Concerning Art/Work Theft from the Blue Sun Room
POSTED BY: Cassandrae
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 4, 2005 09:03
VIEWED: 10880
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Hello there,
This is Cassandra E, I usually lurk around the board. I've posted my fanfic here, as some my readers know. But the matter that I'm writing about is concerning my Firefly art/fanart pieces. I've posted them at the BlueSun Room ever since I've had the good fortune in learning by tooth and nail how to make them. It isn't easy, sometimes it takes me hours to finish one wallpaper. A lot goes into it.
But I know in the end, it's worth my trouble. Because it helps hone my skills and because I know other Firefly fans might take a little enjoyment from them. And at the heart of the matter, I love my show. I try to show that through my work.
So you know, I consider myself a pretty lenient person, concerning where I post my work, be it fanart or fanfic. I don't expect much, maybe a little feedback here and there.
You can imagine how...irked
I was when I was browsing through http://www.runner.ch/firefly/startseite.html
and found on of my pieces, cropped and in use in their animated banner that switches from image to image. Not onlyare they using my piece, but a lot of work that folks here, have posted at the BlueSun Room. I spotted Vrya's from Tangled Synthesis, EB's from Heroine Chic, also Dreamer's work. The image rotation varies from day to day. There's countless more, but I can't name them at the top of my head just now.
What most irritates me is the blatant disregard of just taking work, and cropping it to suit their web design needs. Not even a, "hey can I use this image for my site?" Or a "Do you mind if I use the image and crop it to use on my site?" Common courtesy, people! It isn't going to kill you. I don't own Firefly, nor its characters or the images and so forth. I don't make money off it. I state this very clearly in my disclaimer at my website. I own the time and effort I placed in making the work. See that piece above? I made that. I choose how to arrange the images, which textures, filters, brushes and gradients to use. It may not seem like much, but it is.
I don't know if Haken can post like a notice in the Sun Room, stating if some individual wants to use the work posted there, other than using it as a desktop, they need to ask the artist/poster first.
I'm going to be writing a letter, I have someone who's going to translate it for me, seeing as how it's a German site. I believe the very same people were the ones that were hotlinking this very site a year back.
After thinking hard on it. I decided I won't be posting my artwork here anymore. If anyone is interested in seeing my work, you can do so at my site when its finally upload: http://refined-grace.geministar.org/
I'm posting this here, because it isn't just my work. It's other's work too.
Cassandra E
~~~~~~~~~~~
MAL: "I'll never understand rich folk. All that money, this is what they do with it."
INARA:"It's art."
Mal: "It's puppets."
Inara: "It's puppet art."--Heart of Gold, Transcript
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cassandrae:
You can imagine how...irked
and found one of my pieces,
cropped and in use in their animated banner that switches from image to image.
After thinking hard on it. I decided I won't be posting my artwork here anymore. If anyone is interested in seeing my work, you can do so at my site when its finally upload:
http://refined-grace.geministar.org/
Cassandra E
Cassandra, I'm really sorry this has happened.
I really think that even when we save artwork to use as a personal WP, it is important to save it with the name of the artist (so that years later you can always credit them when showing it to friends).
I've always appreciated the fact tha Haken has made it so easy for people to post artwork and/or fanfic here...but it also has the downside of making it easy for others to take the work without crediting the hard work of those who produced it.
Thank you for your site address, so we don't lose out completely on your beautiful work.
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Hey Cassandrae -
I've been stolen myself. One of the Browncoat sites out there grabbed my portrait of Mal and posted it on their site. It's not even in the Blue Sun Room - it's on my artist page at mnartists.org. They also didn't ask before "borrowing." At the time I didn't care and even joked about being good enough to be stolen. On the one hand, it's quite a compliment, but on the other... well, not so much, is it?
Thing is, posting on the Web is problematic in terms of artistic copyright. Anyone can go anywhere and grab anything - ask any of the techie boys and girls around here and they'll tell you the same thing. Even various attempts at blocking can be circumvented if the user is canny enough. And pseudo watermarks can also be eliminated. Photoshop, as you are well aware, is a very powerful tool. "Borrowing" is going to happen,and posting here - where there is no "borrowing" ever - is only a drop in a very big black bucket.
In response to my giddiness over being stolen, I got a pretty tetchy e-mail from the Web mistress. She was offended that I had insinuated she had committed petty Internet larceny. She seemed to think that putting my name under it made it all legal, but I mentioned that had she asked me first before borrowing, there wouldn't have been any insinuation at all. She did apologize in the end, and I got a link to my artist page. It was an educational experience all around.
My point is, you need to go to the source of your irritation. If possible, send a note to the designers of the Web site and advise them that they need to send a request to the artists before using their work, or at least crediting them with it. This one, of course, is a German language site, but they must have some basic understanding of English. Send them your fire and brimstone - you might be surprised.
Incidentally, this is the piece I had stolen. I can't get it uploaded here for some reason, or I would have ages ago.
"It's Enough"
http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?rid=22136
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/
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Channain,
I completely agree with everything you said. The lines alway become murky once you hit the internet and fan boards. People tend to forget basic manners they should use in 'real life'. A please or a thank you don't go unnoticed.
See, I wouldn't have minded or my ire wouldn't have been that great if they asked me. I mean, it's common sense, you know. You borrow something from someone, a book or a picture..."Can please read that? Or can I please use that?"
