I feel like the paid-content rule change is catered to patreon and other such art distribution processes.
Why wasn't it limited to 2010 foreword (or some other arbitrary number foreword) or limited to patreon/artist-site paid content?
I especially don't understand why works unable to be purchased now are being targeted.

As an artist myself I never really expect any work from more than a few years back to sell at all. I'm doing better work every day as are so many other artists, was a list of complaints filed by artists the reason why you made the change? Did a lot of people dislike the posting of their work 3 years back specifically?
Was a major hit in revenue made this year due to a large quantity of people unsubscribing from art sites? Was that hit due to people unsubscribing because they are happy only seeing work from 3 years back?

Was e621 threatened legally?

I'm sorry to say but considering how 90% of all money made in furry porn is from patreon, YCH, and commissions I don't know how the 3 year back is negative. Patreon is constantly updated and the people paying for that aren't going to stop because of e621's 3 year rule and YCHs/commissions are irrelevant to the three year rule.

Who exactly IS affected by the three year rule? I want to know... Or should I ask WHAT way of receiving paid-art is affected by the 3 year rule?

fewrahuxo said:
the quality of arguments from people in favor this rule change is extremely low compared to the arguments from people against. all i seem to read is ad hominem attacks, claims that someone is entitled for caring about a website that they frequent often, and a lack of actual reasons as to why this rule is a good one, instead arguing in favor of an imaginary morality play for non specified "artists" that they don't know personally.

Here's a really, really good reason for the change that has nothing to do with morality.

The more paysite artwork you place here without the artists' permission, the greater chance you have of one of them suing you.

A lawsuit ALWAYS costs money. It costs money to defend yourself in court, even if the law is heavily in your favor.

It makes sense to implement this new rule if for NO OTHER REASON than to head off the possibility of a lawsuit. Even just to reduce the chances of one by 30% to 40%.

1 - "Pay content" is used to describe all pay-to-view and commercial works where either an admission fee, subscription fee, or a copy has to be purchased in order to view it. This goes for both physical and digital products / works.

2 - Obviously if any content has been released for free later it will stop being DNP from that moment forward.

As the son of a long time legal expert, allow me to impart some sage advice to anyone complaining about this rule 'change'. Always read the fine print. All this means is that anything that's pay to view is DNP. If something is on a free site like FurAffinity, InkBunny, etc then it's still fine to post, as long as the artist isn't some moron who says don't post my stuff even though they've already posted it where anyone can view it.

Daneasaur said:
But I don't share these sites, nor do I advocate them. However, I have advocated e621 and their fair policies. I have told friends and artists how this place has had good posting rules and the very nice two year cooldown, of which artists like as generally, the want for [product] is mostly gone a month after it's been released, two years down the line is basically a non factor.

But now I have to go and tell them how the administration pulled the rug out.

You could always ask them if they would like to add a conditional DNP that permits two-year-old artwork. It was up to artists to request "Do Not Post" before, but because some people couldn't speak English, we now request "Permitted To Post" instead.

Actually, should we have that as a new tag? Conditional PTP?

BismuthGalaxy said:
If preventing things from being deleted off the face of the Earth counts as being "fuck you, artists," then yes, I am saying "fuck you, artists."

I respect an artist's right to make a living, but this is just stupid.

Well, hey, fuck you too.

Fuck you, pay me, to be exact.

BismuthGalaxy said:
fuck you, artists.

PimpNuttz said:
Well, hey, fuck you too.

BismuthGalaxy said:
<3

Should we give you two a moment alone together?

I'm very...confused...about this rule change.

On one hand, I understand e621 wanting to be morally correct and not help along pirating.

On that same hand though, the rule doesn't actually do anything to stop or even hinder pirating, people are now just encouraged to pirate through other means instead of waiting 2 years for art, and the whole idea of e621 being an art archive is kinda undermined in my opinion by this decision.

On the other hand, every artist I know that has spoken about the 2 year rule was fine with it, and it never seemed like an issue until now to anyone.

So please, mods and admins and other staff, please help me understand what the point of this rule change after however many years of the 2 year rule is. All I see it doing is angering a part of the user-base and encouraging pirates to go elsewhere, and I don't get it. Why would you put this rule into effect now, when all it does is put you in a more morally right position and anger some of your users.

fewrahuxo said:
having to explain yourself is so hard, isn't it?

I have better things to do than arguing about the moral and legal implications of uploading furry porn on the web.

the Wiki landing page, as edited by the Lead Administrator himself, states explicitly its mission is to archive work:

That would be Riversyde, not NotMeNotYou. The site has stopped being an archive since the very first takedown request.

the persons who originally instituted this arbitrary rule change have the burden of proof of justifying their arbitrary rule change. extraordinary changes require extraordinary evidence, none of which has been produced.

To do what, proving that "Two years after its initial release, digital art being available at no cost on a publicly accessible platform regardless of whether or not the creator is still attempting to monetize it will not significantly harm the artist's revenue"?

