To all: Copyright violation policy

Lately it seems that it has become a trend to accuse artists for ripping off others, holding back reference information or violating copyrights. Although we are happy that you keep an eye open for us, we are firmly against public accusations and executions.

The past few weeks a couple of artworks received harsh comments of people who were convinced that the artwork was ripped off or was painted over a photograph. From now on public accusations like this in comments or in the forum will be removed by staff. If you think an artist holds back reference information or if you think an artwork is ripped off or violates copyrights follow one of these procedures:

Use the report it function at the bottom of the page where the artwork resides. Choose 'this item is a rip-off' and give us the details. Understand that we need something to work with so provide sound arguments or links to the related/original material.

Send a message to martin or an email to martin@gfxartist.com and provide the information indicated above.

Do NOT in any case accuse the artist through the public channels. You might feel a bit angry at the moment and confronting the artist might seem like a good option, but what if you are wrong? Keep in mind that an accusation like that can do a lot of harm to the artists reputation and puts us in a very unconfortable situation.

We issue this policy because we want to protect our members, elite or not, paying or not. We've handled sentitive matters like these discretely with great success and we want to keep it this way. Again, no matter how obvious the violation, accusations through the public channels will be removed from now on. Use the report funtion, message or email.

Feel free to comment.