Monday, June 2, 2008

Stop Thief!

Over the weekend I received a message from one of the tatting elite, the Tatting Goddess. Isn't it funny how every community no matter how small has their own famous names that no one outside the community has ever heard of, but I digress. She informed me that she had seen one of my pieces on a questionable site. Now, I've found my photos being used without my permission before, but so far it's always been in a good way. The pictures linking to my store and credited to me, usually they are accompanied by some kind words as well. This was not the nice kind, it was the kind where someone was actually using my image as a set of pictures to convince people to purchase a disc of tatting patterns from them.

What makes this even sillier, is that the patterns on the disc appear to all be vintage patterns that are all in the public domain. In other words, they are all free patterns available all over the internet. I've seen a lot of people complain of these kinds of image thefts, but I had been fortunate enough to not have experienced this until now. I feel annoyed and I keep trying to decide whether this person thought my design was amazing enough to sell her product or that I wouldn't be a threat if I caught her. I guess it really doesn't matter what they thought, I sent a strongly worded email that I'm fairly certain will be ignored and that's about all I can do. I wish for a moment that I knew a really good hacker to take down the site, but that's probably a little extreme, huh?

The Challenge

Switching Gears now, I think I have gotten enough interest to go forward with my tatting challenge. In the next couple of days, I will be working out the details, tatting up medallions and attempting to con a few folk into being judges (if you're interested, just let me know).
Participates will get to choose from 2 sizes in 2 colors. The small ones are about 2 inches across available in ecru and black and the large ones are 4 inches across and I'm only making those in ecru. I will be charging $5 for each of the small ones and $8 for the large ones and domestic and Canadian shipping will be free. Each person may buy as many of the medallions as they want for the challenge and they may be dyed if desired. The finished pieces will be due by July 31st and will be judged on the usual traits, creativity, function, quality of construction and generally how cool they are. I will be offering up three places worth of prizes. First place will your choice of pieces from my etsy store up to $40 or a credit up to that amount. Second place will be up to $20 and third place will be your choice of one of my pendants .

I'm hoping to have the medallions available for purchase on Wednesday, but no later that Friday. These rules are a work in progress and the medallion listings will hopefully contain the final version. Please let me know via email of etsy convo if you'd like to be on the notification list for the challenge.

12 comments:

miahawk said...

wow, that stuff about reselling your designs is so dumb! what is it with people, I wonder?

there's been an uproar in the lampworking community over a fraudulent Etsy seller who's been buying SRA beads on eBay, then breaking them up into smaller sets and reselling on Etsy and claiming to have made all the beads. Even with photographic proof that she's doing this, there is very little to stop her except by working as hard as possible to educate the public on how to spot a fraud. it makes me so mad!

anyway, I'm excited about the challenge! I hope I can do your beautiful tatting justice.

outofthepinksky said...

Interesting challenge. I'll definitely have to consider this!

Hyla said...

Those are beautiful!

Kitty said...

oooo, i can't wait!
i already have an idea.
*rubs hands together evilly*

BOXC Jewelry said...

I'm so excited! I'll check your shop for the listings. This is my first time working with tatted materials. I have no idea what to make!
:)

LadyShuttleMaker aka MadMadPotter said...

This sort of "picture theft" started happening to me awhile ago so I had to resort to digitally signing all photos containing any original work. The tatting community is not happy about this particular website....we need to find a way to shut them down.

Hedgelands Glass Lass said...

Interesting post and wonderful tatted creations!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Being ripped off is horrible I'm so sorry this happened to you =(


I'm still up for the challenge though

Jennifer Lommers said...

Sorry to hear of the thievery!

Love your Tatting! I've always wondered about doing it, as I often will be asked if I'm tatting when I'm working on a crochet thread project. Your work is beautiful. I look forward to coming back again.

Melissa said...

Your work is gorgous! I am soo sorry to hear that someone has taken your pictures.
My mom does some tatting... I never learned how.. I am affraid of working with thread. :)

Unknown said...

I've seen this before where a few familiar pics from other tatters have shown up on someone's site for a shady looking eBook on "VINTAGE PATTERNS" then they have these stolen pics on display....looks shady to me. And there's no contact info....why would anyone want to buy anything from someone who has no contact info. It so smells of a scam.