You know what? If that's indeed what we're trying to prove, then the hypothesis that it does not make a difference is easier to reject than the alternative, and therefore makes a better null hypothesis.

you have failed to demonstrate that downloading an image - let's say with a retail price of $20 - is directly taking $20 away from the artist themself. nobody is obliged to spend any money on materials that can had for free, and the only argument against this practical truth is based on impractical morality, which is based on cultural norms and not objective truth.

fewrahuxo said:
nobody goes to the movies for the "skill, time, and materials." they go to the movies to spend the next two hours in shock and awe: or, to put it another way, they go to the movies to see a movie.

we do not look at art for the "skill, time, and materials invested by the creator." all of that is incidental to the end product, which is being distributed in a format where anybody can share it in any way they so desire, for free. there is no reason not to have the end product for free, and any reasons given are subjective.

artists who believe that downloading copies of their work equals lost sales are free to download millions of copies of their own work and watch in awe as they become a millionaire through the magic of copying. funny enough, nobody argues that not downloading artists work suddenly makes them rich.

The upfront cost of creation of something means the people behind it need to invest a lot of energy, time and money to make something that will sell well enough for them to recoup their initial losses and hopefully turn up enough of a profit for them to make something better next time. By refusing to pay for something, even it that something has already been made and your consumption of it doesn't result in a net loss for the creator, it still means you're not helping them recovering from the initial cost.
Many artists on Patreon (or artists monetizing their work in general) don't just do they art out of love and passion in their free time, they do it because it actually makes it possible for them to put food on the table without having to juggle with their day jobs. Working full-time for 4 months to make a comic or an animation is only viable for them if it can still generate enough money doing only that to keep themselves afloat. Copying whatever that artist makes and distributing it for free isn't theft, but it's taking away from them the most direct way they had to make sure they'd still have the time and money to make more stuff.

e621 is already distributing over one million copyrighted works, the vast majority of which without the artist's permission. its existence is very Robin Hood in that manner, and is just an instance of the Internet at work.

Sure, because that are is already available freely, and e6 only serves as a content aggregator. That still means the artist uploaded that are with the intent that if anyone wanted to look at it, they could. Copyright takedowns are there for artists who want to specify "but only on my site, because I don't get ad revenues otherwise" or anything of the sort.

you keep using the word "stolen". i don't think it means what you think it means. once again, i am waiting for you to demonstrate how copying an artist's image is analogous to stealing real-world physical money from their person.

It's not analogous to that, as I've been saying for at least 5 pages. Synonyms are hard, ok?

the site has always upheld, officially or otherwise, it's the artist's burden to opt out of having their content put on e621, and the system is extremely efficient. there is no reason to complain about the system, and to do so is being a white knight for people you don't know.

Like I've already said, the artist is free to opt-out of having his/her art on the site, this only makes the default condition for upload "the art must already have been released for free by the artist", so that the artist doesn't have to come here and specify that themselves. If you look at the conditional DNP list, when you take out artists who just don't want their explicit art on here, that's what most of them boil down to ("materials not from free sites is DNP", "Material not from FA is DNP", "Commissions are DNP", "All pay content is DNP", etc.)

i have my doubts that a copyright-infringing company complacent in the distribution of copyright-infringing materials for several years is "legal".

They've been very prompt of removing anything infringing on artist or commissioner copyright, and most of the copyrighted characters depicted in the art counts as fair use.

BismuthGalaxy said:
Nobody should have the right to hide it away from the rest of the world indefinitely.

Lol and why not? I (and most artists I know tbh) have tons of physical and digital drawings, paintings, and sketches that will never see the light of day. It's my shit and my right to share it as I please or neglect it in a drawer or even burn all of it if I wanted to. Artists choosing to share art with you (for free or for pay) is a privilege, not a right.

BismuthGalaxy said:
Nobody should have the right to hide it away from the rest of the world indefinitely.

I have a highly detailed greyscale drawing of a scaly dragon sitting in my cupboard right now. Are you telling me that I have no right to hide it from you?

BismuthGalaxy said:
Funny how BOTH of you missed the point. It's not about things that were never released to begin with.

What makes you think that dragon drawing was never made public?

BismuthGalaxy said:
Imagine if a company decided "fuck you," removed all traces of your favorite video game/movie/etc.

That's why I don't play online-only games.

BismuthGalaxy said:
The point was that it was already released for people to experience. To deprive all future people of that experience is morally disgusting.

Wasn't someone on your side complaining earlier about people using morals as justification for arguments? Oh well, at least I know you're not a fan of iconoclasm.

BismuthGalaxy said:
Funny how BOTH of you missed the point. It's not about things that were never released to begin with. Imagine if a company decided "fuck you," removed all traces of your favorite video game/movie/etc.

The point was that it was already released for people to experience. To deprive all future people of that experience is morally disgusting.

And if the art is something potentially controversial or life-ruining such as animal porn, and the person has a legitimate reason for wanting it removed from the public, like not wanting their name attached to it? Are you going to say they should have thought about that in the first place, and it's not their place to decide what to do with their own art, but it belongs to "us" now to do with it as we see fit?

And it's not like they're taking it away from people who purchased it - they're asking someone else who is hosting it freely (possibly without their permission in the first place) to cease hosting it. We have no obligation, legal or moral, to continue to host it against their will. It's called not being a dick. They ask us to remove it, so we remove it. It's their art. We should respect their wishes. Not go "Nah, we think society benefits more from having your art here, so we'll just keep serving it, but thanks for your concern."

BismuthGalaxy said:
Funny how BOTH of you missed the point. It's not about things that were never released to begin with. Imagine if a company decided "fuck you," removed all traces of your favorite video game/movie/etc.

The point was that it was already released for people to experience. To deprive all future people of that experience is morally disgusting.

