Cheating in painting competitions

[Nameless]

I copy the post of Anne Foerster from Reaper forum. Such lame behaviour should indeed be punished. Our worldwide painting community, acting mainly online, has to defend itself from cheaters.

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So, Zinzig was nice enough to bring this to my attention. This kind of thing really makes me disgusted. Here's how easy it is to steal a picture of a model painted by a professional and win yourself $25 worth of free product, folks:

Jonas Kane masquerading as painted by someone else (scroll down to number three)

And here's the email I sent the guys at Miniatures Market:

"Hello,

I thought you might like to know that one of your entrants in your February Painting Competition is cheating. The Jonas Kane (number three in February's contest) was painted by me, and the picture pirated directly off of the Reaper website. Please remove it from your page, as it is copyright Reaper Miniatures and the person in question is using it without permission (as well as being a liar and cheat in general!). I am CC:ing my CEO on this email. Here's the link to the pic on Reaper's site, if you need proof:

Jonas Kane as painted by Anne Foerster

Thank you very much. This kind of poor sportsmanship, greed and dishonesty really makes me disappointed in gamers and painters today. I appreciate your time and hope you will see fit to note on your boards or site that this kind of thing is unacceptable.

Sincerely,

Anne Foerster
Reaper Miniatures, Inc.
Lead Staff Painter, Paint Line Designer"

This sort of rank dishonesty is just flat out disgusting and deserves that the name of the cheater be trashed up and down across all painting discussion boards, assuming it can be discovered. Heck, I almost wish I would have waited so we could find out who it is and expose 'em publicly. And please, please, if you DO see an entry in a painting competition online somewhere that you wonder "Hmmm, that doesn't seem to be the kind of thing so-and-so would enter" or "Hey, doesn't that model belong to Reaper?", please let the company, painter, or just the community at large know, so that perhaps word will get back to the real painter and they can then step forward.

Thanks so much guys (and super thanks to Zinzig)!

--Anne

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The whole thread can be read HERE

[paintminion]

I posted on the Reaper Boards, but I'll post it here as well.

As a competition manager, I have only the community to rely on to tell me if something is suspicious. It's happened before at gen Con and I hope it never happens again, but I don't see a third of what's out there ( if that much!), so never ever be afraid to SAY SOMETHING to any competition about an entry. This community must police it's own, sad but true.

[mahon]

it's so sad and so shameful of the person who did it.
wow, I am still shocked.

of course such things happen every now and then, but it's sad to see people don't stop trying...

[Demi_morgana]

naaasty
but unfortunatelly nothing un-common: such thing happened even here, IIRC some guy tried to enter contest with minis painted by Irkuck and DEMON_COLOR

[ToMaZ]

And that was even a GD competition right?

It's one of the disadvantages of the internet. Images can be stolen with 2 clicks of your mouse and you're anonymous. So in this community, even if someone finds out who it is, create a new email adress, a new account/username and you're ready to go again. It has been done a lot before and ppl will keep on doing it!

[Nameless]

of course TMZ, but have to minimise possibility of such things. That's why I started this thread. Not only to stigmatise this particular person but to show all cheaters that painting community would not accept cheating and they might appear on any forum across the world with 'lame cheater' brand on their foreheads.

[Dargrin]

Wow. This is why I didn't enter this one because of this fig.

[ToMaZ]

of course TMZ, but have to minimise possibility of such things. That's why I started this thread. Not only to stigmatise this particular person but to show all cheaters that painting community would not accept cheating and they might appear on any forum across the world with 'lame cheater' brand on their foreheads.

How are you going to minimise it?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't do anything about it. I hate cheaters, any kind of cheaters.
But how can you brand someone while he or she just drops one profile, creates another and then starts from scratch again?

I'm fairly sure that 90% of the community is honest, because where's the fun is showing off with someone else's work, and getting credit for something you didn't create?
Ofcourse people's honesty will change rapidly if there is money involved...

Understand that I'm not trying to be negative or say it's useless, we just need to realise that it won't really have a huge effect. Thanks to the big anonymous monkey palace we call internet.

ofcourse, if I would find out that someone used my pics (not likely) I would hunt him down and castrate him If I could find out his name...

*post could be a bit chaotic because I have to jump in and out from work*

[Nameless]

there is not much what we can do, indeed. I will nevertheless try to.

[ToMaZ]

Sure, me too... I just don't expect too much from it.