Please don't fall for scams!
Wigglypaint » Devlog
I recently published an article on my personal blog about the history of WigglyPaint, how it works internally, and my feelings regarding the flood of unscrupulous websites and mobile apps which have stolen my software and are selling it to uninformed users for a profit.
If you like WigglyPaint, I'd appreciate it if you took the time to read the article and share it with your friends:
http://beyondloom.com/blog/onwigglypaint.html
WigglyPaint will always be completely free and open-source. The only websites where I have published Wigglypaint are my personal website, here on Itch.io, and on Newgrounds.com.
Please don't let your fellow artists fall for scams!
Comments
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https://wigglypaint.com
this website I assume stole your stuff, they have an "AI paint" option also :(
Horrendous. I am very strongly opposed to "genai" and nothing could be more disrespectful to my work than using it to shill slop.
my god. i’m SO glad i haven’t fallen for one. well, i did look at many dumb scam sites, wich look nothing like what the REAL wigglypaint is meant to be. but it was to check for if it was reachable through a search engine.
I accidentally bought one of them.. requested a refund before I even booted the app now. I found out thanks to jigglypaint while I was looking around YouTube to see if I'd like the app, and then noticed how recent the app I got was and started to dig a bit further. The app I had downloaded was ranked so high and has no mention of internet janitor unless you go to the developer website that's not listed in this devlog and scroll down through numerous ads to reach a credit that says it's made by you.
It's currently ranked 6 in graphics and design so they're really making a lot from it likely.
It's very frustrating; the predatory knockoffs have aggressive SEO, so people casually googling for "wigglypaint" tend to find them first, and the users mislead in this way share them with others, reinforcing the problem. It hurts my heart to see artists exploited and charged money for an outdated copy of a tool that should be free. :(
I just checked my mail and found this reply to my review from the one that put wiggly paint on the AppStore: "Hi, WigglyPaint is not a web wrapper or a cross-platform hybrid — it is hand-crafted in SwiftUI with Metal-accelerated drawing. That means instant launch, 120 Hz ProMotion scrolling, and the right feel on every Apple device." I got my refund without issues btw.
The price also seems to have gone up almost double the price and the ranking too..
i wanna note one of these websites specifically, wigglypaint.net
they like have montized the editor for extra colors & textures which i have the knowledge to add on my own, so thats pretty scummy honestly
but they also added a share section with real time updates which is cool so im kinda split on using it
like it has some good features but has monetization on the editor so half good half scummy honestly
(edit: see comment below, completely scummy actually)
No, it's pretty much all scummy.
I get that it's popular with young teens for the social media aspect and the fact that their school firewalls don't seem to block the site. I don't blame kids for using it when so much of the web is not built with them in mind.
But the person running the site is absolutely scummy.
The paid subscription costs $49 per year if you want access to Decker's other built in patterns and colors (which are free), color palettes they took off of lospec (which are free) and a tiny, tiny amount of cloud storage (which people probably already have for free).
The site uses generative AI all over the place including the AI-generated fake "pixel art" that they use as highlight images on the color palettes which just seems extra insulting to the real pixel artists they took the color palettes from. They even promoted an AI service as the top banner on the website before they got their subscription system set up.
And they don't allow users in the social media area to post the name "internetjanitor". The automated review that happens when people post there will not let the creator of wigglypaint's username be posted on their site.
I don't think they want to be a fun, honest social media site for wigglypaint enjoyers. I wish they did. I think they want to fool people and make sure that their community stays fooled so they can keep making money off of young artists.
thank you for the insight! (deleted post was this)
kinda sucks on how people will make entire custom websites (with AI) just to make money
and the author (janitor) will have a hard time suing them because they do "technically" offer credits at the very bottom of the page, so its way more scummy that way
i didnt know it would censor internetjanitor but damn this is messed up
like the creator probably could do way better things for money if they can pull this off with vibe coding smh
bottom of the website: "Disclaimer: This website is contributed by wigglypaint enthusiasts. Wigglypaint.net is not affiliated with official Wigglypaint Program or Internet Janitor."
hah wigglypaint enthusiasts
personally, i’m not sure what i could possibly add to this other than i have always used the version hosted here, or just downloading the deck file from here and launching the version of decker i have installed on my system. admittedly, i think i only personally came across it solely from macOS homebrew of all things, showing me decker as a new formula/cask/w/e and being really intrigued on looking it up which was all before it suddenly started showing up on my feeds. i will say i really like decker as a concept but haven’t gotten around to making anything directly within it yet, including modding wigglypaint which i have thought about but never committed to
it really hurts and sucks to see all of the scummy behaviour coming out of the sudden success of wigglypaint. thank you for writing the post in the first place and sharing your thoughts
this is definitely really late (almost 3 weeks) but still
I am aware of the terms of my licenses. The licensing of this project does not allow or encourage people to misrepresent themselves as me, or misrepresent their forks as my project. Several users have published customized, extended forks in good faith, and I have no wish to constrain them, or others like them.
Hi. I understand the license pedantry, but I don't think you understand the effect this has on the artist community.
You're correct to call Wigglypaint "a gift" but these people take the gift out of artist's hands and sell it back to us worse.
These sites popped up all at once, with nearly identical llm-generated text, ads and dodgy links. They usually obfuscate the origin of the program or imply the original creator is involved.
Some outright lied about being "the developer of Wigglypaint".
Artists generally don't have a lot of spare cash but even so, we'll throw a few dollars at something useful to support the original creator when we can. And a lot of people did not realize the site asking for donations is just... some random person who clumsily generated a webpage to make some quick cash when a free program went viral.
Some of these sites have committed direct art theft, too. Taking people's wigglypaint artwork from social media and posting it unlinked and uncredited on their sites to show off the work of "Their Community".
People do make Wigglypaint modifications all the time, I've done it, my friends have done it! I've spent hours of my life teaching other artists how. But we're not trying to rip off our communities with these tiny changes. (And our tiny changes are still more than most of these sites will ever do. They just reupload an unchanged version 1.3 from when the program went viral and walk away.)
"Beware of Scams" is for us. The Artists.
A lot of people are upset when they find out that the site they use or the app they bought was being deceptive about who did the work to create it because "Well, I want to support the creator..." was a major part of their decision to spend their time and money there.
Wigglypaint is free. But a lot of people have been misled so mystery scammers could make a quick buck. (And "well, it's technically legal for people to deceive you to get your cash" doesn't make it feel any better.)
Can you please post your projects so I can take as much morally reprehensible, yet technically legal advantage of your efforts as possible? That's the world you are advocating for after all. Thank you in advance.
Glad to see your ethics are entirely determined by legal technicalities. There's no law against cheating on your partner so I guess it's totally OK to do that right?
Thanks for sharing this info.