This happened and happens all the time, both on purpose and on accident. It's happened to stuff fairly influential to me, and yeah, it sucks that I can't watch this stuff on demand but it's laughable to think this is somehow 'morally disgusting'. I'm not being wronged by this, they're not taking anything from me and they're not withholding anything I need. If I was to demand that the studio release the stuff I want to see, for no compensation, under the justification that it was public once that'd be at least as much of a dick move. I've asked, the answer was no, and that's the end of that.

Hello. I am FibS. I am an artist.

I requested to be added to e621's DNP list a few months ago, despite the fact that most if not all of my artwork is publicly and freely available elsewhere.

I did this because I did not and do not see e621 as a respectful place for art & artists. This place is full of hatred and condescension. Artists are lambasted and ridiculed not only for legitimate errors in their art, but for personal artistic decisions such as drawing testicles on dragons.

I did not and do not want to be associated with such a community.

The behavior in this discussion thread has only reaffirmed my disappointment. Your sheer sense of entitlement, the constant paper-thin excuses to seize what isn't yours, and your condescending malice and bad faith towards those who don't give you everything you want - attacking and insulting not only artists but also your staff members - make it clear to me that you are not even mature enough to hold this discussion, and absolutely not deserving of the gift of art. Not my petty and modest contribution, and not anyone else's. You neither understand, respect, nor appreciate it.

You dare to say that protecting our property and dignity from your thievery and disrespect is "selfish".

You dare to say that it's "morally repugnant" to confiscate something that you took without permission.

You dare to say that art is "worthless"; and yet you want it so badly!

I do not care what benefit I may gain through e621. I will never consent for my artwork to appear in a sleazy doghouse among profane curs who have nothing but contempt for me, my fellow artists, and our work.

Your staff are mature and thoughtful enough to respect that wish.

But the rest of you are a mewling jumble of irreverent babies, and your desires and twisted "me-me-me" logic are of zero consequence to me.

You aren't worth wiping my ass with. You don't deserve my art.

And you are entitled to absolutely nothing.

FibS said:
Hello. I am FibS. I am an artist.

I requested to be added to e621's DNP list a few months ago, despite the fact that most if not all of my artwork is publicly and freely available elsewhere.

I did this because I did not and do not see e621 as a respectful place for art & artists. This place is full of hatred and condescension. Artists are lambasted and ridiculed not only for legitimate errors in their art, but for personal artistic decisions such as drawing testicles on dragons.

I did not and do not want to be associated with such a community.

The behavior in this discussion thread has only reaffirmed my disappointment. Your sheer sense of entitlement, the constant paper-thin excuses to seize what isn't yours, and your condescending malice and bad faith towards those who don't give you everything you want - attacking and insulting not only artists but also your staff members - make it clear to me that you are not even mature enough to hold this discussion, and absolutely not deserving of the gift of art. Not my petty and modest contribution, and not anyone else's. You neither understand, respect, nor appreciate it.

You dare to say that protecting our property and dignity from your thievery and disrespect is "selfish".

You dare to say that it's "morally repugnant" to confiscate something that you took without permission.

You dare to say that art is "worthless"; and yet you want it so badly!

I do not care what benefit I may gain through e621. I will never consent for my artwork to appear in a sleazy doghouse among profane curs who have nothing but contempt for me, my fellow artists, and our work.

Your staff are mature and thoughtful enough to respect that wish.

But the rest of you are a mewling jumble of irreverent babies, and your desires and twisted "me-me-me" logic are of zero consequence to me.

You aren't worth wiping my ass with. You don't deserve my art.

And you are entitled to absolutely nothing.

Thank you for posting your thoughts on this matter. This whole thread, aside from a few users and the mods/admins, have made me feel like total shit for dare wanting control over my creations as an artist.

I've been tempted to be on the DNP list here before and after reading the replies here, I've scooted even closer to making that decision.

This site is not possible without artists being kind enough to release loads of FREE content to the masses. To know that it's not appreciated at all by so many people is disgusting.

Devil's advocate time.

Why draw the fine, ambiguous line of "paid content" to apply to a DNP list? If you really cared about artists' rights, any works that weren't released explicitly under a CC-equivalent license shouldn't be allowed to be uploaded to this site at all, -especially- if the uploader has no rights to the content! You guys should totally require proof from every uploader that they're legally allowed to transfer this protected data to your servers in both the origin and destination's legal jurisdictions. It's the right thing to do, after all.

Even with this, why should E621 be allowed to PROFIT through site advertisements unless every artist with assets on this site has explicitly whitelisted all advertisements that could possibly be displayed next to their work to generate revenue, even if they don't see a penny of it? It's not like this is a registered nonprofit organization; the admins of this site could be pocketing thousands from others' hard work!

You've started down a slippery slope. I'll miss this place, once it's run into the ground.

FibS said:
Hello. I am FibS. I am an artist.

I requested to be added to e621's DNP list a few months ago, despite the fact that most if not all of my artwork is publicly and freely available elsewhere.

I did this because I did not and do not see e621 as a respectful place for art & artists. This place is full of hatred and condescension. Artists are lambasted and ridiculed not only for legitimate errors in their art, but for personal artistic decisions such as drawing testicles on dragons.

I did not and do not want to be associated with such a community.

