- The Changing Styles

Let's say you're a member on...Deviantart and you're looking at someone's gallery. Now, normally (depending on the size of the gallery), artists have styles that may or may not gradually change over the course of a lot of images (like my art, for example). However, some galleries you may come across may have one or two images that look like they were drawn by a second grader and then right next to them (posting dates can also help with this) is a picture that looks like it was drawn by a skilled art student. This is what I like to call the "Style Changer". If you see someone's gallery go from a few pictures of crappy art to a lot of pictures of stunningly beautiful art, there is at most a 75% chance that the person is an art thief.

BUT, just because the gallery changes styles a lot doesn't mean the person is always an art thief, some people may share their account with a younger sibling who may not be able to draw stick figures accurately, but they on the other hand can draw shapes and use them effectively.

To check your claim, simply drop the person a little note or User Page comment (this is generally for Deviantart, but for other art sites just use whatever means of contact they offer) stating (but not accusing) their humongous leap in styles and say you SUSPECT they may be an art thief, but that you only want to make sure. So don't just say "Hey, your gallery changes styles too much, you're an art thief! Rawr!", instead say something like "Hey, I noticed your gallery tends to make huge leaps in changing styles, which makes you suspect to being an art thief."

Whatever you do, DON'T ask them if they're an art thief, if you write your statement correctly then their response will tell you whether they are or not. If the person ISN'T an art thief then they should give you a response that's calm and has a simple and understandable reason behind the leaps of styles (like the example I used). The response to look for is someone who completely blows up and starts accusing you first and starts making suspicious claims/comments in their response. Those kinds of responses will generally be the response of an art thief.

When you get a response from someone who blew up, you can either choose to interrogate them more to make yourself further sure if they really are an art thief, or try to find someone who may be able to help support you. Art thieves don't like being attacked in groups, so the more people who support your claim, the better the fight will be and the faster the thief gets made to cry and beg for mercy.

Tip 2-- The Mystery Person

Although fairly common, it is HIGHLY unusual for a lot of artists to not have a completely (or almost completely) filled out profile page. It's also extremely unusual for people with art in their gallery to not have a filled out Profile (the ONLY people who have an excuse for this on DA are people who made accounts for the sole purpose of faving art and even they don't have any art in their galleries). With these kinds of people there is a likelyhood that they may be an art thief. Further proof of this can be found if the person's responses to some fields are not genuine (such as this little thief here: Real Thief Example Update: Thief taken care of.).

Unfortunately, with these kinds it's not enough to make a statement against them so you'll have to do some snooping through galleries or read through some page comments. Fortunately for this guide, the thief I put above as an example is a perfect one for the previous kind of thief, a Style Changer. See how her gallery goes from two crappy Microsoft Paint images to beautiful images in a very short amount of time? This can be used for the base arguement to present to the person, just follow the same steps as the Tip above.

Tip 3-- The Silent Thief

On Deviantart, most artists will have at least some kind of a description for their pictures. These descriptions vary in length and often contain the artist's commentary, explinations, or self-critiques. An art thief, however, has no such thing and often their stolen art will have either no description or very little description. Some, like the thief I've been using for an example, will have descriptions, but will word them in ways that make them obviously false.

For this case you can call out the thief on the charge, but it's best to only do that if you have back-up support or know who the original artist is. Otherwise, just follow the same thing you would do for a Style Changer.

Tip 4-- The Hidden Overkill

On DA, users have the option of hiding certain comments on either deviations or their user page. While it isn't uncommon, it can be highly suspicious if someone has a massive amount of hidden comments, particularly on their front page. Such overkill of hidden comments leads one to suspect that the comments that were hidden may conceal claims of art thievary. Art thieves hate being accused, especially the stubborn ones, so they'll often try to conceal evidence such as other claims and the like. If you find a gallery that has a lot of hidden comments, you may want to snoop around for some other evidence of art theft such as what is listed above. However, keep in mind that some people hide comments after a certain date on a regualar basis, which is not uncommon either.