art theft has to stop. today, i was looking around on one of my favorite artist's profile (unnamed purposely) and found out that they hadn't done any of their artwork. it was all stolen from the internet, dA, scratch, and all over and they had lied and lied and lied. they kept on defending themselves. and when they finally got exposed: they did the usual, excuses, excuses, excuses. they guilt tripped many people all to save their good name. and now i'm hoping the usual won't happen. that one person makes a project about the thief, and everybody starts targeting them, saying mean things, spamming their profile, making nasty projects, and even making accounts about how much they hate the person. everybody has lengthy screaming matches, and then the scratch team comes and permanently bans them all. that isn't what scratch was created for! scratch was created to have fun, to learn to code, to make friends, and to learn from others. to code beautiful artwork and games. to have fun, not think you aren't good enough and steal and bully and ruin the experience. so if you are reading this, i know you are a good person who doesn't do things like that. even if you are, you made a mistake but if you apologize sincerely then people will forgive and forget. no excuses. if you spot theft, quietly report them. don't attack them, kindly let them know. scratch team will deal with it and take it down. please, help the art community and spread the word.