Forums » Art & Creativity » Art Theft & You

Re: Mina

Hey apologies if I caused any stress or irritation, I think maybe you misinterpreted what I was trying to convey, which is likely my own fault for not being clear. By no means am I trying to belittle or invalidate your opinion, it's still hugely important and very much relevant to the discussion, I respect that, I respect everyone's views even if they don't necessarily align with mine. If it appears I was trying to jump down your throat that was never my attention and I'm sorry if I've made you feel that way.

For the sake of staying relevant, I'd only be raking over old coal what myself and others have put in previous posts to elucidate any further on that particular post. It's all about ethics and face-claims and points of law.

At the end of the day we all wanna kick back, RP and have fun.




Yaaaaas Kim, data! This is extremely informative, I knew the site was growing -- but not this rapidly!

I looked over maybe forty characters earlier, of those forty I'd say there were approximately 10 icons of real people. So in that data sample, 10 to 30 (10 being FCs, 30 being art, blank icons etc.) It's only a rough data sample, but that makes me wonder if there really is approx 9000 people that match this profile -- not in the witch-hunt way, but as a statistic that's interesting to gauge just how popular references and face claims are in a varied role-play community, esp. if it makes up nearly 25% of our community's character database. Do you think that's an apt estimate, Kim?

I'm in the same boat as the other denizens that didn't really want to weigh in on this, but there were a couple things that were really starting to bother me.

So, I decided to do a little finger-work and found lawyers in my city that deal with Intellectual Property (Winthrop & Weinstine, St.Paul, MN.). An attorney was kind enough to return my call and talk to me for a few minutes this morning. I walked him through the main issues and concerns that have been covered here (though I left out the actual site name) and asked his thoughts.

He basically told me what Nicolette and a few others have already said about fair use, with some small variations.

"Art" has an extremely broad definition and covers everything from pencil sketches to strategically placed urinals. Because of that, Art Theft is incredibly difficult to litigate unless it has been reproduced on a mass scale for resale or has gone viral, without credit, for one reason or another. Stolen character art that isn't for a major financial endeavor, say maybe a Bethesda MMO as an example, will almost never see the light of day before a judge.

I could tell he was trying to be as respectful as possible when trying to explain this next point, as he said, all creators should be equal under the law. The sad truth is that obscure artists with small followings and no monetary means to chase cases like this are a nonissue. If the artwork isn't protected by a major player (again, I'll use Bethesda as an example) who will go to bat and financially back your case, there isn't much to be done. It's sad, it's not very ethical, but that's the way it is.

The probability that RPR would be taken to court because a player used a screen cap from a popular Anime or an image from a random google search is absolutely minuscule. The worst case scenario would be a strongly worded cease and desist letter, which would likely be resolved with immediately, because I doubt Kim is going to screw around and put her baby in jeopardy.

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As far as I can see now, the debate is mostly an ethical one.
Is it wrong to use illustrations that aren't yours?
Is it wrong to use screen shots of cartoons?
Is it okay if you give them credit?
Is it wrong to use promotional images of actors?
Is it wrong to use photo shoot images of breakthrough/little known models?
Is it okay if you give the model/actor and the photographer credit?

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I also am seeing that some people are questioning the motives of this post itself, and I feel that those are valid questions too.
Is this something that should be put upon players individually to police themselves in good faith?
Or is this important enough to effect change in RPR policy?
If it is, is it legitimate change, or is it pandering to personal preference/sensibilities? (Just to be clear, this is not a jab at any individual. This is an honest question.)
Will more strictly enforcing the prohibition of illustrations/photographs help or hurt RPR?

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This will be my only comment here, but I am interested to see how this discourse is resolved.

You've made a compelling case for gifs, movie stills, television stills, and pieces that are transformative before they hit an RPR profile. I definitely concede that as you've presented some rock solid arguments. Very well argued.

Whether or not an RPR profile its self assigns enough new meaning to a photograph on its own is up for debate. Whether the RPR profile uses the image to reference a different character (OP) may have a lot to do with how that plays out.

Thank you, Ben. I was trying to keep everything factual and not get too frustrated.

It looks like we've had an actual legal practice weigh in on this now (thanks Highjinx!), and I remain confident in what I've said over the course of this topic. It definitely matters if the character is original or not in my eyes, as well as how much of an original work is being used.

