How to find out if someone is selling your art online

Start with your original artwork, look for possible matches, and examine the listing behind each result. The image helps you identify the work. The page tells you how it is being offered. Your own records help you determine whether that use was authorised.

A product listing can show that an item is offered for sale. It does not, by itself, establish that anyone has bought it, or that the seller lacks permission. Keeping those questions separate makes your review more useful.

A seller may give a product a title that has nothing to do with yours. Your illustration called “Evening Garden” could appear on a listing titled “Floral Wall Decor”. Your artist name may not appear at all.

That is why checking the image itself is a useful starting point. Choose the original artwork you want to monitor rather than relying only on its title, tags or caption.

In TraceMyAssets, add your original and review possible matches against it. If you have a large portfolio, begin with a commercially important piece or one you have previously found used without permission.

You might recognise your artwork on a framed print, a shirt, a mug or a digital-download preview. The surrounding image may look quite different from your original: a room scene, fabric folds, packaging or a seller's branding can take up much of the picture.

When reviewing a possible match, focus on the artwork within the product. Compare distinctive details: the arrangement of objects, the line work, unusual shapes and small features that occur together in your original.

A shared subject is not enough. Two illustrations of a fox surrounded by flowers may be different works. Look for specific correspondences, and keep uncertainty in your notes when the image is too small or obscured to assess. Product mockups and substantial edits can also make discovery harder. Do not assume a monitoring service will recognise every version of an artwork.

A thumbnail gives you very little context. Where the source page is available, look at the listing itself before deciding what it means.

• The item: is it a physical print, a printed product, a digital file or something else?
• The offer: is there a price and a purchase option, or are you looking at an old, unavailable listing?
• The seller: does the shop name match a partner, distributor or account you recognise?
• The description: what does the seller say the buyer will receive?

For example, a room photo might show your print in the background while the listing sells the frame. Another page might offer the artwork itself as a downloadable file. Those are different situations and deserve separate notes.

TraceMyAssets shows where a match was found on paid plans. See the plan comparison for access details before choosing the workflow you need.

Recognising your work answers only the first question. Next, check your own records: your shop accounts, licensing arrangements and any permissions you have given.

An unfamiliar shop name may still belong to an approved partner. Equally, a credit line with your name does not tell you what permission, if any, you granted. Compare what you see with the actual arrangement.

Illustrative example, not a real detection result. You recognise your bird illustration on two listings. One belongs to a print partner you authorised. The other offers a digital file through a shop you do not recognise. The images may both match your original, but the next steps differ. Record the first as a known use. Save the details of the second and check your records before deciding how to respond.

If a listing needs investigation, keep its address, the seller name, the date you checked it and screenshots showing the artwork in the context of the offer. Keep your original file and relevant permission records alongside those notes.

Describe what you can observe. “Listed for sale at this price on this date” is more precise than “they have sold hundreds of copies” when you do not have reliable sales evidence.

For the next stage, use our guide to what to do when you find a copy of your artwork. Platform-specific reporting steps are collected in the Guides section.

A check answers what the search sources can surface at that moment. A listing published later, or not yet indexed, may not appear in those results.

TraceMyAssets can repeat scans on a schedule you choose and email you a count and a link when a scheduled scan finds something new. You review the possible matches and decide what needs attention.

The service looks at public pages indexed by its search sources. It does not connect directly to every marketplace, see private groups or guarantee discovery of every copy. A newly discovered page is not necessarily a newly published page. Read where we look for the scope of the searches.

If your first check finds nothing, keep that result in perspective. It is not confirmation that nobody is offering your art elsewhere.