A serious case of art thievery (UPDATED)

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THIS IS AN OLD JOURNAL OF A 'CLOSED' CASE
I KEEP IT ON MY MAIN PAGE TO WARN PEOPLE
AND TO LET THE THIEF KNOW I'M STILL WATCHING HER


******* LAST UPDATE *******
I'm having trouble adding info on this journal without making it unreadable, and I'm using all my free time to gather more info and evidence of the theft.
Please read the comments of fellow artists down there, they explain much better than what I could possibly repeat here, and they are in chronological order. Thanks :-)

**** UPDATE ****
They found many of her images on Google+ at this address: plus.google.com/10694788924014…
If you please can check them and see if you recognize any of your artwork, stolen, posted there, please SAVE EVIDENCE of the theft before she takes it down!
There are now many angry artists decided to stop her for good, evidence is important!

---------------------------------------------------

Hi all.
I've been notified by :iconeresaw: (thanks!) about a website selling some of my artworks without permission.
This german guy owns a 'gallery' (sigh) which clearly contains stolen art from DA artists. Mostly fractal, fantasy and sci-fi artists. Unfortunately he only submits excerpts of the books he prints, so it's impossible to have a list of all artists who fell victim of his robbery without going to his gallery in Germany.

I already found images of some of my favorite DA artists in there, and I am alerting them as soon as I find their works.
I'm also saving the files he posted for future reference, even if he tried to forbid it by putting passwords on the PDF files.
Furthermore, I've alerted the DA Group :icondoombringers: and I'm sure their work will help.

In my case, he stole dozens and dozens of my artworks without permission, removing my signature and writing his, adding also a fake copyright symbol with an arbitrary year. Of course I have a dozen ways to demonstrate he can't be the author; he also made stupid mistakes which I can't reveal here to not alert him.

In my 5 years of experience on DA this is the second biggest art thievery I saw, after the famous one involving Chad Love Lieberman (you can laugh here if you remember that guy who used the money he made to insure his own nuts)

I NEED HELP from you all! :crying:

If you can please spread this and alert other artists, so everyone can check if their works were stolen, I would much appreciate it :-)

The website is: www.ma1stnews.de/galerie-maran… and you must navigate it clicking on the tabs below and above the images. Clicking on the images will open PDF files.

***UPDATE***
All the links to the books/calendars/prints on sell have been removed from his/her website on Tue Sept 17th 2013
***UPDATE***

For Facebook users: you can also check his page here www.facebook.com/pages/Maran-A…, where dozen of other rip-offs are shown. No need to add that every comment on his FB profile is very welcomed :-)

***UPDATE***
On Tuesday, September 17th 2013 at about 11:40 GMT he removed all stolen images from his FB page
***UPDATE***

I also found him on Flickr, Twitter, Google+, Youtube and Pinterest.

I am trying to have him removing my works for now, but every artist involved should ask him to do it. I know it won't be enough if he owns a physical gallery in his city; that's why I'm also considering measures to have his gallery visited by some kind of authorities.

I'm not accustomed to use DA as a social network for my personal problems, I just wish to add that my artworks are all I've left with in my life. This is a violation very serious to me and I won't have peace until I see a satisfactory end of this thievery.

Have a nice day everyone! :hug:


P.S. My artistic activity is on hold until I'll be able to calm down my nerves.


*****FINAL UPDATE*****
Thanks to all the artists on DA this person finally removed her illegal copies from Facebook, as well as from her online art gallery. In a surreal rant she said she was the victim and we, the original creators of the art she stole, were the cheaters :D

Anyway, this is why you can't find anymore proofs of her criminal activity on those websites. I saved some of her files though, available to anyone who could have doubts about my claims.

I still don't know if she actually owns a physical art gallery or printing shop or whatever. I'm trying to figure it out before deciding if and how best act against her to be sure she won't go on or restart her activity in the future.

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dieJodis's avatar
She still has some Fans on Pinterest.
Dunno if this is a friend of her, but...
www.pinterest.com/pin/26317979…
This woman has a lot of "Marans" work in her gallery, with all Information to puchase it.