I admit I've been getting a little lost with all the things going on, and it's taken two or three read-throughs to truly get where your arguments were coming from legally (stuff's complicated!)

Thank you for continuing to post the evidence and refer back.

Also, Highjinx, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to a law firm about this! That is so cool!

Delightful!

This is my understanding as well; the site is at less legal risk when art from "unknowns" are stolen from, and even with large players, we're unlikely to be hit with a lawsuit (though it is not impossible, and nuisance lawsuits do happen; I watch these news stories closely. The idea is usually drain money from a smaller entity with lots of nit picky complaints they have to defend against until they run out of money, even if they are 100% in the right. To be 100% in the right, it seems like all we have to do is take down art when requested to do so. Which we do.)

Interestingly, the RPR receives vastly more take-down requests from "unknown" artists. Regardless of the legal risk, we take all improperly obtained artworks down equally as soon as we receive a complaint. So even if they aren't treated equally under the law, they're treated equally here.

We receive these sometimes. You are correct I do not screw around! Images come the heck down. But, you know, they do even without lawyers, too.

Can you elaborate on this?

In the hurt column: From a purely practical standpoint, it would pretty much mean nothing else gets done on the site, ever.

In an RPR profile, typically what happens is someone rips a work directly and uploads it as is.

It sounds like Mr. Price took 35 different images, cut many of them up, and pasted them back together in a new configuration. In other cases, it sounds like he painted on and around the original images. So he did a fair amount of work to these photos to make them something new, ie, transformed them.

Sometimes people do this, collaging various images from around the net to show off all the pieces of their character's face, or all their various outfits, and that would seem to fit this description. It is interesting to know that this may be a legally acceptable behavior (though a moral question remains, if a person turns up saying they DO NOT WANT their face attached to a particular character.)

But I'm still not convinced this case is evidence that just ripping an image out of a book and putting it elsewhere without any additional changes or commentary (parody) would be legal under this case law. From your own quote, five of Mr. Price's images still did not qualify as fair use, because not enough had been done to alter them.

So perhaps there are some ways that a person could alter an image to make it legal, but I remain dubious that a direct rip and upload does. If it did, DMCA take down requests would not be a thing.

I'm only returning to this thread to answer Highjinx's questions since they are directed to anyone willing to answer and weigh in on them, and that will be my last contribution to this thread.

Please note that all of my answers are my thoughts, my personal feelings toward the questions, and I will not engage in debate over my views.

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I believe it is when you claim (i.e. say that you drew and created it) that image for yourself when you have not paid for it or were gifted it. Free resources are a different story. However, if you are using illustrations because that concept, that idea, is something that seems similar to what you envision, I do not see the harm in it. I would not have become an artist if I did not want to visualise my characters, or have something for people to imagine more concretely when reading my RP posts or general stories about my characters.

It becomes harmful when someone disrespects the artist, however. I believe that, simply out of courtesy, you should ask the artist if it is okay. The artist will appreciate the fact that someone took the time to ask to gain permission instead of potentially feeling hurt and more reclusive about what they release because people keep reposting their stuff with no credits or permission. I've read many stories from artists I followed and artists I've been friends with that have gone through their characters and art being used without permission, and they make sure to either make the resolution extremely small before upload, or put those big, blatant watermarks on them so that it deters future use from people that don't ask permission.

So even if the answer is not a desired one from the artist, at least you asked permission.

EDIT: I didn't see the 'of cartoons' aspect of this. Sorry. But in any case, my answer below should still be sufficient.

This is a broad question. Screen shots of what, exactly? Created video game characters from things such as TERA Rising, Skyrim, and other such games that allow character creation? Or screen shots of canon characters?

Either way, I'm personally more hesitant to use canon character appearances for anything because that canon character is that canon character to me, and always will be. As for character creation scaps... well... you created that character with the tools you had available. I don't see why that should be shunned or condemned at all. You have the freedom to make them look as you want with aforementioned tools. So even though it may not be perfectly accurate, I think a character you took time to create and sculpt in a game should be fair enough to use without people getting uppity about it.

To me, that is no different than using Rinmaru Doll games, or any other doll maker / flash character maker resource that is available for use.

Grey area for me. The acknowledgement that you understand where the art comes from is always great. However... as mentioned before, I believe that one should definitely ask permission from an artist or photographer/model to use their images.

