alecrimcarmim

Just as a final update on the matter (hopefully): ex-client stopped harassing us with new accounts and so far we didn’t receive any extra updates on their stories (seems like they set it to private and that’s totally fine by us; in their safe space with the people they trust they can share anything they want. Our problem was with the open-public harassment they were doing).

For future reference, as for this specific situation we had never terminated a commission on this stage of development before. We try our best to provide a good experience for our clients, but we’re very strict with our TOS. Since the beginning this negotiation was walking the line of us being too soft with our own terms (trying to be sensible with the client and at the moment thinking the project would be good portfolio material so it was worth being more flexible), and in the end we got the raw side of the deal.  

Since we’re a new studio not much can be found of us online at the moment, sadly. As the brand our opinions on the matter might be taken less earnestly by people who do’t know us or our service, and for that we welcome anyone to ask our clients directly how the experience of working with us was. Most of them are tagged on our IG posts (of course, respecting their privacy and space). 

We thank you all for your time and attention on this matter and from this entire situation we plan on changing a few things on our TOS and procedures from Artistic Liberty in the future to prevent this kind of stuff from happening again [we’ll share here so other makers can have this testimonial to refer to if they want]:

▫️We’ll add a more detailed clause on cancellations // terminations on these designs made by us to prevent further claim discussions about this.

▫️The cancellation from our side will be more explained since for us Artistic Liberty slots are pick with the main objective of being a fun project and a good portfolio material. If during negotiations the client requests changes that make the project less interesting from production we’ll reserve ourselves to terminate the quote. We’ll also make it clear that on Regular Commissions the client has all the freedom in the world to request any changes desired, to request a character to be created from 0 and pay for that kind of service accordingly (our Artist Liberty services are way cheaper than regular commissions for that reason, and we plan on letting this more clear on the TOS too). 

▫️We’ll stop being way too reasonable with clients that send a quote request for this kind of project without having the money to pay upfront the initial nonrefundable 30% of the commission price. Most of the cases of clients that stole our art were from people who didn’t have the money upfront to pay but wanted to move forward with the commission anyway, under their word of paying us in the future. We trust our clients until being scammed, and for that reason we plan on protecting ourselves more from that kind of situation.

▫️We will request an ID from now on after the quote is analyzed and approved. Working overseas might making check those IDs more difficult but it’s better than having this kind of headache again in the future.

▫️Clarify even more that designs created during quote or during commission process are property of the studio until payment is complete and no designs can be claimed on cancellations // terminations. We’ll be stricter with also the use of unpaid claimed designs to be made into fursuits by other makers (that didn’t happen before, but better safe than sorry).

▫️Making sure to attach a PDF version of our TOS in the quote confirmation email and ask the client to read and confirm agreement again before sending the invoice for the project.

▫️Proofreading all the TOS with English native speakers to make the terms as clear as possible for future clients (as it is right now it was only proofread by Brazilian translators).

We welcome you and thank you in advance in helping us with your suggestions on this TOS changes, and we plan on posting a more detailed text on the forums, but feel free to PM/email us suggestions or corrections, we don’t want to flood this beware with further replies that are not direct related to the subject.

29 minutes ago, Celestina said:

How old is this individual? I'm concerned that you almost got into contract with a minor. An adult should understand the difference between reposting work that doesnt belong to them and archiving their continued harassment.

We only do business with people older than 18, and we ask for that to be confirmed on our quote application and said client did so during our first contact... Sadly we can't confirm it's age on their IG account or anything, all we have is the information provided during the application submission.

We just hope they stop harassing us and spreading half truths and misinformation. As I said on our last message, we don't plan on keeping track daily on what the client is doing/saying public (or to his followers/friends), since all that had to be said and exposed is here for anyone to see (at least of the public posts so far).

To be honest, all this situation made us learn a lot, and the most important it showed us to stand our ground and that there are places to share this kind of experience in order to help others not have to deal with this experience in the future (at least we hope so).

Just to keep the situation updated, we're posting more stories from client. We hope they do as they say and just let this rest. All that had to be said about this entire situation was said and once again, if a person doesn’t agree with a maker/artist terms, just don’t commish them, it’s that simple.

