Why do people steal artwork and remove credits?

[Amelia G]

Why do people online steal visual artists' creations and remove credits and try to claim the work as their own? There are few things I find more painful than people not giving me credit I have earned. What possesses someone to steal a photograph or a drawing or a painting and use it as a design element on their site without asking or giving credit or anything?

[keiko]

Greed and a severe inferiority complex. People who have no self worth place no worth on others, or decide that by stealing some one else's merrits they will have merrit themselves. They want to be great so they take great things and put their names on them. It's a stupid thing, but people unfortunatly do it all the time.
K

[Pzychotic]

This is one thing that I really hate, as an artist/writer... I for some time was making skins for an auto racing game I played and finally got out of it because there were a few seperate occasions where my work was "STOLEN" and claimed by others... I have yet to find any of my other digital art or poetry appear other than where I post it but, I feel it is bound to happen...

Take all these net thieves and hang them by thier heel in a vat of urine til they drown...

[ForrestBlack]

What adds insult to injury is when they do credit and link to lots of other people but somehow manage to 'forget' to give any respect to the ones they ganked stuff from. I hate that garbage!

[Pzychotic]

What adds insult to injury is when they do credit and link to lots of other people but somehow manage to 'forget' to give any respect to the ones they ganked stuff from. I hate that garbage!

No kidding, that's a load of crap...

[HempKnight]

Talentless pieces of shit who are fucking worthless... I have had so much of my previous work ripped off and used... photos, music, renderings and whatnot... fuck 'em... gonna start using digital watermarks and whatever others means to protect what's mine. It pisses me off to no end, I have ALWAYS given credit when possible (some public domain not able to) and have even worked with others to further along their project and still get fucked over anyhow.

Now I know on my site I use Betty Page in my template, as far as I know it is public domain and I have looked all over for shots that I can find by known photographers to at least give credit where credit is due, I have no problem with adding a photographer's copyright to it. Because I know how it is to find something you've worked on being used as someone else's without permission, consent or prior knowledge.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.... FUCK 'EM ALL... cause if I start catching them again, I'm gonna load up my car and my pistols and pay a personal visit.
Not saying I'm threatening no one, but I will most definitely scare the shit out of 'em bad enough to not wanna do it again.

And how's YOUR morning??

[Mirren]

I have seen people actually steal websites and try to pass them off as their own works.That's ridiculous in my opinion. It's people that are not extremely talented in anything who have to resort to those type of tactics. They realize their limitations and capabilities only too well.

[MidniteCliche]

...because they are little and unskilled. Insecure and sad.....

[CPRB]

there, is nothng worse then as an artist seeing your work being used by someon else. it takes days and a single second of a vision. Hours of drawing painting, colouring. I use to show my art online but after a few bad experiences I decided not to, digital watermarks and all. I work so hard and the ideas I come up with are mine, no one else's. I don't even show people my seketches for ideas anymore and when in company with other artist or designers and i get asked what I am up to I just walk away. I have had a snowboard company and a skate company take my ideas. I have the orginals fortuneatley and dated and filed.. they were smart enough to stop prodcution....as for when I do artwork for Tattoos or a buisness I have a contract they have to sign which gives me complete rights to my artwork..if I feel it is being misused or I am being misrepresented I have the right to request the removal of my design form all forms. If you can't do it don't do it..as for website if you want to learn how ask somone and take the time to learn I suck at it and have never attempted to. I would like to have a website but what I want is my idea...and I want to learn how do it so I can create something special. I feel sorry and sad to anyone who has take a photo wrote a poem or drawn a pic an had somne claim it as theirs. Even people who take clip art and ad colour and manipulate it bothers me.

[macabrette]

I had one guy who used to be in a band with me take one of my songs..... I learned to appreciate the fact that the song wasn't finished as it was, and he used something that wasn't really an entire entity yet. Maybe if others would use the same approach; as in, maybe there's something I can improve on. It doesn't make the offense of stealing your ideas any more livable, but it does make you think about how you can completely shut that person out by creating something new!