The behavior in this discussion thread has only reaffirmed my disappointment. Your sheer sense of entitlement, the constant paper-thin excuses to seize what isn't yours, and your condescending malice and bad faith towards those who don't give you everything you want - attacking and insulting not only artists but also your staff members - make it clear to me that you are not even mature enough to hold this discussion, and absolutely not deserving of the gift of art. Not my petty and modest contribution, and not anyone else's. You neither understand, respect, nor appreciate it.

You dare to say that protecting our property and dignity from your thievery and disrespect is "selfish".

You dare to say that it's "morally repugnant" to confiscate something that you took without permission.

You dare to say that art is "worthless"; and yet you want it so badly!

I do not care what benefit I may gain through e621. I will never consent for my artwork to appear in a sleazy doghouse among profane curs who have nothing but contempt for me, my fellow artists, and our work.

Your staff are mature and thoughtful enough to respect that wish.

But the rest of you are a mewling jumble of irreverent babies, and your desires and twisted "me-me-me" logic are of zero consequence to me.

You aren't worth wiping my ass with. You don't deserve my art.

And you are entitled to absolutely nothing.

Sorry e621 isn't your personal hugbox and people have opinions here, whether is be about admin decisions or the state of your art.

BismuthGalaxy said:

@wolftacos, I appreciate your art very much, so I would like to understand your perspective as to why you wish to control it, when I have no such desires for my own stuff.

I honestly don't feel like explaining any of my reasoning to you, and it's all down to how you've been talking this whole time. From "fuck you artists" to the angry comment you hid a few minutes ago that I did get the chance to read.

BismuthGalaxy said:
That was directed at FibS, not you. I'm trying to be better now.

I appreciate that you are trying to be better.

BismuthGalaxy said:
That was directed at FibS, in response to his own anger, not you. I'm trying to be better now. "Fuck you artists" was far too extreme in retrospect, and I am very sorry for that.

Why do I get this feeling that you're only being nice now because someone you like is thinking about leaving?

Mario69 said:
Artists are free to be in contact with the staff and inform to allow content that would othervice fall under our DNP ruling. We should actually have more than couple artists we know that are completely fine with users posting content here, even if regularly this would require something like pledging on patreon.

That gives me an idea, maybe set up a page detailing whose works (and possibly which ones, if only some of an artist's art is being removed) have been taken down under the new rule. That way artists can see if their work is getting taken down, and if they want, request to be added to a whitelist of sorts so that their paywalled art can get posted. Because, though this might just be my experience, I'd say the majority of artists I follow are far from prudish about having their art on e621.

Mario69 said:
This is my personal consern of this along with old physical medium like CDs, however some have gave me counterpoints to this. Main ones are consistancy with ruling (everyting, instead of everything except this and that and those), language barriers (if I only speak japanese, it's really hard to find a button to file takedown on english website) and the actual sources for those things. With actual sources, I mean that whenever I do find dojins in here, they are usually sourced with one of three places and simply mirrored to here.

I have yet to encounter scenario where someone had scanned something directly here instead of getting it from another website to begin with - another website which has already downscaled and compressed the content.

It's not exactly the same thing, but a few users on the site, for instance Jackalfag, post English translations directly onto submissions containing foreign-language text, generally by adding notes to the image. I don't know of any instances where these translations get posted on any site other than e621, and they aren't very useful or accessible if the images get taken down.

I guess I just feel that there aren't any sites that can quite fill the same role as e621 does, but for paid works. There aren't any other image boorus or doujin repositories that match up to us when it comes to having comprehensive tagging guidelines (or a userbase that can apply them competently), especially when it comes to anthro submissions, and e6's search tools consistently prove to be more helpful than any other site except possibly for Inkbunny, which isn't a booru.

English is not my native language
so, if there are errors, forgive me ...

Well, I thought E621 was a kind of savior of art for the humanity for a better world like youtube does with music and video game guides, old movies ...etc

and not another DA, FA, IB, because it's very hard to find something in them

But now, what's the point?

What do you think of everything that can not be put here, we could do a special section in which we could put the tag of an art and the link of this art, but without putting the art itself, also point of appreciation and opinions...

what is it YCH?

another question...
someone commission an artist and put it on tumblr, FA, IB, DA?
What is? paid content or free content?

Reading back through this post, I happened across this and felt like responding, since I used the word "entitled" in my post.

treos said:
that's pretty much what the anti-piracy argument comes down to. well, that and calling pirates "entitled" but that's just an idiotic and pointless argument at this point that neither proves nor does anything.

I freely admit that on occasion, pirate stuff. I am not anti-piracy. However, I do not feel entitled to the things that I pirate, and I do not feel like any site needs to cater to this end. If you do feel like a site needs to allow piracy, you are entitled. It has nothing to do with whether or not you think that piracy is a moral issue or not, but whether or not you feel you have the right to order a business to break the law on your behalf.

To me, a site owner has the right to host or not host what content they wish. I may be disappointed by certain choices, and certain choices may make me stop using the site, but that's a separate issue. The issue here is that people are demanding e621 host certain content, and to me that is ridiculous. I see it as not much different from those who verbally abuse the admins over deleting human-only content.

And yes, the people who do that are, I will say it again, entitled. By which I mean they are demanding of others that which others do not have an obligation to provide.

E621 is one of the largest -- if not the largest -- archives for furry artwork. By retroactively purging 2500+ images without warning, you've brought into question the stability and reliability of your service.

