Post #128742 by ToonToonz on Fri, Dec 3, 2004 7:18 AM

To all my original art I sell I usually add a piece of paper (sometimes glued to back of work) that says to the effect that: "Yes, you own this original art, but no you can not copy it, make copies or it or sell copies of it. I retain the copyright to the work of art."

I had an art show opening a couple of weeks ago and an elderly gentleman (over 70) came up to me and was showing me a notebook full of all the fake postage stamps he was making from the thumbnails of my art he took from my website! He would then glue these "postage stamps" to "official" postage stamp collector´s pages and sell them at stamp collection fairs as collector foreign stamps.
He wanted me to autograph them all so he could get a higher price for them!
I told him to stop it immediately and destroy them all. He acted like he did not know what he was doing was illegal.
Not only was he stealing my art, but he was trying to pass it off to stamp collectors as stamps from foreign countries.
Amazing what people will do....
Then after that a guy came up and told me how he had bought one of my paintings a year before and printed up 500 postcards with my painting on it and sent them out to all his friends. ARRRRRRRRRGggghhhh!!!!