Contest with Code27

EDIT from Tiar: it’s legit, Halla has talked with Code27 and they agreed for a collaboration on this contest.

I saw it on X in this post: https://x.com/Bside_zone/status/1964316303013065169

Partial screenshot (note the arrow)

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Looks like the typical “contest scam”, on their website they suddenly don’t mention Krita anymore. I guess we would have to ask the @Krita-promo team but they would probably have informed us if this collaboration is real. I can not even think where the prices are supposed to come from. I bet in their hurry to scam artists they accidentally tagged kritartists instead of the Krita account directly which would be the correct “sponsor” if this were real.

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There’s nothing in the krita-promo team inbox or dedicated category.

I’m going to put a reply on the X post saying we can’t find any evidence of a collaboration.

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https://x.com/kritaartists/status/1966268912414388496

I added this reply:

@kritaartists has no knowledge of this contest or any ongoing collaboration. Perhaps we were tagged in error?

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I’m wondering if that code 27 link could lead to malware or something? :thinking:

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They put the Krita logo and name in the image. This was on purpose. They may have tagged the wrong account but still claimed to be partnered with Krita.

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It doesn’t look like it, but it looks like the typical contest scam that collects personal data of artists and tries to get rights on artwork with overarching TOS terms to later capitalize on them. Almost surprised it isn’t a pay to join contest too. I bet the other tagged brands know nothing about this too. My guess is that all submited artwork later is sold for money or used to train an AI.

Yuk. Another way for artists to lose their work.

I was wrong, they also claim Krita to be a sponsor on their website.

Someone official has to report that post and also get in contact with the website and try to get the wrong sponsorship removed.

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Additionally official accounts should post a warning about this on all channels.

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Good detective work, @takiro. Tagging @halla for this.

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Yeah, I know nothing about it, either. And I also bet that Medibang or Reallusion, and probably most, if not all of the judges, know about it either.

What’s curious us that they do in fact have a Steam page. It’s some kind of AI-powered desktop pet. Considering that they only have 130 followers on Steam, it’s probably less of a typical scam and more some kind of guerilla marketing before they launch, because with their current numbers it’s gonna be a flop.

The “$40k+” is 8.400 and things that might potentially be worth some more, but there is just ~8k in cash.

Even if it’s some kind of marketing stunt, they can not simply claim a partnership that doesn’t exist. What did they think how it would go? Hope no one notices and then hold us at gunpoint when things get real? I bet the prices are not real either.

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Maybe this warning should be pinned to the top for a bit?

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I have seen so many like this lately. Some are free to enter, others charge submission fees. I made the mistake of entering one a while back, and now I’m bombarded with “invites” to enter all kinds of art contests. :confounded_face:

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Thank you all for this warning. This makes me really sad…

I was thinking not too long ago that there is one benefit to having AI around… instead of grifters trying to scam artists so they could make money off art they created, i expected them to just make the art themselves. I guess I was wrong… grifters still scamming artists…

makes me sad.

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What’s up with the thread title change? If it’s actually legit I’d expect a comment to that effect. So is it actually legit, somehow, or?

-- Frost

@sooz @Takiro @CrazyCatBird @Elixiah @edgarej @forestbeasts

I finally got a hold of Halla and turns out, it’s actually real. Code27 has been in contact with Halla, and there has been a collaboration agreed upon. I just had no idea about it and only now learned about it.

Halla, who is the maintainer and handles things like that, has been in a hospital for an operation and only started recovering basically today, which both caused our ignorance about this contest, and the difficulty to ask Halla about it in the past few days.

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Oh huh, goodness! Well that’s not so bad then.