Spiritual Forum

I logged onto deviant art today and all my friend's journals were screaming with the same headlines. There's a guy who calls himself "Chad Liebarman" claiming to me a multi media artist who has been ripping off original works from DA (www.deviantart.com) and selling them at outrageous prices. He had even stolen a work from one of my friends there and he sold her painting for $1000USD!

I know this isn't really spiritual in anyway but the artist community could really use your help to have his site taken down, it just isn't fair to the artists who spend 20+ years of hardwork and dedication to their crafts to gain whatever little recognition they have only to have it ripped off by some scum bag in America and sold for double or triple their worth. The artists themselves wouldn't even charge that much for their own works.

What he does with the thousands of dollars he earns from the stolen works is even crazier, while the original artists are struggling with tuition fees, medical bills and general costly living expenses.

http://fourthfloorpro.com/2011/08/17/chad-love-lieberman-multimedia-pop-art-thief/

The sister site has been taken down as soon as all the angry comments flooded the news article but the main one is still up. He's changed the wording of the site since but it's still a blatant rip off of the original artists as he never gained their permission to sell them nor does he have any intention of giving them their money he earns from selling their works. 

You can find the article on him here and all the very angry artist's comments:

http://sflchronicle.com/news/entertainment/2010/05/love-conquers-all-chad-lieberman-tells-trees-how-to-succeed-in-multimedia-art/comment-page-2/#comment-29328

And you can find his website selling their works here:

http://67.90.44.118/

I can't really tell you how horrible it feels to have all your original ideas and hard work stolen like this, it's happened to me before and it's awful. A lot of people don't seem to understand why artists get so worked up about it, and it's hard to put into words why because art isn't really a spoken language. We're not trying to be selfish, but we don't appreciate our ideas being ripped off and other people claiming credit for them when they obviously didn't create them.

We're all about originality and finding our own unique ways of expressing ourselves. I've been through his site selling his works and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the styles change drastically from one painting to the next. Looking at them just from a glance I can tell he definitely did not paint those. If people could spread the word about this guy's theft it would be greatly appreciated by all the artists who had their works stolen. Hopefully they'll end up suing him for the money he owes them and his site will be taken down. A lot of have effects that are obviously created in programs like photoshop where his sites claims they were painted in soft oils. A huge lie.

List of artists with links to original and stolen works:

http://dlr4553.deviantart.com/journal/Art-Theft-Scam-253477205

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Update. I've come across some new information which I can't divulge but don't be surprised to see this in the media sometime soon, art isn't the only thing he's stolen and he's also the nephew of a presidential candidate and senator. The media will snap it up as fast as they can.