Beware the plagiarism-bots! At least some artists are fighting back:
"Sorry to say, but you're probably picturing art thieves all wrong. Gone are the days
of suave scoundrels in black turtlenecks Cirque du Soleil-ing down domed ceilings to
switch Monets for money. Today, an art thief is just some douche who uses algorithms
to steal from struggling artists on social media to secretly slather their work on
sweatshop-grade t-shirts. But other social media artists want to fight these awful
practices, and they're delivering payback in the only currency they know -- exposure.
Putting the laundry back in money laundering, shady online t-shirt printers are
constantly having bots scour social media to swipe any and all images linked to
keywords like "T-Shirt" and "money." It has gotten so bad, online artists are starting
to warn their fans to no longer to show their appreciation by commenting something
like "I want that on a T-shirt," because that command will summon an intellectual
property thieving bot to fulfill that wish like a flea market bootleg 'Genny' from
'Aladdoon'.
But other artists are getting more creative in putting the word out. Instead of telling
their fans not to draw the auto-art thieves to their work, they want the exact
opposite, subtly asking fans to lure them in so they can steal and commercialize their
posted images -- which all happen to be either useless copyrighted sketches of
corporate mascots..."
See:
https://gizmodo.com/i-want-that-on-a-t-shirt-1840273177
&
https://www.cracked.com/article_2690...-scammers.html