I, personally, don't really understand faceclaim in this aspect. I never really have being that person that draws all my characters. Because of that, I personally have a bit of a negative bias against using faceclaim, but that does not mean that I am against it. Like I said before... I understand the want and desire to have an appearance, something to visualise, for your character.

Grey area | one should probably ask them out of courtesy.

Similar answer to previous credit question. My only addendum would be this: one will find that there are people that will be a lot friendlier than anticipated if you just ask if you can use their stuff. Sure, there might be some curt answers here and there, but if you ask, it is better than potentially winding up making someone upset / hurting someone, and having them go to some higher form of authority. Even if it is just as much as asking the admin of the site to take it down on their behalf.

Honestly? I just think more people should ask for permission for images that are created / photographed by others. Does that mean it'll happen? Probably not.

It's just a matter of courtesy when it concerns me and what I think about a lot of this. Because, if it were me... if someone were using my art and stuff, I wouldn't want to stumble across someone using my character as their vessel, so to speak. Not when I do pour a lot of time and effort into all my characters. You can visit any one of my character profile pages and see how much effort I put into them. If I found someone using my art, my characters, and wrote something totally different for them, or bastardised them in some fashion, I would be personally hurt by this. I would feel disrespected as a creator.

I would rather someone come to me and ask me if they could use the image of my character for their stuff. I would tell them no as politely as I could, but at least they took the time to consider that, yes, I am a person that made that thing, and yes, I have feelings concerning my creation. Hence why they hopefully asked permission.

I believe that this is something that will hurt RPR. There are lots of people that probably don't even know this thread is going on, and these people have a lot of things going on with themselves in terms of character profiles and appearances. I would hate to be out of the loop and then, suddenly, everything I had was just gone because I didn't know that there were new enforcements in place, and action was taking place.

I think making an announcement that spreads awareness on this matter and why it matters would be the best course of action. It's a site wide announcement that shows up in everyone's feeds and is hopefully read by the mass of RPR.

With something like a motion picture or a TV show, a still or a small animated GIF counts as using a very small portion of the whole (so it is transformative of the medium before it sees use on RPR).

With something like a photograph or a singular image, it must typically be edited down (it would be a harder sell as fair use if the entire picture is used, as it was in the case with Richard Prince).

There's bound to be some questionable legality with using photographs of actual people who aren't acting in something. It's worked out in criticism and such, but I don't think I would bank on it in your position. In that particular case, I believe it's best for the player to reference the "face claim" by name rather than image, and use it as a link to Google Images or something like I have in the past.

Today is a high pain day for me, I ain't gonna be around. But I did catch this when scrolling through Kim's posts.

The motivation behind this post? I see stolen art on profiles every. single. day. Constant, rampant. It disgusts me, as an artist, and a creative person, to see such dishonesty. But? Specifically? The straw that broke the camel's back and made me need to post was when I saw someone (very poorly!) erase a body part off of an image someone had paid money for (that wasn't them!), and post it alongside with another (poorly) edited image to say 'put these two together and it's my character', zero credit, not that credit would have made it okay.

This is an issue that has long, long needed discussed, and ya'll are asking the 'motivation', it's literally that. Disgust. Horror at the sheer disrespect given to artists. Sheer disrespect I see as a continuing theme in this thread's replies, often with statements indicating artists do not deserve to make money or be respected because art somehow takes no time, no effort, it's just a thing that somehow happens, no expertise involved. I've seen this attitude for the decade or so I've actually cared to watch, and I'm tired of it, and the dismissive attitudes toward artists.

Ya'll keep on going, but, you wanted to know my motivation to make the post (as opposed to Kim's for keeping it and allowing the discussion), there ya go. No speculation needed!

These are some useful rules of thumbs, and I very much appreciated your earlier references. I'll keep them on hand.

If you look back, I addressed how artists can better protect their rights (of which many artists are unfortunately not -- even including a simple copyright notice with your images makes a difference). Because the system isn't going to do that for you; it's not for people like you as we've covered, it's for entities with money. It's admirable that Kim goes the distance without being legally obligated.

Nine Inch Nails' Broken album was created on the sly, because Trent was pissed off at the treatment he was receiving from his record company. Even master painters and sculptors rarely received acclaim in their times, and often died poor or underappreciated. So if it comes as any comfort, you're not alone.

I think I can speak for most that we didn't mean to disrespect artists. I apologise on my account, and if what I have done caused any pain to anyone, I apologise, I really apologise. All I can say now is I feel bad, I fear there is nothing I could do to reverse what I did, but I hope I can redo it.

