Sijun Forums :: View topic

Enayla · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:11 pm

Well, this concerns more people than just me, actually. http://www.kirith.com/
Is a new place that posts roleplaying games portraits entirely without credits, and some of them in altered forms. I've got tons of my pictures there.

I have found no way of contacting the people responsible. No way of getting them to take my stuff down. I really hate when this happens because I end up being told by OTHER people not to use MY art because it's already in use at places - and that I have no copyright anymore before my stuff is just clipart.

It's driving me insane. Who do these people think they are? How can I get hold of them? They've gone ahead and altered some of my pictures, in hideous ways, and I have no way of doing anything about this.

Help?

Dr. Bang · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:25 pm

here's something i found about them on register.com

Organization:
Mundi King
Mundi King
22 Main Street
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US
Phone: 407-943-7500
Email: [email protected]

Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com

Domain Name: kirith.com Enter amount (min $200.00)

Created on..............: Mon, Jan 01, 2001
Expires on..............: Wed, Jan 01, 2003
Record last updated on..: Sat, Nov 03, 2001

Administrative Contact:
Mundi King
Mundi King
22 Main Street
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US
Phone: 407-943-7500
Email: [email protected]

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 212-798-9200
Fax..: 212-629-9305
Email: [email protected]

Domain servers in listed order:

DNS1.PHOENIXAT.COM 66.43.128.31
DNSN.PHOENIXAT.COM 66.43.128.10

wigin · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:25 pm

man that REALLY REALLY REALLY sucks crap.. hmm... i just wonder how you found that site ?

Enayla · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:30 pm

DrBang... I can't thank you enough.

*sits down and tries hard not to write a furious email*

A very nice person gave me the link, that's how I found out.

edible snowman · member Member # Joined: 12 Sep 2000 Posts: 998

there's stuff from other people on this board too, or at least raist i think.

jr · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:51 pm

jason manley, boris vallejo, and some other stuff, people upload other people's images.... you can tell the guy to put some rules up there about copyrighted material.

Enayla · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 9:55 pm

I told him to change the setup of the site because he has tons of copyrighted material there.

He has nearly every character portrait I've ever made...

wootkoos · member Member # Joined: 20 Jun 2000 Posts: 64

Enayla: Kissimmee, FL is only a few hours away from here. Want me to go down there and kick there asses?

Enayla · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2002 10:24 pm

wootkoos: Oooh, how I'd love that ;] But I'd rather not end up in prison... heheh.

S4Sb · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 5:41 am

How did you get that info Dr.Bang?

Vesuvius · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 7:30 am

there are different internet site registries, it's a whois lookup... do a search for URL or DNS registries in a search engine.

faustgfx · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 7:36 am

yeah. or if you're too lazy to fuck around with search engines, do a domain whois on www.internic.net , find the registrar/dnameserver/domain/asdf's url and get the info for the domain name from there.

https://joker.com/index.joker?t_whois=fgfx.com&tool=whois

=\

Mindsiphon · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 11:07 am

I've sent an email to kingmundi@hotmail AND to [email protected]
I checked out the newsgroups on google.com and he used to post in the php newsgroup.

I have a feeling his email may be out of date and his website is a bit dated. Most of my work on there is about a year old.

Anyway I plan to have our attorney follow up with an email then to contact him via telephone if he doesn't take the pics down.

Spread his email and phone # around.
I will be posting both on my personal site.
Hopefully he'll get barraged with complaints.

Enayla · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 2:03 pm

...

[ January 06, 2002: Message edited by: Enayla ]

Mindsiphon · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 3:53 pm

I still have not gotten a response from him and I sent him 3 emails demanding that he take down the images. So0 far no luck.

Mindsiphon · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 4:09 pm

Check it out. I did a whois search for his hosting company http://www.PHOENIXAT.com and the registrants address and phone # are identical but the registrants name is Vince Barnes and his email is [email protected]

Registrant:
Vince Barnes
22 Broadway
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US

Domain Name: PHOENIXAT.COM

Administrative Contact:
Barnes, Vince [email protected]
22 Broadway
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US
407-943-7500

Technical Contact:
Barnes, Vince [email protected]
22 Broadway
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US
407-943-7500

Billing Contact:
Barnes, Vince [email protected]
22 Broadway
Kissimmee, FL 34741
US
407-943-7500

Record last updated on 02-Dec-2001.
Record expires on 21-Jun-2004.
Record Created on 22-Jun-1995.