We thank you all for taking your time to read all this and follow the situation as a whole. We hope we don’t need to share more proof from that client and we’re glad to make this beware to spread awareness on this kind of behaviour.

12 hours ago, Bourbon said:

...I dunno this is a weird one for me. Artists have the right to cancel a commission when they want but with designing a character it becomes a little shakier because you effectively took their concept and claimed it as your own and are only deleting it due to the backlash. 

I will add their harassment of you is completely uncalled for and they shouldn't be making unfounded accusations or sending people to harass you. Nor should they be attempting to resell a design they never actually paid for...

Just to clarify this specific comment that is being used against us without context by the client to support their claim:

We deleted the design not because of the backlash, we did it because we don’t want to move forward with a design associated with drama. We try our best to provide the best service possible not only to our commissioners but also to people interested in buying our premade designs. We have no intentions of moving forward with a design tarnished with this kind of situation and it would be no problem at all for our lead artist to come up with a new design not even remotely close to that one using the same colours / mood if we feel like doing a edgy concept for a premade.

To summarize: we’re a positive brand that don’t want to hold on drama to get our designs/work sold.

We already got our art claimed without payment 3 times now (one of those we were able to talk with the person and sort that out, the other we just let go of it, blocking the user and blacklisting withour further drama - in this case the user kept the design quietly and by that time we didn't have time or energy to bring that to public and instead we just revised our terms of services and guidelines to prevent that from happening again, that happened almost at the same time as this specific situation and we had already sent the design to this client without the watermarkings, sadly) and for us the problem is the client attitude, stealing art is bad as it is, claiming unpaid designs is horrible, tarnishing a brand is even worst in our case since we’re beginning and we don’t need that kind of attention at all. 
 

Instead ol letting go of the design, the client is still using convenient half truths to claim de design and keep creating new accounts to harass us. Just to keep this post updated. The account blocked doesn't even have an icon, 0 followers, etc. And the stories are shared here to prove that the client is still keeping the design with minimal changes to to it. 

At this point this is just a matter of exposing messing behaviour. Don’t be like this, respect the makers, don’t commission from someone if you don’t agree with their work ethics / terms. 

And most importantly: don’t steal art no claim something as yours disregarding any effort of the creator.

37 minutes ago, Xaila said:

My only hope for this studio, is that after this incident they take to heart one of two things.

ONE: If you will be 'inspired' and do the work before money is exchanged; heavily watermark your pieces with 'UNPAID WIP' and do not give them in a high res format.

TWO: Don't lift a stylus until you get your money.

We learned our lesson on that behalf not even with this entire situation, but with a previous similar experience, and all the quotes for artistic liberty sent since have a disclaimer and a watermark to prevent this from happening again.

41 minutes ago, Bourbon said:

I have to say this beware is extremely strange to me. Due to the pseudo-legalize speak you're using to explain the situation it's hard to really understand what the commission was about. 

As someone who commissions art, I would be extremely aggravated if someone designed a character to my specifications, cancelled the commission, and kept or planned to resell the design elsewhere. I'm of the opinion that no work should have started before payment was exchanged. I dunno this is a weird one for me. Artists have the right to cancel a commission when they want but with designing a character it becomes a little shakier because you effectively took their concept and claimed it as your own and are only deleting it due to the backlash. 

I will add their harassment of you is completely uncalled for and they shouldn't be making unfounded accusations or sending people to harass you. Nor should they be attempting to resell a design they never actually paid for.

This is a messy situation all around. 

That was our last commission sent without the watermark because previously to this whole thing we had another design claimed without payment and we finally learned our lesson about that. The thing is that this whole situation happened out of nowhere and we didn't even know that the client was using our art as theirs or even tried to sell the design previously. It was an extra information provided to us by this website and we were very surprised the client had breached our TOS before even starting this whole mess.

We just decided to bring this to light because our reputation is very important for us, as being a new brand trying to establish our work in the fandom and getting backlash by a person who couldn't even respect the terms agreed on during the quote submission is something worth exposing for future people who work with this specific client.