Almost everyone takes images without even thinking about it at some point in their lives. Most of the mods, and even I, will readily admit to having done this at some point. It's just so easy, it feels so "unreal", and no one really tells you about the potential ripple effects and nuances when you start to stretch your legs on the internet.

The fact that you stopped the moment you realized it might be hurtful to the creators shows tremendous consideration and a willingness to change your behaviors to be kind to others, even if the change inconveniences you or makes you feel bad in the short term. That's hard to do, and I commend you! Don't beat yourself up too much for the past, just do your best going forward.

I hope you were able to make use of some of those resources that were linked to. Some of them are pretty fun to play with.

On a personal note, you've also saved me some potential work. The less time I am responding to DMCA take down requests means more time I can spend fixing bugs and making new features and templates for everyone! Woooo!

I have to pose the question from reading all of these posts, "What's the point of posting any original art then if people are just going to copy/paste my work and claim it as their own, copyright notice placed on the work or not?"

I put myself out there to market myself and gain an audience that would be interested in what limited skills I have. All of these copyright rules and whatnot being explained in full makes me nervous for my future as an artist and beginning animator working with original characters. Is it even worth it for us "unknowns" to put out any art when we're barely protected, if at all? What's the bright side to posting anything besides gaining commissions and some recognition if we're lucky?

Sorry to post such a negative viewpoint, but from my eyes, it feels like I'm fighting a hopeless battle to be recognized and carve a niche for myself in terms of artistic skills. These are honest questions that I would love an answer to.

I think this is a legitimate concern, but I don't think you should give up! Especially if art is something you really love and have a passion for. Look at this thread as an example, many people didn't even know it was wrong and are changing their ways and profiles. Educating people can be a pretty powerful thing As for something you can actually do right this second--using a huge water mark helps deter people from taking things that they didn't create.

What I would do if I were an artist is put a copyright notice somewhere on your artwork ("© <year> <name>. All rights reserved.") and a link to wherever the rest of your commission work is. Notices still hold weight, because it prevents things like people claiming an "innocent infringement" defence if you were to ever end up in court (because they cannot claim they didn't know better at that point).

Realise what you're mainly going to be looking to nip in the bud is any profit made off of your artwork -- attempting to utterly restrict its use is only going to become a headache if you're any good (I imagine Tate can attest to that). That's when you'll have a real case, especially if the profit is substantial.

In the case of actual plagiarism (claiming your art is theirs), I would always opt to file a DMCA. Furcadia also has a channel for reporting art plagiarism if and when it occurs, Furc Art Zone.

If it's an average Joe who's using your art for a RPR page or something, what I would do is make him keep your copyright and link instead. Although you can have infringing use taken down with DMCA letters in that case, a counter-claim for fair use can mean you'll get into it with someone.

Generally, it's a waste of your time to go in that direction if the person's willing to be compliant with giving you proper credit; most people might not even realise they're misusing your artwork. I definitely wouldn't tolerate the editing Tate spoke of, but someone who's simply re-displaying your pieces isn't a huge deal. I would use the exposure to reassert your copyright and drive people to your commissions. Then you're not bothering with something you get little out of, and what's going on is in your favour.

We've seen that people are more than willing to work with artists in this topic, as Loki pointed out.

Even though we can't help with the rest of the 'net, you can always report art theft on the RPR to me as well, LightSide-Lotus.

Of course! I already have a watermark in place on most of my artworks (and it's high time to modify it and update any works that don't have it, honestly). It just gets a little discouraging at times when I really want to put myself out there; art will always be my career of choice, even if things like "art theft/misuse" is still a prevalent discussion to be had.

Sanne is right though: it's as just as much responsiblity for the artists to care about their misused works as it is for the people who use the works for profiles. Hopefully a solution that satisfies a majority of both parties will be found one day, but until then, individual changes from artists (using/updating watermarks, etc.) and consumers (cross-checking works before use, etc.) mean a lot, I think. It shows people care about the subject, in my opinion.

Of course, everything said here was very useful and does beg a lot of questions concerning the subject in general and how to handle any issues in the future. Overall, I'm pretty content with how the mods are currently handling the discussion and keeping everything in line.

I added a part above about "theft" by the way, LightSide-Lotus.

What you were speaking of there is plagiarism, and that I would always DMCA.