Item Source Concerns

[Zeetheus]

rheostatic

Re the artists unfollowing thing: I wonder if it's an awfully timed coincidence because there were two artists on my friends list that unfriended me as well and I have not had a public opinion (or an opinion where staff could see it) on this topic. Several of my friends have been unfriended as well with various degrees of public opinions.

If there are things to be discussed and they can't give a final answer and are simply waiting to have all their ducks in a row, I believe saying such would be the best course of action. Something along the lines of "we are discussing this" or "we're taking things into consideration" should be stated because while I don't personally think there's inaction, the public perception is leaning heavily towards it and the right thing to do is to get our in front of it.

That's a bit of a relief, but I'll have to take your word for it as well, as I've never had the... privilege, I guess? Of being friends with any of the staff, whether they're simply on my friendslist or actually friends offsite. I agree that a "we are discussing this" post - whether here or ATS - would have been really nice.


To switch gears, I noticed something really weird, so I lined up the copy/tracing incidents (towards indie artists) mentioned in the OP that I have found convincing evidence of, sorted by date:

2014 - June - Teddy March - has much in common with this commission piece

2015 - August - Shark Swim Style - has major elements in common with Japanese indie artist mogeko/okegom/Deep Sea Prisoner's OC Samekichi.

2016

2017 - December - Must Be Crazy - essentially a colorswap of this (piece? video?)

2018 - February 4th - Just Me - a colorswap of Monika from DDLC
2018 - February 8th - Just Dangerous Me - recolored in Monika's actual palette this time

2019 - March - Pretentious Prince - a mix of Hen-tie's Alfine and Morgané
2019 - April - TinierMe Tracing Evidence is posted
2019 - May 2nd - Celes - blatant copy of this piece
2019 - May 14th - staff reply to the TinierMe thread that it's been dealt with

2019 - November - Lifegiver - the Deer pose has much in common with crimson-chains' Deer God

2020 - April - Flowerless Bloom - has major elements in common with this piece from a former gaia artist - this has been privately resolved

2020 - August 23rd - Monoceros - has elements in common with Areques CS examples and Atticus (Areques) - this thread was also posted

Pretentious Prince was done just before the tracing incident was posted about. Celes - by far the most blatant copy in my opinion - was done just after. There might have been a bit of leeway with the dates though, Celes could have potentially (if it was held onto for a good while) been finished behind the scenes a little before the tracing thread was made, or at least noticed.

The timeline's a little truncated so that I don't stretch by listing every single month/year without incident, but in terms of this specific "copying indie artists designs into Gaia items" kind of case, I think they've definitely picked up more since 2019.

Even if all incidents before the "this [tracing incident] has been resolved" part were handwaved, that still leaves Lifegiver, Monoceros, and Flowerless Bloom.

[Avaline Fitheach]

Dropping in to say I just found out about this artistically dishonest dickery, and that I've changed my signature to let others know about it. I've included a link to this thread, if that's alright.

[dreamsk]

Zeetheus

To switch gears, I noticed something really weird, so I lined up the copy/tracing incidents (towards indie artists) mentioned in the OP by date:

2014 - June - Teddy March - has much in common with this commission piece

2015

2016

2017 - December - Must Be Crazy - essentially a colorswap of this (piece? video?)

2018 - February 4th - Just Me - a colorswap of Monika from DDLC
2018 - February 8th - Just Dangerous Me - recolored in Monika's actual palette this time

2019 - March - Pretentious Prince - a mix of Hen-tie's Alfine and Morgané
2019 - April - TinierMe Tracing Evidence is posted
2019 - May 2nd - Celes - blatant copy of this piece
2019 - May 14th - staff reply to the TinierMe thread that it's been dealt with

2019 - November - Lifegiver - the Deer pose has much in common with crimson-chains' Deer God

2020 - August 23rd - Monoceros - has elements in common with Areques CS examples and Atticus (Areques) - this thread was also posted

Consider that this is only a list of pieces that we've discovered, who knows if many more stolen works exists that we don't know about. ninja

[Civilight Eterna]

jesus. what a mature way for that staff member to respond to a reasonable concern.

i'd sure love to do this kind of 'work', where i rip off a smaller artist's work and then spit in a user's face with no repercussions.

i've been away for a While but i can see all the similarities. at least ******** acknowledge inspiration for chrissakes. wouldn't be nearly so egregious if they could put some lipstick on them before they ******** them over. and tracing tinierme? despicable, too.

[Succubusssy]

Throttle Kitty

Ignoring this is not really even "putting your career first", almost no place that employs artists will hire known art / concept thieves. The ones that do won't hire ones that repeat and defend their actions. Saying this as someone who has employed artists themselves. Admitting wrong doing and taking any opportunity you can to prove yourself better is the only way to save your career from getting the unrecoverable version of this black mark.

Most of the art staff, in my opinion, act as if they don't really care at all about their career or future outside of Gaia. They treat Gaia like their own personal social club they get paid to gatekeep, and fulfilling our paid order is just something they do out of kindness on the side. Many of them seem content to ride that position, and by extension the job itself, straight into the ground.

Anyways, I'm not shocked that was their response to you. I had a very friendly relationship with the artist for years, until one day I got in an argument over them changing the rules to my ticket just before they got to me in line. I've seen several instances, every one of them grandfathering in tickets submitted before the change, but they didn't do it for me. I said it felt discriminatory, and their response was to show me what that word really meant. Since then, any experience with the art staff has been like pulling teeth with boxing gloves for me.