It's one thing to change your policy from this point on; that's fine, it's your call. But to mass-remove a decade's worth of user-uploaded content without prior notice, on the basis that it 'may' still be copyrighted, seems extremely unwarranted and unprofessional. It's possible that e621 was the only remaining mirror for some of the content that you deleted, essentially erasing them from existence.

Please, consult your users before taking drastic actions. You've given the impression that you see no problem with abruptly changing policy and destroying any old content that now suddenly violates it. Who's to say you won't suddenly change your mind about what type of content is permitted, and then wipe out an entire tag of images with a snap of your fingers? I no longer feel confident in using e621 as the primary host for my content, and I'm sure many other artists share these thoughts.

To clarify, I have no quarrels with your policy change. I am merely appalled that you would purge pre-existing content without any prior announcement. That is a horrible ethic for a content-hosting company to have.

BismuthGalaxy said:
Funny how BOTH of you missed the point. It's not about things that were never released to begin with. Imagine if a company decided "fuck you," removed all traces of your favorite video game/movie/etc.

The point was that it was already released for people to experience. To deprive all future people of that experience is morally disgusting.

*points to the snes mini* um... i think nintendo might've tried to set a precedent for that one. failed of course but they definitely tried to get rid of a few hundred games to make people pay for a tiny fraction of those they tried to erase. all of which were games they hadn't made in years, if not decades.

but...money and paying consumers first, everyone else waaay off in the distance at the end of the waiting line...potentially until the content is gone entirely. right?

past a certain point, even video game piracy can (but never will) be considered a form of archiving. heck, if it weren't for pirates, collectors, and gamers in general archiving all those old games then they'd probably all vanish within a few years of the next gaming generation beginning. i mean, fat chance at any of those big companies giving a F about preserving gaming history once it stops making them a profit. they couldn't care less.

but in the case of video games it's not simply a matter of "F YOU, devs". rather it's both sides saying "F YOU!" and fighting each other without end. nintendo is...sorta preserving games with their virtual console system but even that's just temporary since they likely kill support for consoles using it past a certain point rendering it useless for archiving anything or when it stops pulling in a profit.

edit: wow, less than 2 days and this thread is on its 12th page. that's the first i've ever seen a thread grow in length since joining this site iirc. too bad it's a thread with arguably good/bad news.

Pyke said:
Sorry e621 isn't your personal hugbox and people have opinions here, whether is be about admin decisions or the state of your art.

e6 isn't your personal hugbox either. You don't have to go out and start buying art, but e6 doesn't have to keep hosting your precious paid art either. If you don't like that they're no longer doing it, feel free to find another site that will help you with that.

Treos, I'm not going to hunt down quotes, but I want you to understand that I'm not looking down on you because I have money and you don't. I spend no more money than you do on furry art (I know this because my furry art budget is precisely $0.00), because there's plenty of freely available art out there to keep me satisfied. Will I miss some of the content? Probably. But I'm not going to demand that the admins make it easy for me to see paywalled art. Perhaps it's a little different because I do have wiggle room in my budget, so I'm not forced to miss out...but there's enough non-paywalled art out there that I don't see any need to make room in my budget.

To the admins: I think this is a good change. If artists want to charge for their stuff we shouldn't be facilitating people getting around that.

Weblure said:
E621 is one of the largest -- if not the largest -- archives for furry artwork. By retroactively purging 2500+ images without warning, you've brought into question the stability and reliability of your service.

It's one thing to change your policy from this point on; that's fine, it's your call. But to mass-remove a decade's worth of user-uploaded content without prior notice, on the basis that it 'may' still be copyrighted, seems extremely unwarranted and unprofessional. It's possible that e621 was the only remaining mirror for some of the content that you deleted, essentially erasing them from existence.

Please, consult your users before taking drastic actions. You've given the impression that you see no problem with abruptly changing policy and destroying any old content that now suddenly violates it. Who's to say you won't suddenly change your mind about what type of content is permitted, and then wipe out an entire tag of images with a snap of your fingers? I no longer feel confident in using e621 as the primary host for my content, and I'm sure many other artists share these thoughts.

To the contrary, I believe that providing prior notice would have been the unprofessional approach here. Having decided to stop enabling piracy of this sort, it would rather miss the point to give everyone a chance to grab all the pirated art they want before it goes away. The statement that this was done "on the basis that it 'may' still be copyrighted" strikes me as disingenuous. E621 is hosted in the United States, where copyright is in theory extended for the artist's lifetime plus 70 years, or 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation (whichever is shorter) for works for hire and works with an unknown author (in practice, I suspect that due to the efforts of Disney, copyright will be extended indefinitely for any work created after Steamboat Willie). I suppose that it is possible for the artist to have committed their work to the public domain or slapped a permissive license on it later, but I very much doubt that that is the case for any paywalled furry art, and in any event certainly not common enough to justify that sort of FUD.

As far as using e621 as the primary host for your content, since you are the copyright holder, if any of your work was affected it would be straightforward to get it restored. The entire point of this is to show artists the respect that they are by law entitled to.

