The following document is a sample Cease and Desist letter. it is one of the first lines of defence to get artworks removed from sites. In a manner you can also use this to stop people selling your work offline too, but there is no way to enforce it or check.

It was downloaded from Plagiarism Today (https://www.plagiarismtoday.com)

DMCA artistic license

Dear Sir or Madam,

You are using a work that I own the copyright of. The name of the work involved is “<<WORK NAME>>“. It appears on a site operated by you at <<INFRINGING LINK>>. I have reserved all rights to this work, which was first published on <<ORIGINAL LINK>> in <<YEAR OR DATE OF PUBLICATION>>.

Your copying and or use of my work, which appear at the link above, is unauthorized. You neither asked for nor received permission to use the piece nor to make or distribute copies of them in the manner you have. Furthermore, you have taken credit for my work and caused confusion as to whom the original author of the work is. Therefore, I believe you have wilfully infringed my rights under 17 USC §101, et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $100,000. Further, such copyright infringement is a direct violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and International Copyright Law.

I demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of the work and all copies of it, that you remove any further works you may have stolen and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future. Furthermore, I demand that you post an apology on the site clarifying who the real author is and that you inform others that might have been misled by your misuse of the works’ origins.

If I have not received proof of compliance from you within 72 hours, I shall consider taking the full legal remedies available to rectify this situation including contacting my lawyer and/or your site’s administrators.

Sincerely,

<<YOUR NAME>>

Instructions

Work Name

Simply add the official name of the piece. If it’s registered anywhere that would be the name, otherwise the name of the piece as shown in any publicised places.

Infringement Link

Place here a link to the offending site page. The URL can be copy/pasted from the browser address bar and added. Make sure you remove the linking ability if you only want to show the URL. Some word packages actually auto add URL links.

Original Link

Here you will need to place the link to an authorised version of your image. It would be fair to say that Facebook and social media would not count to give authority to an image. Instead link to your website, or a portfolio site with some reputation like Behance.

Year or Date of Publication

The date of publication in the terms of images is the date you completed it. You may not have released that to the public on this date, but it’s the date you finished the piece. If it’s digital, this can be found via the info panel, and look for ‘Last Modified date’.
Legally, for copyright purposes they say if you send yourself a stamped copy, then this is evidence enough of date of origin.

Your Name

Add here you registered name. The one that you use as a creative entity.
DMCA artistic license

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DMCA artistic license

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