Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Art Thieves

The other night, I was contacted by an outside source letting me know that a few of my drawings (My Donkey Kong & Yoshi drawings I did back in '07) were stolen by some kid on this site called "scratch.mit.edu."

As you can tell, this really irks me.

It's not bad enough that this person took my artwork without my permission, but this kid has the gall to say that these are "his" drawings, claiming credit for my work. & not only is he stealing my stuff, but others too. Even though it's on such a small scale, it's still a immense outrage, nonetheless.

His/Her username is Yoshi645. Your mission (if you're willing to accept it) is to go to this guy's page & help me take this guy down. Flag his page, post comments, contact support, whatever! Tell him to give us hard-working artists credit or he'll get what's coming to him, one way or another.

This goes for all cases of art thievery out there. Young or old, professional or amateur, big or small... it doesn't matter, it's STILL WRONG! Do it for the artists!

*UPDATE* - Mission Accomplished! Thanks everybody!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I emailed Scratch to complain about stolen art from your site.
This kid claims to be a "GREAT FRIEND" of yours...
See comments: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/lego645/507451

Pam

Anonymous said...

Mike,
This is ridiculous. I accept your mission. I'm not doing it for "artists" I'm doing it for you. Plagarism is wrong, and it enrages me that it happened to a friend. You're a great artist and the credit for your hard work belongs solely to you. If I don't come out of this mission alive I would have died honorably (if having a rage induced stroke while leaving nasty comments on a stranger's website is honorable). This jerk is about to learn that plagarism is wrong.


Your Friend,
David Spector

Jimmy H. said...

One of his latest posts on his Scratch site, Lego645 says the following (with bad grammar skills)...

title: Message to all art theif hunters!
"I am not stealing art I am just admiring thier art work by putting them on projects to show the whole world how great it is I am not claiming I nade it I just like it!!!

So I am telling you to leave me alone and stop making my time on Scratch misrable I am not removing the projects.

Flag me and stuff all you want that is just showing that you are abusing the right to flag things."


This kid's full of shit. He's still committing theft even though he can't accept it.

From,
Jimmy Harrigan

Michael J. Ruocco said...

Pam, Dave n' Jim... thanks for helping me with this.

I've read nearly all of his comments & replies on my work as well as on his "I'm not stealing..." jibber-jabber post. This guy's not only a thief, but also stubborn, a jerk & a complete imbecile. He's really diggin' himself a hole now.

& I just heard from the guy who told me about this & he said that the Scratch people have warned him to either remove the images or give the true artists credit. Apparently, he has done neither. At this rate, he's as good as banned.

Thanks again guys for helpin' out. I appreciate the effort.