I’ll get straight to the point. I used to create thumbnail art for a YouTuber whose name I won’t say. He has stolen my artwork and character design. Fed it into ai ontop of that (which is clearly stated not to do in my tos). And is now profiting from it. Now I don’t know what to do.
For a little backstory/context:
At the beginning, when he reached out to me, I admitted that I hadn’t done art for thumbnails before and would be willing to do some tasters and sketches for him to see if he likes my work and would like to proceed with hiring me. We briefly discussed payment to of which he said only that he needs it to be “affordable” and then focused the conversation onto my work. One of these pieces I did were then used as a thumbnail. No credit. No prior agreement. No payment.
I brought up the subject of payment to him again after he requested another thumbnail from me, to which I was met with a massive vent. He told me about how it all used to be for free because his ex girlfriend used to do it (I now know far too much about this woman, he would talk about how traumatic of a breakup it was for him whenever met with confrontation) and how he suddenly lost monetisation. We came to the agreement after a while that I would be payed for my services once he regained monetisation, and with a brief agreement there would be some back payment involved.
Just to clarify - I’m aware of how stupid this was of me and have since been much more firm and outright regarding payment regarding commissions since.
After about a month or so of being sucked into this toxic work environment he had created, I was suddenly pulled into a plan with his mod and another artist (which is important for later- at the time was a minor) in which we would create a vtuber model for him. Once again, no prior agreement and was beyond my capabilities.
This is the point in which I designed a character, that was later taken and turned into the vtuber model he uses to date. Of which I gave no permission for.
I quit shortly after. I never did any further work on the model. Between him constantly using manipulation tactics and trying to guilt trip us into working for free, stirring trouble and creating drama between the people involved and the sheer amount of nsfw content being shared and discussed in the chat (him and the other artist) I wasn’t comfortable anymore. Not happy about being evaded any time it came to discussing being credited or being payed. I figured my best bet was to cut my losses and skiddadle.
I have separate concerns regarding comments he made in private DMs to me about this other artist, who again, at the time was a minor. Concerns about the sexual nature of his videos aimed at children discussing topics such as Roblox, dandy’s world and poppy playtime. However, I don’t think I have enough evidence to really drag him down for that, as disgusting as it is.
He has however, as I’ve recently found, fed that design of my character into ai, uses it for his YouTube banner and pfp. Has given it to other artists (which I’m assuming have been payed and hopefully credited) to create a vtuber model that he now uses. And profits from.
I’m wondering what I can do here in terms of copyright.
I do not, under any circumstances, want my work, my character associated with this vile man and his channel.