Art Theft?

Hi. I run an artwork hub called Artwork Profiles. While it's rather small at the moment with 4,000 members, It's growing at a decent pace. We have a lot of people that sell and buy artwork there, and as such scams have been taking place where people commission designs and simply steal them when they see the progress or finished product. While precautions can be taken to avoid such scams, not unlike game item trading/selling, there are still scams that take place with almost no punishment to the scammer who has essentially promised payment to an artist, then stole their, sometimes, hours of work without paying. This is quite dishonorable behavior that I'm sure carries over to whatever they're doing. Link to our group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ArtworkProfiles

I'm unsure of how this would work, but if there is any way for our group to be partnered with SteamRep, and have artwork theft/scams punished in some way, that would be amazing. Thank you for your time.

Regards, Aevoa

Our principle is that we have proof on the 3 area's:
- steam/game Items being traded (steam trade (offer) history)
- Money being transferred (paypal payment history etc) or charge backed.
- A form of agreement between the traders what the trade was supposed to be. Item(s) X for money Y. Which we then can verify with the previous 2 points.

This closes for us the loop in which we can verify a scam took place by missing a transaction etc.

I'd advice any creator to make the artwork/images etc with a watermark that is very hard to remove incorporated into the images shown to the clients. As the work by a finished product is already done, its not a strange request to review the (finished) artwork including the watermark, and then require payment before giving the finished image/artwork without a watermark etc., up to the agreement between them. review our paypal guides for adaptation to your group. Another thing, its NOT strange for established artists to require a % payment for commissioning the work(s). I'd also promote that copyrights on commissioned works being transferred to the buyer once its paid (ie: the buyer can do whatever he wants with the picture, print it, put it in adverts, whatever). Having a tread with showcases of his artwork (ofc with watermarks to prevent abuse), will greatly improve the settlement for what is done and what quality is to be expected. (so not that the promoted images are like incredibly good and the provided picture was done in MS Paint style like GradeAunderA... while expecting ThePortraitArt... ).

The thing to get into the buyer's heads is that they pay for work being done. I remember a case long ago that was reported, an artist providing signature images on SourceOP got in dispute with a client about the artwork he made (showcasing a TF2 unusual hat). He got into the practice to requiring a prepayment of a % in the form of a number of keys, and once the image was done and to be exchanged, he traded back the keys for a more expensive item that he then sold on that same forum or a fixed contact he had (often a bud or couple buds, which where worth bout 20-30 dollars each back then). He didn't want Paypal, for he got charge backed too often.

Any community/group can be a SR Friend community, but the chain of evidence is a very hard requirement for us (read our report guides or appeal tips thread) No closed loop evidence = no mark on our side. Partnership... is harder, and while we're open to extension / adjusting our rules, this is regarding creativity and cause for leeway in interpretation... (which is what we have done everything to cut out so far as possible, lol)...

Our experience is that with disparity in time, this causes the agreement not being there, while days / weeks later the finished product is to be traded, there is a problem getting proof of the agreement part. I'd get the agreements on a 3rd party place/site prior to start working due the nature of your group, for as its regarding artists, photo-shopping agreement evidence will be relatively easy for them... its not for nothing a ban-able offense here, where appeals become impossible for any evidence cannot be trusted once it's established that there was faked evidence provided by that person.