When you’re working as an artist, especially if you are licensing your images, you get used to the idea that your artwork is going to get stolen, and it just comes with the territory. At first, I was able to deal with sending out takedown notices myself and getting things removed, and the companies seemed so small that I had doubts that they were actually making money off of my work, but it quickly got to a point that I couldn’t keep up with the amount of sellers that were stealing my work, and when I found one of my most popular pieces was being sold on big brand’s website and had hundreds of reviews of my particular design I was devastated. It got to a point where I would be selling my work at a market and people would come up and tell me they had my design on an item that I don’t sell the design on. I felt really powerless to do anything about it.

As soon as I started working with Edwin James, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much better I felt emotionally just knowing that someone was on my side and was fighting for me. This has really been the biggest difference! I wasn’t expecting anything in terms of compensation for the income I had lost, so that was a nice bonus, but I am most grateful for the sense of relief knowing that someone was taking care of finding all of the incidences of theft and that they were going to get removed from the marketplace. I feel more confident about continuing to share and sell my work online, and I’m able to spend more time creating art – which is priceless.

To view Ella’s work – follow Ella Mazur on Instagram