@Al!naJames:
Guys, I need your help. Maybe even some literal physical help from people who live in Australia.
There's this piece of shit website that sells bootleg merchandise and pirated posters/cups/etc with stolen artwork all over and they are using my artwork of Perona (my re-drawing + colouring of manga panel) without my permission to print bodypillows http://au.hellocosplay.com/one-piece-perona-body-pillow-p-4522.html !!!
I've been writing them countless emails, asking them to apologize to me and take it down (I'm not even asking for any money, I don't think I have rights to since it's my re-make of Oda's picture, not entirely my own mind property), but all I've heard back from them was "you can't prove it's yours" (while I obviously CAN since it was originally uploaded to my webpage back in 2010 and it had my signature too which they cut off, and I also have original .PSD file with layers and all).
So the question is - can somebody from Australia actually PLEASE report them to police? With a copyright violation and piracy claim? I would greatly appreciate. I tried to contact local police here but they say it's out of their credentials and I suspect it will take years to investigate this from our side.
Any advice on the situation would help.
I know many other artists from Pixiv whos artworks they've stollen the same way they stole mine, I'd like the site to be entirely closed and it's owners sued to pay revenues to all artists they've damaged.
Maybe I should create a separate topic for this?
Holy crap Al!na!! That's hardcore!! I guess if companies like Bandai have a tough time cracking down on bootleg piracy, then an individual trying to stop production of a single item sounds like a real challange!!
Plus, unless this shop is actually manufacturing these, you may well find that the problem is even more widespread, with them actually being supplied from a factory who is selling these wholesale to a lot of merchants around the globe!!
Good luck Al!na!
Update:
I ran the site through AVG's web checker which advised that the site was hosted in the US: http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety-reports/domain/hellocosplay.com/
Which prompted me to search for there other regional stores, and they have multiple:
US
http://www.hellocosplay.com/one-piece-perona-body-pillow-p-4522.html
UK
http://uk.hellocosplay.com/one-piece-perona-body-pillow-p-4522.html
So you may well find that the originating company is registered in North America, the fact that it's a round figure of $35 on the US site suggests to me that it is!! Good luck!