Advice on Art Theft...?

[mandyseley.livejournal.com]

Someone on DeviantArt just contacted me to let me know that my art had been "stolen." I've never had this happen before, and it's not quite the normal "posting my work and calling it their own" situation...

The person who contacted me was an artist who was commissioned to draw someone's character. Their customer gave them a reference image, which they thought looked familiar. As it turns out, it's a recolored version of a commission I drew a while back.

The original is here, and the recolor that this person showed me had the cat character painted over with black and purple, and my signature crudely scratched out (the person who contacted me has removed the recolor from their photobucket account now, though their customer is still using a cropped version of it as their avatar on this FA account)

The customer claimed they first found my original drawing here, on some site called e621 - a site I've never heard of...

I'm at a bit of a loss, here. They're not publicly posting the recolor as theirs (other than the FA avatar), but they are distributing it via email and were careful to remove my signature and avoid crediting me (or the character's owner).

So... what should I do, here? Is this enough cause for concern that I should approach this guy about stealing my work? Should I just let it slide because this is the internet and stuff like this is bound to happen?

Looks like I'll be watermarking work from here on, though. Sigh, I hate watermarks.

Update: The avatar was removed by FA admins, and the reposted image was removed from e621 once I asked the admin to take it down.

Comments

[mandyseley.livejournal.com]

I think the icon had already been taken down...? If not, that's the only thing I'd request, and the most I'd expect. Otherwise, the recolor isn't being displayed publicly, so I'm not really that concerned.

[witchiebunny.livejournal.com]

It has been, and that's fine.

If anything else comes up on FA, feel free to contact me.

[mandyseley.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your help. Thank you. :)

[starlight-art.livejournal.com]

The avatar was still there when I just looked, maybe he reuploaded it?

[slavkei.livejournal.com]

Looks like it's been re-uploaded again. Boy doesn't seem to learn very well...

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Someone tipped them off via shouts, also, if it was just defaulted and no note was sent to the user stating they're disallowed use of it because it's stolen art... then they'll easily just reload it.

Just my thoughts.

[mandyseley.livejournal.com]

I thought something had been said. I just sent a note explaining that it was a recolor of my work and asking him not to use it again. Should clear things up.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

I meant as in the admin who removed the recolour didn't themselves send a note saying that their icon is unacceptable due to the fact its stolen work. But hopefully now with your note, they'll get the gist of it.

[albinowolf.livejournal.com]

I think they reuploaded it. I still see the recolored version.