Bought a $40 set of digital brushes and they were all stolen assets

I dropped $40 on a brush pack for my fantasy map software last month thinking it would save me hours of drawing rivers and trees. Turns out the guy just ripped assets from free brushes and resold them with a filter. Even the mountain outlines were traced from a well-known free pack I already had. Has anyone else run into scam brushes on places like Etsy or some smaller map maker forums?

2 comments

2 Comments

harper_gibson228d ago

Lmao I gotta disagree here man. $40 for a brush pack is chump change compared to the time you'd spend drawing those assets yourself from scratch. Even if some of them are "stolen" or traced from free packs, the value is in having everything organized and ready to use in one download. Most people buying these packs don't have time to hunt down every free brush and test them out themselves. Plus, the original creators of those free assets probably don't care about a small time reseller making a few bucks on Etsy. They put their stuff out there for free for a reason, so it's not like anyone is losing money here. Honestly feels like you're just upset you could have gotten the same thing for free, but that doesn't make the seller a scam artist.

elliotl2427d ago

You said they "put their stuff out there for free for a reason," but that reason isn't so someone can bundle it up and sell it for profit. If you give away free brushes, it's usually to help other artists or build your name, not to become someone else's product. And the idea that creators don't care about reselling is wishful thinking. I've seen plenty of smaller artists get rightfully upset when they find their work being sold without permission, even for small amounts. It's not about the $40, it's about the principle of taking something that was offered freely and turning it into someone else's income stream.