Sharing art from artists you like.

I thought I'd talk a little about this, after reading a few people who were genuinely distressed and upset that their desire to share something they find beautiful was met with hostility from the artist. But the way this work was shared was... saving the artwork and then uploading it to their deviantart gallery/websites and they didn't understand WHY the artist was upset. I'm not sure I can fully clarify, but I can at least give my thoughts on it and things that I've gone through when dealing with people using my work without permission and hopefully that helps a little with understanding.

The first thing to remember is that doing the research to find the copyright holder is all on you. This means that if you find a beautiful dragon picture and want to post it on your website/various places, *you* need to be the one to find the artist, the artist won't find you until it's too late. There are a few sites that do image recognition (I tend to avoid them unless I'm ready to devote my day to legal things, because it makes me sad to search my images and have a stack of stolen work to deal with) and so putting the image into the search engines will help. Tineye.com is the one I can think of offhand.

Once you have the information on the artist, the easiest thing to do is to look about their websites for T.O.S. information. That's Terms of Service, Terms of Use. Some artists will list blanket permissions for certain images, so check for that first! After that, just contact the artist and ask permission! It's VERY important that you ask before uploading anything.

A question that's been pretty commonly asked is 'can I upload your images rather then just link back to your site'. This is also where a lot of people trip up, when they upload art they REALLY like to their sites (or deviantart) and 'post credit' and feel that means they did no wrong. The reality is that a lot of people don't understand *why* an artist would react badly to that.

I have a few reasons why. Sometimes it's posted on a site that I am strongly averse to. I don't want my art associated with said site, and having my work up there is going against what I stand for. Sometimes it's posted on a site that offers prints of the work (a lot of people don't realize they can order prints from photobucket, for example). Some sites (most), have T.O.S. that grants them rights over anything you upload. Most of those terms are harmless, but SOME sites have terms that are too lenient and grant themselves too much permission to use the artwork in ways they see fit. When you upload artwork that is not yours onto a site, you are *granting copyright permissions* to the siteholder. You are making a legal decision about the artwork that you are not in a position to make, and it's a really vulnerable position for *you* to be in. Don't be in that position, for your own sake. Remember, by uploading artwork to sites, you are stating clearly that *you are the copyright holder* and have that right. Sites specify that so that if they end up being sued, they can hold *you* responsible, and wash their hands of it. Keep that in mind.

In a very VERY rare few cases, the work *was not supposed to be posted online* but someone illicitly did so, and it violates the artist's contracts with their clients to have it displayed. (To be fair, a stolen piece is not the artist's fault, but it can have pretty severe penalties for the artist, including no longer being given jobs by that company because you are now a security risk. While being a big mouth and posting works that you have a non disclosure agreement on is the artist being bad and will land them in trouble, *you* don't know the circumstances that work came to be online. It can very well be a case of corporate theft at that point.) Basically this particular situation you don't want to be near at ALL, no one wins.

And to be frank, the more a piece of work is shared without a direct link back to the artist... the more likely it is that the artist's information is dropped. It's like the chain whisper, you whisper a word to a friend on one side of the room, by the time you get to the other side of the room it has mutated into something else entirely. The art stays the same but the chain of links to get back to the artist themselves gets longer and longer and longer. To shorten that chain, try to go directly back to the artist every chance you get.

With Deviantart, I object to uploading to personal galleries for a few reasons. The first off is that the purpose of the galleries is to showcase *your* work. It's even in the T.O.S. for the site that you are the copyright holder of the artwork posted. Posting 'credit' after the fact does nothing to negate that you are, by default, claiming some ownership over the work. Deviantart offers prints, it offers 'rewards' in the form of DD's, and it opens the door to a customer base in YOUR gallery with the links going to your body of work rather then the artist's. With artwork, page numbers/views *are* money, and every upload to another person's gallery is taking potential clients from the artist and filtering them to *your* gallery. That is considered receiving profit from the work.

This site is set up to facilitate the desire to share other people's arts with the favorite's button, thumbnail links and things like that. You are able to share artwork in your journals that you enjoy, or in your favorite's gallery, without ever slipping up and stepping into the land of claiming ownership over the image in question, or profiting off of the imagery in not so obvious ways. There's a reason why thumb images on this site go back to the artist's page!

I'm babbling at length, but as you can see there are already a good dozen reasons that aren't obvious as to why an artist may object to uploading their artwork. And I do understand the desire to appreciate and showcase artists you admire! I can't think of a single artist who doesn't appreciate being.. appreciated. So I understand being confused/upset when the artist sends a cold, professional takedown notice instead of poking at you and going 'hey could you please not do that?' in a friendly type way.

The fact is, most of us don't have time anymore to assume that every single case of theft of our work is an accidental attempt at promoting us. Of every 50 or so cases of people claiming they did my work, selling my work illegally, etc, MAYBE 1 will be someone who uploaded my work just because they thought it was neat and wanted to share it. But it looks exactly the same as any theft to me. My work is posted up where I did not give permission, by someone I don't know, and it's probably the tenth illegal post I've had to deal with that day alone. And so I send a notice along with the other ten notices (which can take an hour or more of my time each day) and then throw myself into work once more.

I'm saying now... you should not be offended at not getting the 'personal touch'. At that point you have placed yourself in the ranks of 'people stealing from the artist' even if you didn't mean to. Depending on how much theft the artist has dealt with that day/week/month, and how hostile *you* are to the request you take down their work, you may be the straw that broke the camel's back. This is not to excuse cussing someone out, but even if the artist is crazy rude... remember you are in the wrong here. Regardless of anything else that happens, you *need* to remove the work, THEN deal with the artist's attitude. If they're an asshole and you hate them, I suggest never contacting them again and not promoting their work.

Some people have claimed that their lives were threatened for displaying an artist's work. I... I have to be honest. I've never heard of art conflicts escalating to THAT point, ever. But I feel it's important to note that if the artist made threats on you and your family, then take the steps to have police protection/restraining orders/whatever makes you comfortable. But remember; *remove the art*, a restraining order does not suddenly absolve you of guilt or give you rights over the art, and DOES give a point of continued contact, even if it's just through the artist's attorney. So drop the art like a hot potato, and get out of that situation entirely. There is no reason to prolong contact with someone who might do you harm.

So I've babbled. I hope that's helpful.