Worth checking for your models.
There’s alot there that are exclusive here so I’m going to assume they are legitimately hosted. Also the prices are absolutely wild.
And?
Unless you have the ability to have a lawyer reach out to them there is very little that can be done.
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These ones are stationed in Illinois, USA. You have a decent chance of recourse if you want to pursue it…
… but it looks like this one is pandering to the current USA political tribe and thus immune from real consequences, even if they were to be rightly brought up…
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You say, like you’ve spent a lifetime doing nothing and finally found a philosophy to match.
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Its a shady website on the internet.
Ask literally anyone who produces anything – there is very little recourse for this unless you’re willing to shell out for a lawyer.
There’s furry p*rn on stock image websites being sold as “clip art” like these sites are relentless. You’re wasting more time and energy worrying about a couple pennies slipping through your fingers when that time, energy and effort could be better used to provide a reason why your own supply (aka gallery, profile, patreon, yt, whatever) is the place to get these things because unlike them you can provide proper support.
I’m not saying to do nothing; I’m saying worrying about stuff like this is time and energy wasted on paranoia.
Its a hydra. You cut off its head and two more appear. You need to provide alternative reasons as to why people should get your content one way as opposed to the other. An excellent example of this would be Steam and (old) netflix: If you provide a better service that is more convenient then it doesn’t matter if people can get it cheaper or free elsewhere.
To me, it’s less about “pennies slipping through my fingers” and more about the desire for people to have the courtesy to abide by the terms they accept when downloading a file for free.
I don’t expect that it’s something that we’ll solve 100% but I’ve had some luck with sending messages to sites (even private ones like this one) to ask that they abide by the licensing terms of the model. There’s a lot of middle ground between resignation and hiring a lawyer.
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There is nothing you can do about that either.
People are going to be rude. People are going to use you. People are going to abuse you. And they are going to be in other countries different from you and there will be no easy way to get them to stop.
Piracy - yes, piracy if they are stealing your designs - is a service issue. This is a solved problem. The fact that steam, gog and other places exist and continue to exist despite the fact that everyone could just pirate everything proves this.
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The less hassle and better service you provide is what will win in the end and penny-pinching fretting and sweating about the small stuff is what will ruin you.
Hosting providers have to follow DMCA in the USA or they lose their safe harbor protection.
If your copyrighted model is on their site without consent - file a DMCA. Politics has nothing to do with it.
Source: I do operate a small hosting company based in the US and deal with DMCA regularly.
First make sure the models do in fact infringe on your copyrights. Then file a DMCA takedown notice with the platform.
If the platform doesn’t take action, and if the model is in MW Exclusive Models program, you can ask MW to help. It’s part of the benefits of the exclusive program.
Jon we’ve got somebody over here misquoting the Eurythmics, can we get a temp ban?
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
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