[Morning Glory]

"Bad artists imitate. Great artists steal."
-Pablo Picasso

When an individual plagiarizes a text which those who believe in intellectual property would have held "sacred", she denies that there is a difference in rank between herself and the thinker she takes from. She takes the thinker's ideas for herself, to express as she sees fit, rather than treating the thinker as an authority whose work she is duty-bound to preserve as intended. She denies, in fact, that there is a fundamental difference between the thinker and the rest of humanity, by appropriating the thinker's material as the property of humanity.
After all, a good idea should be available to everyone-should belong to everyone-if it really is a good idea. In a society organized with human happiness as the objective, copyright infringement laws and similar restrictions would not hinder the distribution and recombination of ideas. These impediments only make it more difficult for individuals who are looking for challenging and inspiring material to come upon it and share it with others.
Some claim for themselves the rights to ownership over combinations they believe (rightly or not) they were the first to apply; many of them justify this by insisting that these combinations are the perfect expression of their emotions and experiences, and that those who read or hear them are being granted direct access to their souls. But the fact is a poem or song always has a different significance for the listener or reader than it did for the composer. The reader applies the words to her own experiences, searches her heart to see which ones will resonate with the unique emotions she has felt. Like it or not, once you create something and send it out into the world, it has a life of it's own in the reactions and emotions it provokes in others-and it will not answer to you or represent you except by coincidence. For the writer, the true significance of the work is in the act of creation itself, in the rearranging and shaping of forms. Those who hope to retain control of the products of their creation afterwards are living in denial.

[karyn]

"Bad artists imitate. Great artists steal."
-Pablo Picasso

When an individual plagiarizes a text which those who believe in intellectual property would have held "sacred", she denies that there is a difference in rank between herself and the thinker she takes from. She takes the thinker's ideas for herself, to express as she sees fit, rather than treating the thinker as an authority whose work she is duty-bound to preserve as intended. She denies, in fact, that there is a fundamental difference between the thinker and the rest of humanity, by appropriating the thinker's material as the property of humanity.
After all, a good idea should be available to everyone-should belong to everyone-if it really is a good idea. In a society organized with human happiness as the objective, copyright infringement laws and similar restrictions would not hinder the distribution and recombination of ideas. These impediments only make it more difficult for individuals who are looking for challenging and inspiring material to come upon it and share it with others.
Some claim for themselves the rights to ownership over combinations they believe (rightly or not) they were the first to apply; many of them justify this by insisting that these combinations are the perfect expression of their emotions and experiences, and that those who read or hear them are being granted direct access to their souls. But the fact is a poem or song always has a different significance for the listener or reader than it did for the composer. The reader applies the words to her own experiences, searches her heart to see which ones will resonate with the unique emotions she has felt. Like it or not, once you create something and send it out into the world, it has a life of it's own in the reactions and emotions it provokes in others-and it will not answer to you or represent you except by coincidence. For the writer, the true significance of the work is in the act of creation itself, in the rearranging and shaping of forms. Those who hope to retain control of the products of their creation afterwards are living in denial.

Picasso was talking about appropriating something so much you make it your own. Most do not know his sources. He was joking.

Whoever you are quoting in the second part is a complete moron. Art must communicate to be art and it is not communication if no one knows who is speaking.

I really hate this sort of internet gibberish because it really stomps out creativity.

The reason the second person you are quoting does not want credit is that their words are less pithy and entertaining than Picasso's. If they were as much an artist as Picasso, they would want credt.

[Amelia G]

Hey, Morning Glory, in the thread on pop punk you said you really really dislike it, but pop punk is, in many ways, an example of the sort of thing you are talking about. Fill out your profile and stay a while and I bet you enjoy getting credit for who you are.

[Morning Glory]

naw, I didn't say that I was against it. I was just qouting what someone else said.. but you got me there, since I did give credit to someone's work, i suppose. but I was just doing that to honour their memory. but I would really disagree with you there karyn. how does connecting to an author help you to appreciate a work of art better? since I know that no matter who you are when you see a work of art, your first instinct will be to make whatever interpretations you do of the work, and since you cannot ever know every single artists in the world, you will encounter a peice from an author you aren't familiar with, and you will not be able to tell where that artist is coming from, and you'll still base your oppinion on your on the art itself. I've seen many great artists and author's go nameless on there works because they feel that thier art is what's important, and they want people to appreciate the art itself, not judge it by who made it.

"Names are things for the scorecards of police and historians. better to stay off the radar of both."
-Anonymous

[Amelia G]

I've worked hard to have an impact on the world around me, hopefully a positive impact, and I can't think of why I would want to avoid being remembered for it. I'm pleased with the things I have accomplished and created so far and that is a reward in and of itself, but I think it is a normal human desire and even need to also get credit for the things I have accomplished and created.