Domain servers in listed order:
DNSN.PHOENIXAT.COM 209.114.210.194
DNS2.PHOENIXAT.COM 209.114.210.196
DNS1.PHOENIXAT.COM 209.114.210.200

The previous information has been obtained either directly from the
registrant or a registrar of the domain name other than Network Solutions.
Network Solutions, therefore, does not guarantee its accuracy or
completeness.

Enayla · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 5:03 pm

I contacted someone that obviously knows this guy, as well.

If you go to his site, you'll see that the galleries are currently down for maintenance. If we're lucky, that's our pictures being removed.

*crosses fingers* =)

Mindsiphon · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 5:17 pm

great news!
*crosses fingers also*

Enayla · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 5:24 pm

Hopefully, there are still some reasonable people out there.

What frustrates me to no end is that in situations like this, I always get accused of being a bitch. That I hurt people's feelings because I ask them to remove the images.

They never take into consideration the time I (and everyone else who draws) put into the pictures, nor the effort. Who has the right to be pissed off?

The person who might've spent up to ten hours (or more for that matter) making a picture, or the person who downloaded from the other's site, and then uploaded it to his/her own?

Blech, I say. Blech.

[ January 06, 2002: Message edited by: Enayla ]

Frost · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 6:19 pm

Enayla -- I fought and defended my ground on some newsgroups where you wouldn't even imagine how much art and such is illegally distributed in large volumes, full-resolution, high quality scans and whatnot of artists' works blood and sweat... but, there are a lot of selfish, close-minded individuals out there who beleive that the world is theirs for the taking. It's all legal until they get caught...

Best of luck with this.

Enayla · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2002 6:33 pm

Frost: That really sucks. Some people haven't got a shred of respect in them.

Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

Enayla, Frost, Raist,

I hate to say it but you might want to consider going back to watermarking (or whatever it is called) your pictures so if they are stolen, it is clealy marked across the image. While I do not like this from a viewer standpoint, it might be one of your only options against the right click and save crowd

Binke · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2002 11:35 am

Oh good, they forwarded the URL I found to you. I just stumbled around on it while searching for icewind dale portraits.

Hope it works out. Lots of a-holes out there.

Enayla · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2002 11:44 am

Binke, you're the one who found it? Thank you so much, then =]

I'm in contact with the guy now and he's working on taking the pictures down, so that's all good. He was very reasonable about it, actually (though that doesn't help much since he snagged them without permission in the first place)

Novacaptain · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2002 7:25 pm

Wow. The way you all co-operated with this is amazing. I looks like a high-level investigative police investigation. I'm glad to see that people are willing to fight to defend our (copy)rights.

Tip of the day:

Mailing original or a copy of artwork in a sealed envelope to yourself will give you a postal stamp with a date that can serve as evidence that you "had it first".

TOTD message end.

Flinthawk · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2002 7:52 pm

Oh wow, one of my very first digital illustrations is up on that site. It got a really good response from online gamers but I never really thought any of my stuff would be used in this fashion. How weird.

roundeye · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2002 7:56 pm

putting art on the internet is like putting a bowl full of candy in a gradeschool class of hungry retards, and then leaving the room. sometimes the honour system dosent work, and sometimes its hard to blame retards.
bad analogy? how about posting your credit card # and expecting people not to use it? yeah most wont, but its not so shocking that 1 person might.

Enayla · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2002 11:49 pm

I'm not surprised, in all honesty, because this happens all the time... but I was pissed off. Nearly all the portrait pictures I've ever made (and that's a lot, mind you) were up on that site.

They're gone now, though, but I received a number of rude emails from another person. Claiming that using my art like that would be counted as 'fair use' and that I, basically, had no rights.

Hrr...

Ben Barker · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2002 12:44 am

It's not fair use. Heh, yeah... right. Fair use indeed.

Frost · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2002 6:46 am

Roundeye: Hehe... I do agree actually. =)