Yeah, I hear ya. You're probably right it's not something I need to worry too much about. But I think I'm conditioned to be very conscious of copyright and in general IP protection. It's rampant in the graphic arts world(and in many others, I'm sure). Pretty much to the point it's considered acceptable. Ever heard of Fiverr.com? How else does an artist make any money creating a logo for five bucks? The BS is pervasive. Even on Etsy. Countless superhero items. I can't imagine ANY of them are legit. And Etsy just lets it happen. Anyway, I drifted off topic a bit. I try to keep a tight, heavy lid on my IP whenever possible. In this case, I don't think I'm losing out on much by holding out on downloads, so I've decided to go freebie and see how Leaf's “pay what you want” philosophy works out. Thanks again for all the good advice.
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I feel you, I am a graphic designer myself. I know of the ridiculuss situation. A friend of mine (a german illustrator) was notfiied some day that a few of her works where printed on pillow cases somewhere in china. Sold on the streets of shanghai.You can do nothing about it.
I dont know about fiverr.com but similar sites from germany. They have modular system with logo parts and put them together in 5- 10 mins. At least some of them. But they are sold mostly at 30 - 100 Euros not 5 dollar. :D
You can't fight piracy without a massive legal budget. Even then its futile if the pirat operates from somewhere remote and most artists I know don't even have the money to send a cease and desist letter.
If you see a copyright violation of your stuff you can inform websites like etsy and others to take the them down. But it is your obligation as copyright holder. Not that of the website owner(differs from country to country of course).
Glad I could be of help. I will follow you.
The main problem however is that large companies like Marvel/DC/Disney don't bother going after small vendors. Probably not worth their time. But if you're a legit schmoe trying to sell your artwork, say putting your own robot design on a night light, you are losing sales to the guy selling R2-D2 night lights. Sure, many customers may only have bought the R2-D2 but there may have been a significant number to have bought yours if Etsy bothered to police this situation a little better. It's not like they are unaware. But they ignore the situation as long as they can get away with it since they'll make more overall sales that way. And Etsy has been called out by their vendors for other dishonest practices but I've already gone way off topic here. In any case, as a vendor you're left with the choice to try to compete with dishonest vendors, risk doing it yourself, or staying out of it altogether...by trying something else, like making a video game ;)