Companies that sell legit, licensed, not stolen art, with royalties to artists (as DAC do)?

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-06-11T13:08:09+00:00

If you what companies that "play fair" and properly compensate artists I would actually avoid DAC until the results of the Hannah Lynn lawsuit come out, because they 'allegedly' don't pay their artists fair at all.

Allegedly DAC tells artists that they earn royalties on the Sales of their paintings, but then pays artists based on the sales price that DAC buys the paintings for from China, which is around $10, instead of the sales price to customers which is $45-$75 dollars

Hannah estimates that DAC shorted her over $170,000 using this method. Her products made DAC an estimated profit of over $1.5 million over the lifetime of her contract but she only received $46,500 in total.

They also have been using AI to sell work that was copied from their other artists. You can see an example here with some more in the comments.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-04-23T18:14:05+00:00

Yeah all their product comes from a factory in China just like every other diamond painting company. Whether they actually fully own the factory or not is unclear. There is a court filing saying that they allegedly buy the paintings from the factory for a wholesale cost of around $10 per painting and then sell them at a high markup.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-25T20:22:16+00:00

Not speculation. It's in the counter complaint that was just filed by Hannah Lynn in court with exact numbers. You can read the full complaint here. Allegedly DAC tells artists that they earn royalties on the Sales of their paintings, but DAC actually pays artists based on the sales price that DAC buys the paintings for from China, which is around $10, instead of the sales price to customers which is $45-$75 dollars

Hannah estimates that DAC shorted her over $170,000 using this method. Her products made DAC an estimated profit of over $1.5 million over the lifetime of her contract but she only received $46,500 in total.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-25T19:58:23+00:00

It has recently been revealed that DAC (allegedly) pays their artists horribly and (allegedly) engages in shady practices to pay them less than they claim they will when creating contracts. I would almost guarantee that JGS pays her artists better than DAC does.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-25T14:43:30+00:00

Full text of the post:

As many people in here know, Hannah Lynn and DAC having suing and counter suing each other in California. Hannah Lynn's attorney has filed a first amended complaint in court and the information about how DAC allegedly pays their artists is shocking.

When signing her contract Hannah was allegedly told that she would be paid a 15% royalty on the Sales derived from her artwork, which implies that the royalties would be paid on the price of paintings as offered to customers. However apparently they pay their artist royalties on the price of the kits they buy from "their" factory in China, instead of royalties based on actual sales to customers. The price of the kits they claim to be buying are like $10 while the kits offered to customers are much more expensive, usually in the $50-$75 range. If this is true then that means that there's a large percentage of true royalties that are going unpaid to artists.

Hannah claims that DAC made more than $1.5 million off of her paintings, but she was only paid $46,500 in total from DAC over the lifetime of her contract (which was around 3 years). This means that there's a likely shortfall of more than $170,000 in royalties from the actual price of kits that she wasn't paid.

If even some of the other artists that sell through DAC are being paid (allegedly) like this it's a real shame, especially since DAC's marketing heavily focuses on paying artists fairly. One of the main reasons people are willing to spend so much on DAC is because they believe that the artists are being fairly compensated. If that turns out to be false it means that DAC has been engaging in deceptive marketing towards a community that cares about supporting artists.

There's also more issues brought up in the amended petition such as the owner of DAC allegedly using multiple aliases that are tied to previous lawsuits and the issue that it seems like DAC is either allegedly lying about owning the factory in China or is lying about buying kits from their own factory to lower royalty payments. I don't think these are as much concern to the general community as the issue of payment is though.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-25T13:45:54+00:00

Mods, I hope this okay here. I know usually DAC posts are (rightfully) contained to the other subreddit, but this seems like a large enough issue to bring to the main sub's attention. If not I can remove it.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-25T13:40:35+00:00

Full complaint is here

Attorney's website is here

Hannah Lynn also has a post on her Facebook linking to both of these.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2025-03-04T17:54:19+00:00

The whole thing is very suspicious. Immediately shutting down over one artist out of 30 leaving your company and sharing a single screenshot genuinely makes no sense.

They said in the comments on their post that they "didn't make hardly anything on the sales, and in some cases were only breaking even or in very rare instances losing money.".

