Hi, I’m KitCameo! This is my first time posting here, but I was one of the very first buyers of the Glowforge when they started the crowdfunding campaign. I’m usually stuck in the black hole that is Facebook, so I very rarely post on any other forums. I wanted to finally introduce myself here, though, for a couple of reasons. First, because I wanted to share what it is that I do, and what I’m hoping to use my Glowforge for, and second, because I want to familiarize other Glowforge owners with my designs so that if they stumble upon them uploaded somewhere else, that they don’t mistake them for public domain designs (I’ve had many people steal my designs throughout the past few years, so I’m trying to get ahead of it here.)
I’m an artist, who started out with glass etching in 2007, and then moved on to many other mediums throughout the years. My latest venture has been intricately designed, hand-cut paper snowflakes, mostly with pop culture themes. Because of the pop culture snowflakes, several of my pieces were shared virally over the past few years, and people seem to really like them. What I’m hoping to use my Glowforge for is to create laser cut versions of snowflakes I’ve already designed, and either use them as more durable art pieces, or place those designs onto other surfaces, such as lamp shades, leather, glasses, and acrylic pendants.
Below is an example of one of my snowflakes that I created for an art show last year, “The Munsters Snowflake”, but if you’d like to take a look at some of my other work, here is my website: www.kitcameo.com
Btw, I hate to say this, but GF and other laser cutters are probably going to make it very easy for people to copy your general snowflake idea, if not your specific s.f. designs.
And not sure if or how you would be able to stop them from doing that…
Hopefully all GF buyers at least are people with integrity & respect for other artists…
I don’t mind if other people make snowflakes, but I will mind if they recreate my designs. That’s why I’m posting here, so that Glowforge people will get to know me, know my designs, and will give me the heads up if they see anyone using a GF to copy my work.
This wouldn’t be such a huge problem for me if I was a well-known artist, where people could see something that looks like mine, and say, “Hey, I think that’s a KitCameo!” Like, when someone copies Matthew Inman artwork, the people who see it will usually get redirected to him, so that they can check it out from his own websites. But that’s the problem with being an artist; you put yourself out there hoping that people will have interest in what you do enough to buy it from you, or at least spend time on your websites, but you always run the risk of someone else just flat-out stealing it, and that has happened to me so many times that I’ve almost quit everything several times now.
Somebody actually stole a photo I took of our family pet, and put a watermark in, along with a caption that said, “OH HAI!” and they made an extra sidebar with another caption in it, along with their own shop logo. My original photo got one like on the page I made for our pet, and their stolen photo with their sidebar and logo (along with my watermark still in the middle of the picture) got over 100,000 likes and shares on Facebook. People even stole their stolen photo and re-uploaded to their own pages to give it thousands more views, but all with the other shop’s logo on it. Never mind getting paid for them using my image, I didn’t even get the benefit of “exposure” from it!
Totally understand where you are coming from, because it has happened to me and also to my husband. And in similarly brazen ways. It certainly does put a damper on putting your art out there. The worst of it happened to us before there was even an internet; it has to be orders of magnitude worse now.
You have no idea how annoyed Matt gets when a top-50 website rips off his cartoons without attribution. That’s not cool for anyone.
Fun trivia: someone freebooted the glowforge video to Facebook (with no link), where it got 15M views.
We have a great deal of respect for designers’ work and want this to be a welcoming place for people to share knowledge and still be able to earn a living.
I remember Matt’s war with that website, Funnyjunk(?), I think it was called. I reposted the hell out of his rants about it, especially when he added the fundraiser. I loathe the constant stealing of content on the internet. In fact, I have a mini ragefest whenever I see those videos that people downloaded from someone else, added a tumblr thread or comment to, and then re-uploaded to their own pages without attribution. And I don’t even make videos myself, I just know how absolutely infuriating that must be to the owners of the original videos.
I don’t doubt that Matt gets pissed when someone rips him off, but he’s well known enough by now at least for his fans to be able to set the thief straight, or anyone sharing their content, right away. When someone steals my content, I don’t find out for months later, if ever, after it’s already gotten thousands of shares. It’s especially frustrating because I’ve had pieces duplicated by thieves that I haven’t even been able to sell the original of yet. I watched that movie Big Eyes the other night through tears at some parts, and it’s not meant to be a sad movie.
My favorite thing about Google is: right click “Search Google for image.” It’s more difficult for videos, though, but I always try. My brother made the BaneCat videos with our pet, Viva, and so many people stole that video and re-uploaded it!
Here you go: