Recently more photos have been stolen from one of the wonderfully talented artists on this forum. I don’t know whether they were stolen from this forum or if they were copied from a different site on the internet. I do know that adding watermarks to all of the photos you post of your work in a conspicuous area that cannot be cropped out will decrease the chances that it will be your photos that are selected to be stolen.
I was under the mistaken impression that only photos of completed dolls were being stolen. Other photos are being used by scammers to make them look like legitimate reborn artists as well. So I urge you to watermark them all. Work in progress photos of dolls/parts, reborn showcase, personal reborn collections, baby uno, hand made clothing, toys and items used with dolls, reborning supplies, photos of your nurseries and work spaces.
Removing watermarks can be done, but it is very tedious and most scammers aren’t looking to put any work into the money they are hoping to scam people out of. That’s why they steal photos in the first place. They are dishonest, lazy, entitled, shameless so and so’s. Let’s not make it easy for them to steal from the wonderful artists on this forum.
I’m not sure how this will work with anonymous contests in the future, but perhaps we can figure something out when that time comes.
It doesn’t even have to be a fancy watermark if it’s not a completed doll/ marketing photo. If you don’t have a logo, that’s ok as well. Just slap some quick text over your photo like this. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done.
A lot of us sell on the reborns website where we are not allowed to watermark the photos. I totally agree with you that while watermarks can technically be removed, it would be too much work for thieves. They will just move on to a photo without one.
I think Dave has something in place to prevent photos from being directly stolen from reborns, but all it takes is a screen shot and some cropping to do just that.
I have seen my own photos on scam sites. Someone was on Instagram “selling” my sold doll. I made them take it down, but what else can be done? If you go on aliexpress or some of those types of sites, you will even see photos with the watermark and artist’s name. People don’t care.
Same! I stopped watermarking since it didn’t deter anyone from stealing my photos. 4 fake Facebook pages last month alone and on pics that had my nursery name in them, on a bib! Still was able to scam someone with my photo so I think the scammers are more determined and new buyers have no clue what to look for.
Nope. Dave has nothing to protect our pics. I just sent to your nursery. Clicked a pic. Saved it to my album. And now I’m free to post it wherever I want.
I am upset for all the artists that this is happening. This is terrible. I do not sell babies. I just want advice on how to be better at this art. I won’t post photos as often. I don’t know how to watermark. I don’t have a nursery name. I doubt whoever is doing this would pirate my photos. I do not look at social media much. I just got a Facebook page to locate my relatives. I have been dabbling in my family history and found a cousin I have never met or even knew.
Why wouldn’t a selling site allow watermarks? This may be a silly question but if it is to protect the artist’s work, I don’t understand why a watermark couldn’t be allowed.
Dave says it will make the site look messy. I don’t agree as most people here are really tasteful with their watermarks. Some even placed a pillow in the background with their nursery to get around this rule, but that’s not allowed either.
I don’t like any of this, but he has the final say. It is his site so he can do what he wants to do.
I have a theory. Don’t know if it’s right or wrong though.
I’m thinking that because a lot of reborns photos show up on Google images, people could see the nursery name and go straight to Facebook or Instagram looking for the artist. If they go straight to the artist, you might sell less off of the site, thus reducing his ability to justify $20/month.
Not knowing who the artist is also forces people to click the reborns link. Lots of clicks equal a higher ranking on the search engines so people doing generic searches just find the site that way.
Of course someone may have a better theory. I just know it has nothing to do with watermarks making the site look bad. How can a cute little embroidered pillow with a nursery name do that?
I feel the same as you. I don’t think people will want to steal my photos since other artists here are much more talented. I have also shied away from posting photos for a while now, due to paranoia.
They could do it anyway just for that reason. The dolls from higher end artists, everyone knows. Dolls from mid range artists a lot of people know. I am only mid range with less than 2,000 followers on my IG, but still get contacted by other artists when they find my stolen pictures.
It might be easier for people to steal from lesser known artists because nobody will recognize the doll.
They are really brazen to use pics with other nursery names already on them.
As far as Dave and his restriction on logos, I’ve always felt that he’s trying to take credit for the dolls. That he’s attempting to make it look like he has many artists that work for him. And since they all work for him, don’t even bother looking for them across the web. They exist in Dave’s doll factory only.
It’s similar to people thinking that wmart and amzon are selling knockoff reborns.The sites have many individual vendors. It’s not the companies themselves, selling the dolls. It is their responsibility though to be sure the customers aren’t being scammed, and they don’t appear to be very effective in that. But that’s a different conversation.