Snowy said:
To the contrary, I believe that providing prior notice would have been the unprofessional approach here. Having decided to stop enabling piracy of this sort, it would rather miss the point to give everyone a chance to grab all the pirated art they want before it goes away. The statement that this was done "on the basis that it 'may' still be copyrighted" strikes me as disingenuous. E621 is hosted in the United States, where copyright is in theory extended for the artist's lifetime plus 70 years, or 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation (whichever is shorter) for works for hire and works with an unknown author (in practice, I suspect that due to the efforts of Disney, copyright will be extended indefinitely for any work created after Steamboat Willie). I suppose that it is possible for the artist to have committed their work to the public domain or slapped a permissive license on it later, but I very much doubt that that is the case for any paywalled furry art, and in any event certainly not common enough to justify that sort of FUD.

As far as using e621 as the primary host for your content, since you are the copyright holder, if any of your work was affected it would be straightforward to get it restored. The entire point of this is to show artists the respect that they are by law entitled to.

If users didn't want their content from a decade ago to be public, they probably would've said something by now. The point is that they purged a large chunk of what is essentially an archive, simply because they felt it was the right thing to do. That's akin to destroying some items in your museum because you think that some people might be upset by it.

E621 already has a takedown system; it's fairly simple to have all of your artwork removed if you wanted. There was no reason to delete artwork that was uploaded several years ago. Obviously, those artists didn't care enough to have them taken down during the years they've been up. For all we know, some of the artists may have deceased, and their remaining legacy of artwork was just destroyed.

Nothing has been purged or destroyed, only rendered invisible (you may have noticed talk earlier in the thread about un-deleting lower resolution posts that were removed as lower-quality versions of paywalled content, which would not be possible if the image was not still archived). As far as the takedown system goes, it's good for artists who make their works freely available, or for paywalled works that were missed. However, I do not believe that artists should be required to take a positive action to have their rights respected. That should be the default. It's far more sensible to ask artists who wish to have their paywalled works displayed here to give permission.

Snowy said:
Nothing has been purged or destroyed, only rendered invisible (you may have noticed talk earlier in the thread about un-deleting lower resolution posts that were removed as lower-quality versions of paywalled content, which would not be possible if the image was not still archived). As far as the takedown system goes, it's good for artists who make their works freely available, or for paywalled works that were missed. However, I do not believe that artists should be required to take a positive action to have their rights respected. That should be the default. It's far more sensible to ask artists who wish to have their paywalled works displayed here to give permission.

Thank you for that information, that makes me feel better. I agree that it's not very sensible to expect artists to actively search websites for their content and request a takedown. I was just worried about content potentially being lost forever. I hope they retain their backups of the images for as long as needed to ensure that no legacies are destroyed.

I apologize for jumping to conclusions.

I'm going to bring up one point and it's kind of related to the whole CD thing: While the data in question is no longer as susceptible to data rot, value rot on these works is still very much present.
In 2 years time, a piece of artwork would have lost nearly all appeal and interest in 2 years time and serves as nothing but another piece buried in someone's gallery archive.

If people want to DNP over the 2 year rule, let them DNP. The DNP is a great and legally binding way, as it already was, to solving the very problems this rule change was created to address.
But at this point, damage already done.
----
Also because I recall this being mentioned to the contrary before, but commission work is commercial work. Any work that requires to medium of exchange to take place for services rendered is paid labor. As such, it should also fall under paid content unless it is made freely available to the public for viewing by either the artist(s) or the commissioner(s). This excludes cases where this is done and its the wishes of those involved in the exchange to not have it reposted, then it should also it be restricted or subject to DNP.

My personal thoughts is that the previous ruling worked fairly for both artists and the general public. Now, its pits the interests of the 2 groups against each other and creates demand for a more or less lucrative means of accessing work which would have been previously allowed under the previous ruling but is now barred under the current one because of how broad and unrestricted the criteria for it is.

Most commissioned work is made available by the artist or commissioner for everyone else to view so that's obviously fine to post. I don't think anyone has commissioned a furry artist and kept it 100% to themselves - and if they did, it wouldn't be on here anyway because no one else would know about it. I don't understand what you're trying to argue.

BlackLicorice said:
I don't understand what you're trying to argue.

More of a response than an argument. I'm not going to argue for this change, but I'm not going to argue against it because quite frankly the matter is a case of enforcing copyright law over condoning conditional piracy.

As for commissions specifically, someone claimed that 'Commissions aren't commercial work', which is wrong on so many levels literally, metaphorically, and morally that one of the statement alone is among the most brutal stabs in the back to artists.

My overall point was that the previous ruling, while flawed as much as this one, was more neutral to the 2 main groups of beneficiaries of this website's use (Artists and everyone else). The new ruling now pits the interests of both groups against each other.

CloverTheSaboteur said:
Patreon artists on here are fucked

(EDIT: damn now this site is turning to communism, we're all fucked)

Ha

does.. ANYONE here understand that we are talking about removing pirated content here? because how detached you have to be from reality to not see that big site deciding to delete bunch of illegally obtained shit is usually.. decent thing to do, not a dictator move.

and we are not even talking about pirating something that is tiny nick in some big company's income, we are talking about something when piracy takes majority of an individual's income.

Black-EyeBill said:
As for commissions specifically, someone claimed that 'Commissions aren't commercial work', which is wrong on so many levels literally, metaphorically, and morally that one of the statement alone is among the most brutal stabs in the back to artists.

The definitions I found about commercial works specify that the work in question must be designed to be used for commerce. While a commercial artist can make commissions, those commissions are mostly private so they don't fall under the clause that they are intended to be sold further. Commissions also aren't done as work for hire, and the person commissioning something does not automatically obtain commercial rights to the piece in question, which remain firmly with the artist until relinquished.