Speaking of which, hope you had fun submitting tickets the easy way. Cause they'll take twice as long and be rejected 4 times as much now. "Coincidentally" of coarse. cat_biggrin

Sorry I'm being a b***h. I've just dealt with them / users basically gas lighting me to kiss their butt despite their horrible behavior for years. I'm glad people are finally getting past that spell and speaking up about the way(s) they mistreat people.

there's nothing wrong with being a b***h when you've experienced bullshit over and over again. now you mentioned an art staff member showing you what the word "discriminatory" really meant. wtf happened I'm a little shook at reading that
EDIT: I don't think you were being a b***h at all btw

[Throttle Kitty]

Seeing Scarletta

there's nothing wrong with being a b***h when you've experienced bullshit over and over again. now you mentioned an art staff member showing you what the word "discriminatory" really meant. wtf happened I'm a little shook at reading that
EDIT: I don't think you were being a b***h at all btw

I wasn't being so literal, they didn't say anything as such themselves. I complained I felt their action was discriminatory, then after that was when their behavior towards me changed. That is the event that marked the transition from them treating me "normal" to what feels like them legitimately discriminating against me (for years) for not liking me.

I was drawing irony to the fact that me complaining about feeling discriminated against is what triggered the "real" discrimination. As compared to what I've faced since, the original incident does not hardly feel like discrimination anymore.

[hades]

after two weeks of the artist behind the original design of pretentious prince not getting emails back from the official team, they have decided to make an official twitter callout

edit: also since i thought i'd throw my hat into the ring, i used to be mutuals with the custom lead on twitter but only just found out they've recently unfollowed me. two other artists as well, but i've already broken those mutuals after hearing emails have been purposely ignored from the og artist. i'm just tired of it. i honestly do not care.

[hades]

hadesfare

after two weeks of the artist behind the original design of pretentious prince not getting emails back from the official team, they have decided to make an official twitter callout

edit: also since i thought i'd throw my hat into the ring, i used to be mutuals with the custom lead on twitter but only just found out they've recently unfollowed me. two other artists as well, but i've already broken those mutuals after hearing emails have been purposely ignored from the og artist. i'm just tired of it. i honestly do not care.

for the entirety of art team being made up of individual artists, this is just absolutely disgusting and BEYOND just terrible. NOTHING is redeemable at this point and any official response we get will only be damage control or just another vague, unexplained and probably untruthful 'we have punished the person who did it'.

[Visionary Blend]

So!
The artist has been trying to contact Gaia for two weeks now with no answer. Even if emails were clogged, Twitter DMs exist. I'm really curious to see where this goes because the art community on Twitter has zero tolerance for art theft, let alone basically selling someone else's OC. Whatever the outcome is, I'm supporting Hen-Tie because this is absolute bullshit.

[Waverlily]

Since this has come to my attention I have canceled my angel subscription

[Trundlebug]

Damn, ripping off Areques. That's pretty ballsy, considering they sell for a shitload of money and the artist is pretty well-known in the adopt circle.

Honestly, the artist team that works for Gaia has always had roots in adopts. Artists used to come from the breedables/changeables, then when the site slowed down they all moved to the adopt scene on dA.

Some even have closed species of their own. So this isn't surprising to me that they would rip from there. Disappointing business as usual.

[gloomspell]

hadesfare

edit: also since i thought i'd throw my hat into the ring, i used to be mutuals with the custom lead on twitter but only just found out they've recently unfollowed me. two other artists as well, but i've already broken those mutuals after hearing emails have been purposely ignored from the og artist. i'm just tired of it. i honestly do not care.

To get some clarification - because I wasn't sure I understood all that - you are saying that you used to be friends with 2 artists & the custom Lead on Twitter? But now all 3 of them have Unfriended you? AFTER you made your opinion about all this known?

If so, this really adds fuel to the fire behind the idea that the Staff literally decided as a group to Unfriend/Ignore anyone even talking about the alleged art theft.

I would find it hard to believe that all these separate incidents of Unfriending are complete coincidence.


NEW FLASH GAIA: Hiding from a problem will not make it go away!

[hades]

gloomspell

hadesfare

edit: also since i thought i'd throw my hat into the ring, i used to be mutuals with the custom lead on twitter but only just found out they've recently unfollowed me. two other artists as well, but i've already broken those mutuals after hearing emails have been purposely ignored from the og artist. i'm just tired of it. i honestly do not care.

To get some clarification - because I wasn't sure I understood all that - you are saying that you used to be friends with 2 artists & the custom Lead on Twitter? But now all 3 of them have Unfriended you? AFTER you made your opinion about all this known?

If so, this really adds fuel to the fire behind the idea that the Staff literally decided as a group to Unfriend/Ignore anyone even talking about the alleged art theft.

I would find it hard to believe that all these separate incidents of Unfriending are complete coincidence.


NEW FLASH GAIA: Hiding from a problem will not make it go away!

nah nah, sorry i probably didn't word that correctly.
i was only mutuals with them on twitter, three individual artists. one has recently unfollowed me, and that was after i checked the twitter thread. from that, i decided to unfollow the other two for my own morals.

i was very much surprised i havent been unfollowed sooner, but it lines up with everything else happened.

[Jamais_Arriere]

https://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/general-discussion/gaia-online-stole-a-outfit-design-without-asking/t.108971733/

an artist/user posted this thread in the general discussion.

[a little lapin]

idk what to say about this

that i found out about this bc of hen-tie's situation or because this is 11 pages long of past AND current history of blatant theft

WITH zero responses???

😔 as bad as this site has fallen and as much as it means to and my childhood i would sub from time to time to help

but how can i again now knowing this?