I will be writing that letter, trust me. And that Mal piece of yours has always been one of my favorites.
Cassie E
~~~~~~~~~~~
MAL: "I'll never understand rich folk. All that money, this is what they do with it."
INARA:"It's art."
Mal: "It's puppets."
Inara: "It's puppet art."--Heart of Gold, Transcript
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I noticed there is some of 11th's artwork over there and her sig has been removed from the drawings.
I wish I knew German!
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Yeah, me too....
Tash? Oh TAAAASH!
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/
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Cassandrae:
I once had an entire website ripped off and represented at another's site as their own work. Mine was called "ATC Library" and had over 16MB of primarily text and hand-optimized graphics. It took me the better part of 6 months just to convert documents (in 1994, when the Web was still wet behind the ears). These a$$holes bypassed my frameset navigation and framed my content pages on their own site, without so much as a 'kiss my ass' said beforehand.
So, I created a new directory on the server, and moved the whole site down a level into that directory. Then I went to their site and checked for my pages: All gone bye-bye. Since all my links were relative, all my nav still worked. I kept checking on their site for a couple of weeks; but they seemed to be having a problem with their navigation interface, since they were having to use full URLs for over 3,000 entries. They eventually gave up and pulled my stuff from their site.
Theft is just plain wrong. It doesn't matter, IMO, that the materials you used were not original productions. You added value to those images, and they took that value without permission by or compensation to you.
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily theft if they credit you and add their own artistic expression to it. That way the consumer has the right to choose between your version and theirs, knowing that the two versions exist and that theirs is a derivation of yours. For example, if my a$$holes had taken my text (crediting my site) and reworked the HTML, re-styled the design, something, anything, and then stored it on their own site's server, I'd've said, "Fair enough. Let the users decide which format fits them best." Instead, they took undeserved credit for my effort, all the while stealing my server's bandwidth.
I guess my point is that I can sympathize, and you're not wrong for feeling this way. You wuz robbed...
Commiseratingly,
zoid
P.S.
With Dreamweaver, for example, the thieves could now automatically rename all their absolute URLs in less than 10 minutes and successfully rip me off, which is no small part of why I don't dabble in web design anymore. With a high-speed connection and over-the-counter tools, a miscreant could probably rip the whole FFFn site in less than 3 hours, even if it's got a really complex structure. Then they could post whatever pieces and parts -- or everything in it -- on the Net, as their own original work. But I'm not going to let the possibility of thievery stop me from expressing myself here.
I hope you will reconsider your decision to stop expressing yourself here, too. We want to see, what you have to say...
_________________________________________________
"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity
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Quote:So, that's just wrong. Plain and Simple.
Zoid Said
[b/]I once had an entire website ripped off and represented at another's site as their own work.
Quote:Ummm... wait, let me get this straight. As long as the artist gets the credit for the original work, it's okay if a Web designer takes the artist's personally created vision and rearranges it for their own purposes?
Zoid Said
On the other hand, I don't think it's necessarily theft if they credit you and add their own artistic expression to it. That way the consumer has the right to choose between your version and theirs, knowing that the two versions exist and that theirs is a derivation of yours.
Now if the designer made a full proposal first and I got approval of the final piece, that would be a different story - rather like when a publisher commissions artwork for book covers. Otherwise, without permission or approval.
I'm just sayin'. Some artists are more easy-going about it. A pewter artist looked at a pendant I had made a slight adjustment to - adding a small crystal to an accurate likeness of Vincent from Beauty and the Beast - and LOVED it. Someone else might holler and scream and make a spectacle of themselves.
Artists can be pretty gorram tetchy sometimes
Quote:I whole-heartedly agree. Halting your contributions to this Web site means the big bad wins. I would hate to have the true Flans here deprived of your truly supershiny work because of some callous uncouth jerk's insensitive blunder. Maybe we should all post with a request to please give us credit when we're being stolen, and from whom. It's the very least they could do.
Zoid added
I hope you will reconsider your decision to stop expressing yourself here, too. We want to see, what you have to say...
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/
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I learned this lesson a long time ago. So I've decided that any artwork I post to the web is for the world to do with as it may. Stuff I don't want "borrowed" I simply don't post. It's a tough decision, but that is the way of the world (wide web).
One technique I use is to post stuff that is of a lesser resolution than the original that I own. So if it ever comes down to who owns the piece, I can always pull out the original to help prove it. It's a small and relatively useless measure, but it lets me sleep at night.
Oh, and play Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. http://digital-eel.com/sais
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Quote:That's basically my philosophy as well.
Originally posted by wydraz:
I learned this lesson a long time ago. So I've decided that any artwork I post to the web is for the world to do with as it may. Stuff I don't want "borrowed" I simply don't post. It's a tough decision, but that is the way of the world (wide web).
Quote:Good advice! Limited engagements is another way. Make a note to yourself to pull it down after awhile. That way if someone's stealing badwidth, eventually they'd also end up with a bad rep for having broken links on their site. Think of it as an electronic limited print run.
Originally posted by wydraz:
One technique I use is to post stuff that is of a lesser resolution than the original that I own. So if it ever comes down to who owns the piece, I can always pull out the original to help prove it. It's a small and relatively useless measure, but it lets me sleep at night.
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/
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