If you think the definition I'm using is wrong I'd like to know why.

Commander_Eggplant said:
does.. ANYONE here understand that we are talking about removing pirated content here? because how detached you have to be from reality to not see that big site deciding to delete bunch of illegally obtained shit is usually.. decent thing to do, not a dictator move.

and we are not even talking about pirating something that is tiny nick in some big company's income, we are talking about something when piracy takes majority of an individual's income.

Why would they think about that? All they care about is getting free art because they are selfish and feel entitled to free art. They can disguise it any way they want ("b-but e621 is an archive!1!") but even they know the real reason.

BlackLicorice said:
Why would they think about that? All they care about is getting free art because they are selfish feel entitled to it. They can disguise it any way they want ("b-but e621 is an archive!1!") but even they know the real reason.

ah. classic. so much pain comes from people seeing art as just something that grows on trees and not as something that is result of someone working their ass off and practicing for years...

Good to see no artist has explained why the 2 year rule is terrible or harmful.
I myself think every peice of art I have 2 years back is terrible and I would delete it if not for the sake of showing improvement. I understand that many artists hit their ceiling many years back unlike me but honestly, who really cares about the potential sale of art unrepresentitive of their current portfolio?

I understand some people feel like the non-artists are being entitled but the artists aren't being much better to be honest. I've only seen stuff saying, "It's my art" and nothing about how the two year rule is harmful, I haven't even seen how people sell their two year back art.
I feel like all the wrong points are being brought up here in regard to this rule change that has so many obvious holes in it.
(Criticism is a shitty reason to place yourself on DNP btw)

Questions I have for premium artists
1. How did the two year back rule affect you?
2. How do you even sell the two year back art?

TheTundraTerror said:
Because there's no intrinsic value of smut. Also, nice strawman.
"Pirate only want free shit!" basically ignores the fact that people do not feel like drawn porn is worth the money people are asking. At that point, it's up to the sites/artists is question to make their offers worth the asking price or pound sand.

If you feel something isn't worth the price then that doesn't entitle you to have it for free. If you want a DVD but don't feel like the price is worth it, does that give you the right to steal it? Absolutely not. And if you really feel like drawn porn is so worthless then why do you even care in the first place? Oh, that's right, because you and every other pirate feel that they are entitled to free shit. News flash: you aren't. Want paid art? You pay for it.

Weblure said:
By retroactively purging 2500+ images without warning, you've brought into question the stability and reliability of your service.

I must be blind because I didn't even see this; This is what all the discussion and vitriol has been about? 2500ish posts? E6 hosts about one million three-hundred thousand posts. 2500 isn't even a drop in the ocean.

Peekaboo said:
I must be blind because I didn't even see this; This is what all the discussion and vitriol has been about? 2500ish posts? E6 hosts about one million three-hundred thousand posts. 2500 isn't even a drop in the ocean.

•Remove 0.19% of the site's posts to hopefully make artists resent us less, potentially resulting in fewer DNPs and at the very least demonstrating some level of reverence towards the people who make this site worth anything

how can one of the biggest sites in this category EVER recover from this?!

now I, a person with 0 tag edits, 0 uploads, 0 productive forum posts, and hell, 0 forum posts before this announcement, am going to tell you why this action is proof that the nazi mods are driving the site into the ground

Peekaboo said:
I must be blind because I didn't even see this; This is what all the discussion and vitriol has been about? 2500ish posts? E6 hosts about one million three-hundred thousand posts. 2500 isn't even a drop in the ocean.

Not sure why you feel the number is a factor. I can tell you plenty of doujin and at least 25% of the images on there are ones I've viewed when I went to check what was deleted.

FibS said:
Hello. I am FibS. I am an artist.

hello, FibS.

i'm sorry to say that your aggressive stance on the matter has caused me to go from having a neutral opinion of you into having an extremely negative opinion of you.

i will be sure to tell my friends that they don't deserve your artwork, and will put extra emphasis on the "aren't worth wiping my ass with" bit, because i'm sure you sound like a very pleasant human being to work with.

fewrahuxo said:
i will be sure to tell my friends that they don't deserve your artwork, and will put extra emphasis on the "aren't worth wiping my ass with" bit, because i'm sure you sound like a very pleasant human being to work with.

That's mature. I agree that the artist in question could have been less condescending but I wholly respect their decision to not want their art here.

But going 'I'll bad-mouth you to all my friends' helps nobody.

fewrahuxo said:
hello, FibS.

i'm sorry to say that your aggressive stance on the matter has caused me to go from having a neutral opinion of you into having an extremely negative opinion of you.

i will be sure to tell my friends that they don't deserve your artwork, and will put extra emphasis on the "aren't worth wiping my ass with" bit, because i'm sure you sound like a very pleasant human being to work with.

I wish I could frame this and FibS's comments together.

lol

MissChu said:
That's mature. I agree that the artist in question could have been less condescending but I wholly respect their decision to not want their art here.

But going 'I'll bad-mouth you to all my friends' helps nobody.

yes, it would be immature of me to do that. i do want the artist to know that what they say have consequences, and somebody far crueler would actually go and do something like that.

but it does look like that the artist's comments are indicative of the sort of attitude that discredits artists from having a stake in this conversation, because their responses tend to be emotionally charged and full of bias. there is, once again, a stunning lack of reason to discourse like this.

