Found out my digital art was getting stolen because of a hidden EXIF setting

I noticed a random Instagram account reposting my stuff and getting way more likes. Dug into it and found out my export settings in Procreate were leaving my full name and even my city in the file metadata. Some sites scrape that data automatically. I spent an afternoon scrubbing all my old uploads and now I always strip EXIF before posting. Has anyone else dealt with people lifting your work from places like ArtStation?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary_kelly9h ago

Start checking everything before you upload it from now on. I had a friend who did digital painting on the side and someone straight up lifted a bunch of her portfolio from DeviantArt and started selling prints on Etsy. It took her months and a lawyer to get them taken down. She said the thief used the EXIF data to prove they had the original files or something like that. It's scary how easy it is for people to just grab your stuff and claim it's theirs. A lot of artists I know now run their images through a metadata cleaner before posting anywhere. Better safe than sorry, because once your work is out there it's a nightmare to get back control.

hollyramirez5h agoMost Upvoted

Is it really that big of a deal though? I mean, how often are people actually digging through EXIF data to steal art? Most people just right click and save.