Trust and Safety

1Our approach

We don't judge taste, style, skill or fandom. We step in when content, behavior, payments or sales cause harm, break the rules, violate rights or threaten the trust the marketplace runs on.

People review reports and decide on enforcement. Every new seller applies, and staff look at each store before it opens. Our own systems look for scams that new accounts send to many artists at once, and staff decide what to do about them. Pictures are checked against known child sexual abuse images: a match is removed, its account suspended and the report the law asks for filed.

2What's welcome

• Original art, fandom art, commissions, prints, stickers, downloads, adoptables, YCH and other creative work made by people.
• Fan art and transformative works where the artist has the rights or legal basis to offer them.
• General and Suggestive art, mature but never explicit, rated as the content ratings say.
• Clear commission limits, honest prices, respectful talk and settling disputes in good faith.
• Portfolios, process pictures, works in progress and references posted with permission.

3Content ratings

• General: fine for everyone, such as portraits, landscapes, stickers, prints, pins and general character art.
• Suggestive: mature, but not explicit, such as pinup poses, revealing outfits, mild innuendo and mature themes that aren't explicit.

Artists rate their own pieces. Staff may mark a piece Suggestive, and the artist can ask us to look again. Anyone with an account can turn on Hide suggestive art in Settings.

Explicit adult content isn't allowed. Don't upload, list, sell or deliver explicit sexual content through Artist Alley.

4What isn't allowed

• Sexual content involving minors, real or fictional.
• Sexual content without consent, sexual exploitation, sexual blackmail or invasive intimate images.
• Explicit adult content.
• Illegal goods or services, fraud, stolen goods, or instructions that help cause real harm.
• Stolen art, copyright infringement, impersonation, or passing off another artist's work as your own.
• Generative AI artwork, even when disclosed: listings, files, commissions, raffles, deliveries or portfolio work made mostly with generative AI.
• Dropshipping, resale fulfilled by a supplier, delivery to the buyer by someone else, or lying about who makes or sends the goods.
• Hate, threats, harassment, doxxing, targeted abuse, or content that promotes violence against protected groups.
• Malware, stealing sign-ins, phishing, spam, fake engagement, shill bidding or payment manipulation.
• Getting around sanctions, payment providers' rules, account limits, moderation or the law.
• Getting around country, tax, import, payout, shipping or provider limits, or lying about where a buyer is, where a seller ships from, customs details or a tax place.

5Behavior rules

• Be honest about listings, prices, timelines, usage rights, shipping and refund policies.
• Keep where you ship to and from, customs details and your tax or billing place accurate. Don't take a cross-border sale we don't support elsewhere to get around our checks.
• Don't pressure artists for unpaid work, work beyond what was agreed, a way of paying their store doesn't offer or faster timelines through harassment.
• Don't threaten buyers, artists, staff, people who report, reviewers or anyone else here.
• Don't abuse refunds, chargebacks, reports, disputes, reviews, raffles, auctions or promotions.
• Don't share private messages, reference pictures, delivered files, shipping addresses, legal names or payment details without permission or a legal basis.
• Keep safety and dispute talks on Artist Alley where you can, so the record is complete.

New accounts and blocking

• For its first 48 hours, a new account can't send outside links in questions, commission requests, or conversations before a purchase until the other person has written. While staff stop a wave of scams, this can reach accounts up to a week old. Unsafe links are refused from everyone.
• An account under a week old that two people report as a scam within a day can't start or write in conversations before a purchase, or ask questions, for 24 hours.
• You can block an artist, and artists can block buyers. A block stops messages both ways and never says who blocked.

6Reporting

Use Report from the menu on a piece, a store, a message, a question, a review or a supporter's note. Artists can report a buyer from an order. Made with AI and It's a scam are among the reasons you can pick. For questions about a report or following up, contact us on the official Artist Alley Discord, our preferred support channel. Email remains available at support@artistalley.org.

• Include the content's address, the order or message it's about, screenshots if needed, and a clear explanation.
• Who reported stays private from the person reported, unless the law requires it, safety needs it or it's needed to settle the report.
• Staff who handle reports can see a report's details and who sent it, so they can look into it and stop abuse. Moderators read reports and the conversations they're about, never emails, addresses or payment details. Admins and Moderators open any other private conversation only with a reason, and every look by staff is recorded.
• Reports in bad faith, mass reporting, false copyright claims or reports used to harass competitors may lead to action on the account.

7Enforcement

What we do depends on how serious it is, the context, the history, the law, payment providers' rules, people's safety and whether it can be fixed. Artist Alley may do one or more of these:

• Remove or limit content, listings, files, stores, reviews, questions, messages or uploads.
• Ask for edits, proof of rights or more information, or mark a piece Suggestive.
• Warn, slow down, suspend, ban or limit an account, store, payout, listing, checkout, report, dispute or messaging.
• Block or review checkout, payouts, delivery or listing for countries we don't support, sanctions or provider limits, missing tax registrations, or unsafe cross-border delivery.
• Cancel sales, release held payments, refund, hold payouts or take payment problems further where the payment's steps support it.
• Contain a scam sent to many artists: hide what its accounts sent, suspend them, block its link or words, and tell the artists it reached.
• Keep records, tell the people affected, work with payment providers or answer lawful requests where required.

Serious violations may lead to removal or action on the account at once. Smaller or first mistakes may get a warning or a request to fix them. You read the words of a decision about you; staff notes about it stay private.

When an account is suspended for a scam, its held money first pays back the buyers it scammed, then what it owes Artist Alley. The rest is held 180 days, then paid out.

If you think a decision was a mistake, ask us to look again from your account: once for each decision, while a suspension lasts or within 30 days of any other decision. A banned account gets a one-time pass to send theirs. The Owner reads and answers every appeal. For anything else, contact support on the official Artist Alley Discord.

8Copyright and DMCA

Copyright complaints use the formal DMCA process: send notices to the designated agent named in our DMCA Policy. Other trust and safety reports can still use Report or support.

We may remove or limit content said to infringe, tell the people affected, process valid counter-notices and close the accounts of repeat infringers where that fits.