BismuthGalaxy said:
And what comes next? Banning all r34 because of the off chance that a megacorp will file a frivilous lawsuit?

R34 may fall under fair use or parody. That's for someone more versed in the law to ponder.

Nonetheless, a site owner will still want to take whatever precautions he/she can to prevent a lawsuit. And banning paywall art is a simple, logical step. After that, I can't tell you what comes next.

FibS said:
Hello. I am FibS. I am an artist.

I've been arguing on the side of the artists, but I have to admit I'm curious.

Where does this deserving community of art afficionados exist online? This wonderful place where hatred, entitlement and harsh criticism do NOT exist?

Would really like to know.

Acolyte said:
I've been arguing on the side of the artists, but I have to admit I'm curious.

Where does this deserving community of art afficionados exist online? This wonderful place where hatred, entitlement and harsh criticism do NOT exist?

Would really like to know.

Deviant Art. Emphasis on the lack of criticism. Hatred and entitlement? Yet to be seen.

fewrahuxo said:
yes, it would be immature of me to do that. i do want the artist to know that what they say have consequences, and somebody far crueler would actually go and do something like that.

but it does look like that the artist's comments are indicative of the sort of attitude that discredits artists from having a stake in this conversation, because their responses tend to be emotionally charged and full of bias. there is, once again, a stunning lack of reason to discourse like this.

And? Consequences for what? That we have to be nice to people who give us shit about our own artwork? There is such a thing called helpful critique, and that's part of what FibS was talking about. Just because we get a lot of attention for something we enjoy doing doesn't mean we're obligated to be doormats.

I butted heads with this one asshole who tried demanding @Kenno_Arkkan stop posting futa. He was too blinded by raging entitlement to form a coherent thought, causing him to produce essay lengths of blabber the equivalent of 'fuck you'.

That's the vibe I getting from folks like you. In this thread. Right now.

For everybody bemoaning the loss of archived commercial works of 2+ years, it is yer own damn fault for not downloading it ages ago when it was still available.

If you are a fan of, say, rare (non-export) Japanese Doujins, of course you d/l them as soon as you find them. DMCA takedowns get filed, DNP requests come in, websites close; hell, even public libraries take books out of circulation. There are many things conspiring against the hoarder, legal or otherwise.

If you are 'too poor' to afford adequate electronic storage for your pursuit, like an external HD, then you are an art enthusiast or admirer, not a hoarder or collector, and your complaint has little traction.

Acolyte said:
R34 may fall under fair use or parody. That's for someone more versed in the law to ponder.

Nonetheless, a site owner will still want to take whatever precautions he/she can to prevent a lawsuit. And banning paywall art is a simple, logical step. After that, I can't tell you what comes next.

When the brony fad started Hasbro tried to dmca us for all r34 pony artworks and we told them to fuck off. We still host that stuff and will continue doing so.

SwordBlaster said:
I'm very...confused...about this rule change.

On one hand, I understand e621 wanting to be morally correct and not help along pirating.

On that same hand though, the rule doesn't actually do anything to stop or even hinder pirating, people are now just encouraged to pirate through other means instead of waiting 2 years for art, and the whole idea of e621 being an art archive is kinda undermined in my opinion by this decision.

On the other hand, every artist I know that has spoken about the 2 year rule was fine with it, and it never seemed like an issue until now to anyone.

So please, mods and admins and other staff, please help me understand what the point of this rule change after however many years of the 2 year rule is. All I see it doing is angering a part of the user-base and encouraging pirates to go elsewhere, and I don't get it. Why would you put this rule into effect now, when all it does is put you in a more morally right position and anger some of your users.

I also want to apologize in advance if I'm just totally wrong about something, please feel free to correct me in that case. Thank you.

I'm not a staff member, but here's the silent explanation for you that the mods and admin are perhaps reluctant to state.

I know a few ecommerce site owners that were sued for using images they found online without permission.

It cost one of them $50,000 in legal fees just to defend themselves in court. Not $50,000 awarded to the plaintiff, $50,000 in FEES to their lawyer. Just to DEFEND against the suit.

That's money ON TOP of perhaps what they would have to pay if they lost the case.

So never mind any high-minded ideals such as hindering piracy, or preserving an archive. THAT is the reason for removing commercial content. And in my opinion, as a site owner, it's a damned good reason.

TonyLemur said:

Are you saying it's better if we say "fuck you, artists" and never delete anything?

Considering they are saying "fuck you, supportive fans"? Yeah.

Good for you, I'm sure your pirating skills are top-notch. But it's not e621's place to be your source of pirated art.

Re-read that. I said I DON'T get pirated art from here.

So you have to go to your artist friends and tell them we won't be uploading their paid art anymore? I'm sure they'll be devastated.

Actually I'll tell them how corrupt the administration is, how wishy wash it tends to be and self serving and how they lose out on their own art policies when it's posted here.

Again, you'd rather us take the "fuck you, artists" stance? If you think that's the best policy I don't think this is the place for you.

I already answered that, but you totally missed the part where I said "But I didn't fight it when it kept happening here". It happened it sucked, I think it's a stupid thing to do, but I didn't fight.

I'm sure your charming attitude, PR skills, and ability to understand what people are saying is why you are FORMER Staff.