Thank you my dear @siamcat
I had initially assumed, and so did those affected, that these actions were initiated by nTOPAZ - well, as I have found out, this was wrong.
You had banned this Jaguar from nTOPAZ, and one would have to establish a time frame which could tell if further hounding of nTOPAZ artists and for example posts by @adelepazani that go back half a year or longer, were perhaps a vindictive reaction to such a ban.
When it comes to blatant violations of copyright, I think that the bottom line should be civility, and not hitting some young artists (that do not know any better) with a nine-iron right away. I would say there is a problem if they persist after warnings that they just copied etc without revealing the sources, but there should be a 3 strike rule before taking action, and I know that your moderators on nTOPAZ are handling this with respect for the artists. I am sorry that my initial assumption was that nTOPAZ had done this, when in fact you were victimized by these actions to the point where artists are leaving your platform over this!
Also: if you flag someone for copyright violation, than you have to be an expert on copyright to be sure that a actionable case exists (and even judges and copyright lawyers are not always sure). Fair Use for example is not defined with hard borders - what is fair use to one judge is not to another. Getting your "wisdom" from opinion pages on deviantArt for example does not make you an expert.
CIS Fair Use Legal Experts Answer Fair Use Questions - Stanford Center for Internet and Society
One of the answer by the legal expert on this video about Fair Use is:
"You are always free to be inspired by another work - ideas are never protected" 17:37
Hi Otto, I looked through the correspondence between @adamada and Jaguar that happen today, so far I understand from the explanation if Jaguar he received a request to investigate from I cite "prominent art curator" so it would be interesting to know why that person is behind the scene and not coming up now to calm the waters when the whole conflict is out of control. You may have some contacts between Art curators would you be able to research who the person is !
"said art curator" - there are not that many on nTOPAZ, and @siamcat could probably find out. On the other hand, this could be a blatant lie, considering that Jaguar was banned from nTOPAZ.
I was a art curator there myself, but found it was too much work filling out spreadsheets, and it interfered with my studio time, so I quit. Prominent? - now I am curious!
And why would a curator or moderator ask someone from the outside to do what they can do themselves? If you wanted to, you could join steemcleaners on Discord and file your own reports there. Anybody can do that. You can also file at other channels, like artzone. Who has the most filings on these channels? Just go there and see for yourself.
now I am off to the studio - I have a contract with a gallery that I must work on. So in the meantime, be civil to one another! Should not be too hard to act like a human being and not like a wild animal.
@stef1 - checking OCD Discord abuse reports, I find that Jaguar annoyed a few moderators and curators there as well, and got banned!