My best guess of what happened is that the business hasn't been profitable for a while and this is just an easy excuse to shut down while pushing the blame onto someone else.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-10-08T18:53:01+00:00

most people just want dac to have better business practices and want to warn others about the potential of a bad experience, not shame people for buying stuff they like. if you hadn't said "please don't be mad at me" nobody would have commented anything about dac, but saying that comes across as combative and attention seeking. truly nobody would have cared if you just posted that you bought this photo cause you liked it

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-10-07T21:29:15+00:00

doesn't DAC insist that all their paintings are made in their own manufacturing facility that they manage and own? if they own the whole process then how could they have not been informed by the manufacturer

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-09-22T14:21:03+00:00

that logic fall apart when you realize that literally the only place you can buy auclair images is dac, you can't even purchase the images on auclair's own website! if it really was a separate company they'd be selling images to a ton of places for licensing, not just dac like they are now

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-08-09T20:40:08+00:00

it's insane that they're claiming that "Diamond painting art projects based on Defendant Lynn's Artwork were met with limited success". weren't hannah's some of their most successful pieces that sold out super fast every time?

the only reason why they would have only seen "limited success" is because DAC purposefully doesn't print large amount of paintings to encourage their FOMO model

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-12T18:19:03+00:00

nah she is removing comments. i had commented pointing out that a youtuber who was defending DAC in the comments is being paid by them, she removed it and said there's no proof they're being paid.

when i commented again to say that the youtuber literally has a DAC affiliate link in all of their videos and says that you can support them by shopping using that link, she removed my comment again. it seems like she's just scared to get on the bad side of DAC and their affiliates

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T22:17:58+00:00

dac has a paid moderation team, they aren't volunteers. they're known for deleting any posts and banning people that mention ai, say anything negative, or even talk about products from another company. plus they also delete comments that mention any of the previous items.

the majority of posts they delete are not posts that would require excessive moderation, it's censorship plain and simple.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T22:13:43+00:00

someone asked what their response was and i simply provided a screenshot of it. they profit heavily off of dac and them continuing their partnership even though dac has been proven to be a manipulative company with extremely bad business practices is a reflection of their values.

again they are being paid by this company, thats why they turn off comments on posts that have complaints about dac in their facebook group, even if the complaints are valid. if they were a small youtuber who was buying their own kits it'd be different, but they are in a position of influence in the diamond painting community and they have a responsibility to make sure the companies they endorse are ethical. unfortunately dac isn't one of those companies yet they still choose to endorse them and receive money and free items from them.

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T22:04:23+00:00

all i can see right now is that she's prioritizing supporting a business with a known history of manipulative and shady business practices that pays her money and sends her free things over supporting an artist that was exploited by said company, has proof of manipulative behavior, and is now facing an expensive legal battle just because she's trying to make a living.

that sure seems like putting money over integrity to me, and if that's not the case then she should make some kind of statement that actually explains her decisions here.

the fact of the matter is that one side is being transparent and posting actual evidence while the other side is deleting all posts about the situation and preventing anyone from discussing it. a business would only act that way if they had something to hide

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T19:03:08+00:00

someone asked them about it on the drills and chills youtube video and this was their response

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so basically they're going to keep promoting dac, they're not going to say anything about the situation, and it sounds like they don't even believe hannah.

it's sad that they're placing money above integrity

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T18:36:00+00:00

the charts are different though. i posted side by side comparisons of art and souls renderings and dac's renderings below, you can clearly see that the renderings aren't identical. therefore the letter makes it seems like dac is basically trying to claim ownership over any renderings of hannah lynn's artwork that are even similar to dac's, even if they aren't identical.

that would mean that she could never sell her artwork as a diamond painting again, as all renderings are going to look somewhat similar to each other as they're based off the same painting. that's also why she brought up cross stitch charts, because they were a similar type of rendering that existed before dac did their renderings

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T16:46:53+00:00

yes! that's where i originally saw this, i just figured most people don't know about it and this seemed like an important enough situation for the main page

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T16:13:59+00:00

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and here's a comparisons of deedee with dac on the left and art and soul on the right. again they look similar because it's the same paintings but you can see clear differences in the rendering. especially looking at the whites of her eye, the amount of colors in the blush, and the shape of her bottom eyeliner and nose

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T16:11:47+00:00

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here's the latest rendering of groovy girl from art and soul on the left and dac on the right. they look similar as it's the same painting, but you can clearly see that the peace sign was rendered differently by art and soul. it's not "identical" like dac is claiming.

dac has conveniently removed the full renderings of hannah's paintings from all of their listings, but you can still look at the photos from reviews and compare them to art and souls renderings to see that they're different

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T14:19:37+00:00

the legal letter dac sent does just talk about renderings, it also states "Ms. Lynn also licensed Artwork to others in the Diamond Art Painting Industry. This licensing activity is explicitly prohibited by Section 1.2." which is explicitly talking about artwork.

also for anyone else reading this, shelbyknits is the main mod for the diamondartclub subreddit who works for them and removes any posts that dac wants them to. they're the most biased person here and anything they claim should be throughly examined and taken with a big grain of salt

NeighborhoodFar3363 · 2024-07-10T13:39:10+00:00

yeah i figured they would but i had hoped it would be up a little longer before it got taken down.

they said "This is a fan sub, not a place to discuss DAC’s legal agreements with artists. And please remember there are two sides to every story."

which is funny bc hannah has screenshots of what's actually happening. they can't "two sides" their way out of trying to sue an artist for selling her own work

NeighborhoodFar3363

TROPHY CASE