To all the artists and people who support them.

The Problem of Unauthorized Reprint and False Reports which uses the DMCA for a wrong purpose on Twitter

Since about September 2019, some incidents above happens in a fandom of the game I prefer and some artists' accounts had suspended. To the best of my knowledge, most of the victims are Japanese or people in other Asian country.
This damage has spread even to the official artists and official Twitter accounts of the game.

I know the following two types of methods for false reports.

i)The offender reprints illusts posted on twitter to other web page(like blog), and reports the original post as infringement of copyrights of their "original" work(of course it actually isn't their original ones).

ii)If artists had posted as same illusts as they have posted on Twitter to other services like pixiv, tumblr or instagram, the offender claims that the illusts posted on other services are their "original" works and reports a post on Twitter as infringement of copyrights.

In either case, if offender reports original artists' post repeatedly, Twitter think that the original post infringes copyright and suspend artists' account. By these methods, many artists in fandom I belong had damaged.

When looked into this issue, I found that in the past, various artists have been forced to suspend their accounts or have been adhered to for long periods of time using the same tactics.
Furthermore, we know that one company's official account was also affected in a similar way.

Obviously, if the offender reprints an illust to another page, the post date of that illust will be later than the original one's. However, Twitter usually deals with reports automatically and these contradiction of dates would be ignored.
Furthermore, Twitter accepts the reporter's personal data (it is needed when user reports someone's post) even if it obviously is a false one.

Because of the automaticity of twitter's report-accepting algorithm, it is hard for victims to deal with these false reports.
If you want to make an objection to Twitter's false punishment, you must disclose your own personal data to the reporter(offender). In most case, however, the objection won't be accepted because the offender uses the fake information(name, nationality, address, e-mail, phone numbers). And above all, it is too risky disclosing your own personal data to the offender.(FYI, you can avoid the disclosement by commissioning to an agent. it costs time and money though.)

Talking back to the game fandom, this situation once had been calmed down temporarily because the game's developer thankfully contacted directly to Twitter. But it continues occured certainly in 2020 by same methods and by same offender.

My account also had been attacked repeatedly. As a measure against that, I turned the account private and avoid to be suspended.
The offender reprinted my illusts to their blog and did false reports. As soon as I turned my account private, however, they deleted the blog.
I reported the blog to the administrator for an infringement of copyright, but they deleted it before the administrator checks my report and we couldn't confirm the facts. This occured June 5th, 2020.

I returned my account to public in July 7th, 2020 and published a new illust in 17th. A few minutes after that, I received some e-mail notifications saying that someone reported my illust as infringement of copyright.
It seems that the offender awaited for my account being public. They reprinted my illusts after it and did false report.
At that time I made a decision to consult a lawyer about this attack. I contacted to a law firm and awaiting the answer now.

After that, I continued activities at the conventional game fandom and new game fandom I started to play recently and made a new account on Twitter for new fandom. But in July 30th, 2020, I checked the offender's blog and found that the illusts I posted on Twitter(by This account, new account stated above and two other accounts) has been reprinted on it. At that time, I felt fear and disgust.

The above is all of what I 've seen and experienced. I saw some artists who quitted fan activity due to this incident. Under the present circumstances, it is very difficult to prevent this attack and we have few measures.

Even if you add Caution saying that "DO NOT reprint anywhere or use" on the illust, some people won't stop doing that. In addition, some malicious people will attack artists (like the case I've attacked).
I can't predict whoever will be attacked or whyever the offender attacks them. I hope Twitter will notice this problem and improve this situation.

Some artists use Twitter account as a portfolio and get jobs through it. For them the improvement of Twitter is very important and essencial.
I wish that artists and people who supports them can do their own activities at ease.
And I cherish connections with people on Twitter, so I will do my best to protect my account. Honestly speaking, my best wish is that I can use Twitter more comfortably and freely.

Finally, if you, reading this post, are doing or going to do these attacks, I believe not, I recommend you to quit it. I think your crime surely will be disclosed someday unless you are an expert of cyber criminal. Furthermore, If your crime have been disclosed, you will be obliged to pay huge compensation. It is none other than yourself that ruins your life.

Thank you for reading.

Japanese edition↓
https://note.com/nanbox/n/n5466e4a4872c