Whilst on Tumblr I can swear my heart out over some matter, I thought I should tone down when I'm blogging on Blogger. So here is a refined version of what I thought about this certain badly managed competition in Singapore, with a lot of swearings taken out (I mean if you want to read the angstier version search my Tumblr :/)

Its sort of like a manga-drawing competition, and there is no limited entries per participant so oh joy! Everyone just throw in whatever they have on their hands no matter what rubbish they are. Also, the organisers are so bad that there is several tracing and even outright art theft submissions.
Look

I mean erm guys...maybe you don't have scanners or whatever so you have to take photos that is perfectly understandable. But can you at least make sure it is rotated to the right orientation? This sort of submissions reflect the number of fucks you give to this competition, which is apparently 0. And that is very insulting to those who actually take it seriously, especially when your work is immediately pushed to the back by a horde of half-assed submissions. But at least those are simply annoying. The real problem is the art theft.

I emailed the manager to warn them about the art theft issue and quality check and here is what they said:

 We have updated the rules on the website to address the issue of plagiarism. You can find them under the “Latest News”. Do alert us if you have discovered any cases of plagiarism and we’ll address the issue accordingly. Thank you once again for your interest and support in this competition.

Hmmm. So I linked them the original video of Mark Crilley and also stated the person who stole the art. 1 month later, nothing was done! The art is still up there and although they edited the rules by adding one mere sentence of "make sure your work is yours" the news was hardly read by anyone (they didn't even highlight it! Who would bother to read through the entire news and try to spot the difference?

Also their amazingly brilliant promotional video really sets a wonderful example! Look its so well made featuring the most famous speedpaints on Youtube unfortunately not even credited


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMvTHmEHgA&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1

Here is their promotional video. They simply ripped off excerpts from different speedpaint videos and incorporate into their own and call it a promo vid. Apparently their concepts of respect for the artist works are seriously screwed and terrible. No wonder tracings and thefts popped up everywhere on their site.

Maybe they really didn't think that art theft and tracing was such a big deal. But I'm sure to artists like you guys it is. Imagine someone ripped off your painstaking piece and submit them for the compeition, claiming it as their own. Just think about it, your art became somebody elses without your permission, and those hours you spent on that work now belongs to another person who did nothing more that right-click + save. How would you have felt? Upset? Furious? Indignant? Or all?

I don't know about you guys but I take artist rights really seriously. I emailed them twice but nothing was done or will ever be done I think.

But here I am, appealing to whoever with the patience to read till here that perhaps we can do a small movement to raise a bit of awareness, even if it is just a little. Maybe if you are submitting for this competition, can you make one of your art contains a line that goes "Respect artist rights"/"No Art Thefts" etc or something along that line sort of message. It can be a speech bubble or a caption. And since there is no limited entries one of them wouldn't hurt I suppose?If the managers doesn't respond, at least the viewers of the website would know. Cliche as it sounds, who knows what will happen if no one ever take a shot?
Make it vivid, make it obvious, make it clear that artist rights needs to be respected. And tell them that every little bit of art pieces requires efforts and not to be stolen away by inconsiderate people like that. 

It is really just an appeal. I don't know if you want to do it or not. But I hope for the former. It could almost be a petition! And something worth petitioning for.

eeek thank you orzlll
Also heres the link to the competition:
http://www.siglap-youngillustratorawards.com/