Isn't Photobucket glorious? It's just a pit of copyrighted material. I think we could justly rename it deviantArt the Second, because most of us are on there anyway.

The problem is, we're copyrighted, right? People aren't supposed to be uploading our work to the site, much less hosting it there to display who knows where else, all without our knowledge. Make no mistake, it is illegal.

And to make it even better, most of the time, our works that are uploaded to Photobucket without authorization are also available as prints from the site, which means there are companies making money off our hard work, and we never see any of it.

So what do we do about it?

There have been some great articles on this already, but with a new wave of ripping awareness that's come up, I thought I'd tell you how I handled it.

After reading a journal =bewarecalamity posted about art ripping on Photobucket, I went straight to the site to find myself. How? Just go to the search and type in your deviantArt username--there are probably images of yours you won't find by this method, but thankfully, most of them will show up, because our usernames are in the filename when people save the art out of our galleries.

No search results? Lucky you! You get to go drink chocolate milk and eat Oreos while the rest of us have to work.

If you do find your work in the search results, you're probably wondering how to handle it, right? Photobucket has a section explaining how to submit an infringment notice, but I'm going to make it easier and just give you a notice template you can fill in. You'll send this to abuse@photobucket.com, once for each infringment you find.

What information you'll need:

A link to a location of your original copy of the file. In this example, I've used two--a link to the work in a dA gallery, and a direct link from my own Photobucket.

The link to the work that is illegally posted on the site. It's right on the page where the image is located--the Share URL or the Direct Link will both work.
<sub>[If you need to prove ownership of the work with a physical copy of it--such as a print--rather than a digital link, send it to:
Alex Welch
Copyright Agent
Photobucket.com, Inc.
PO Box 13003
Denver, CO 80201

OR, fax it to:
(303) 532-1099]</sub>

Hello,

This is a notice of copyright infringement. I hereby state that I have a good faith belief that the disputed use of the copyrighted material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law (e.g., as a fair use). The image in question is located at link to illegally uploaded image on photobucket. I, your name, am the sole copyright owner of this image _{(Of course, if you're not the only copyright holder--for instance, if the work was a collab--don't put this! Say something along the lines of "I hold an exclusive copyright to this work.")}; an original submission of this image can be found in my deviantArt gallery (ehmaysink.deviantart.com/art/words-61017225) or at this direct link (photobucket.com/whatever). I can be contacted at:
your address
your phone number
your e-mail

I hereby state that the information in this Notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that I am the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of the copyright or of an exclusive right under the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

Thank you.

your name

Just copy that, replace everything in bold with whatever you need to, and send it in. They had mine down within an hour. (They obviously get a lot of these notices.)

Congratulations! Now Myspace profiles the world over will be displaying "This image was removed" messages.

Other things to know:

If you are a member of any clubs whose galleries display your work, you may want to search using the club's username as well.

If you're feeling community-spirited, take a look at the rest of the account of the person who has uploaded your work. You may find art from other deviants uploaded there as well. If it is from dA, usually the artists name will be at the end of the file name, which you can find by looking at the Direct Link. ["words__by_ehmaysink"]

If you have any questions, feel free to note me!
JayLynn