Selbstverständlich sollte jeder, dem sowas passiert, auch darüber berichten können. Ganz einfach, um andere zu warnen (auch was deren Kunstwerke betrifft) und die Augen offen zu halten (man selbst kann sie ja nicht überall haben, um dann entsprechende Schritte einleiten zu können). Ob es schließlich den Effekt hat, dass Leute diese Sachen mit den geklauten Bildern nicht kaufen und damit die entsprechende Firma boykottieren, glaube ich allerdings nicht. Vielleicht sogar eher das Gegenteil. Aber immerhin kann man auf diese Weise zeigen, dass es nicht rechtens ist und man etwas dagegen tun kann und muss. Ist ja für den Künstler auch eine Art, auf das Problem aufmerksam zu machen. Es gibt ja genug Leute, die das alles überhaupt nicht so eng sehen und Bilder fröhlich kopieren. Letztlich ist es für solche Leute auch eine Warnung, wenn sie immer mal wieder sowas im Blog lesen und merken: "Aha, der Künstler ist da hinterher, da lass ich mal lieber die Finger von."

I think it's fine for the most part, but there's one artist who blogs about it all the time, and it just feels like it's become this like...."Oh my gosh, look how awesome I am, this big company wants to use my art. But oh my God they didn't pay so you should totally just bitch them out."
But, then again, I find that guy to be an egotistical jerk anyway. Sure he's talented, but...he's not -that- good and definitely doesn't deserve to act like that.
But for most artists, it's great, because it helps them get it taken care of. I don't think it's ever good to encourage people to flame other people, though.

I feel that it really depends on the case. I think that it is very important to handle it in a mature fashion and to have all your evidence lined up before making it a public matter. Bringing in outside parties will bring awareness but it will also raise people's defenses and can be counter-productive.

Some artists on DA claim their art has been ripped on a regular basis. One girl claims almost weekly that her style (chibis) gets ripped on a regular basis. These are definetly not all rips and causes alot of harressment to the so called "theifs" which is shameful. Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf? It applies to art theifs as well.

In your case, I think you are doing the right thing. Getting the evidence all lined up and looking for help collecting the shirts. Once you have that evidence I would take down the blog until the matter is resolved. Make sure you find out what happened, perhaps the company bought the image from someone claiming to be the artist. For all we know, Zara could think it has the rights to the image. So be careful to bring lawyers in and go after the proper theif.

I'd stick to a police catchphrase in this case. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you said can be used against you in court." Don't know if I write that right. I just heard it often in movies.

Writing a blog about a large company's thievery is pretty risky. They could sue you back for defamatory. And things could get very murky afterwards.

If I were you, I'd stick to my lawyer. And supporters. And I'd carefully choose my words when talking about this topic.

And finally, I wish you luck.

yes of course!! If you will not defend your artwork from theft then who will? Don't you ever let other people tell you what to and not to do. You have every right to blog about whatever you want and you have every right to defend your copyright.
Anyone who trys to tell you otherwise is not a good person to be talking to anyway.

Blogging about theft can be either a good thing, or a bad thing. In your case, I believe you had every right to blog about it. You have so many people out there trying to help you find the shirts in question and without all the support and help searching, you probably would have a much harder time finding the shirts. You've got people all over the world looking for you. That's amazing. Big companies shouldn't be able to prey on the little guys like this.

Now, if someone is a person that likes to start dRama and blog about how this person stole your character design or this person too heavily referenced a photo and basically just do it to go on witch hunts all the time... then no. You shouldn't be blogging about art thieves. Immaturity like that is horrible. These things need to be taken care of quietly without all the flamers being sent to attack people here on the site. There are okay ways to go about it and wrong ways. Your way, was completely right.

Of course it is! Otherwise, how can you get people to help you?

I voted "yes" but am leaning between that and "it depends".
To use the case of yuumei, since it's recent, what she did- talking about what she saw happening and the reactions (or lack of reaction) from the responsible parties- is professional. She didn't say "Scholastic is bad and doing this on purpose" or anything like that, she just said "Here's my work, here's the copy, here is what has happened in my attempts to deal with this."
The problem, I feel, comes not from that or the people who, reading that, went on to write to Scholastic "Hey, pay attention" but the third level people who read the people re-posting the information and sought to find and harass the young woman whose work was in question. Plagerism is wrong, but harassment is also wrong and it just makes the whole environment worse.

I feel conflicted about sites like "You Thought We Wouldn't Notice" because of that. It's really essential that artists be business savvy, which includes using the internet for all of it's free communication potential when something goes wrong, but the tendency of people to veer from "That's no good, I'll write and ask as well" towards "That person is evil; we should all make her life miserable" isn't professional, appropriate or productive.

Definitely!! This is a very important topic - it affects the entire art community, as well as having to do with copyright laws and big companies taking advantage of artists.

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yes