davidshaw said:
despite what fewrahuxo and NotMeNotYou, NotMeNotYou's argument works for copyright whether we like it or not by law, but fewra's argument works if the artist simply has not put on a copyright on their work, whether they choose to have it as a paid artwork or not is irrelevant. If it's not copyrighted and on the internet, it's public domain by definition

No, the moment the image is created it is copyrighted. Here it is from Copyright.gov:

"A work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created, that is,
“fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the
Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection. There
are, however, certain advantages to registration, including establishment of a
public record of the copyright claim. See the heading “Effective Date of Registration”
on page 3 for more details."

Edit: adding the actual source here https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

wolftacos said:
No, the moment the image is created it is copyrighted. Here it is from Copyright.gov:

"A work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created, that is,
“fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the
Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection. There
are, however, certain advantages to registration, including establishment of a
public record of the copyright claim. See the heading “Effective Date of Registration”
on page 3 for more details."

Edit: adding the actual source here https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

if that's true, why bother paying for copyright, when all it does is apparently give a 'public record' of the copyright? If Copyright is guaranteed, as you presume, then no one would bother paying for patents, trademarks etc. Now would they? Because it's apparently already protected, but that is clearly not the case.

Besides, then you get into the can of worms on plagiarism. You could draw something from scratch, but it could still almost look identical to another piece of work, so therefore was it ever actually yours to begin with?

wolftacos said:
No, the moment the image is created it is copyrighted. Here it is from Copyright.gov:

"A work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created, that is,
“fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the
Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection. There
are, however, certain advantages to registration, including establishment of a
public record of the copyright claim. See the heading “Effective Date of Registration”
on page 3 for more details."

Edit: adding the actual source here https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

"As rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, creates public domain status for a work in that country."

besides, each country has their own slightly different copyright laws, and your source, although a good source, is subject only to US law

davidshaw said:
if that's true, why bother paying for copyright, when all it does is apparently give a 'public record' of the copyright? If Copyright is guaranteed, as you presume, then no one would bother paying for patents, trademarks etc. Now would they? Because it's apparently already protected, but that is clearly not the case.

Besides, then you get into the can of worms on plagiarism. You could draw something from scratch, but it could still almost look identical to another piece of work, so therefore was it ever actually yours to begin with?

"Public record" is only one of the perks you get. Including things like protecting certain style traits (which wouldn't be protected under the individual image copyright).

Have you ever followed a blog cataloging art thieves? They do layovers of suspected images over originals. Even if images look similar, once they are overlayed the big differences can really show up. You can definitely tell when someone hasn't traced someone else's art vs when they have (even when they edit certain parts).

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.

The last comment from a good person and champion of the public domain on e621 :'( how this constitutes as him being harassing and insulting, when he was merely replying to a rude retort by Fibs is ridiculous and one sided. You will be missed

wolftacos said:
"Public record" is only one of the perks you get. Including things like protecting certain style traits (which wouldn't be protected under the individual image copyright).

Have you ever followed a blog cataloging art thieves? They do layovers of suspected images over originals. Even if images look similar, once they are overlayed the big differences can really show up. You can definitely tell when someone hasn't traced someone else's art vs when they have (even when they edit certain parts).

who said you have to trace an artwork in order to copy it? sketching something can still make it different, and you can add a few minor details. That's when it gets into the gray area of whether it's plagiarism or not

davidshaw said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

"As rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, creates public domain status for a work in that country."

besides, each country has their own slightly different copyright laws, and your source, although a good source, is subject only to US law

I live in the US. Gonna make a guess that this site is hosted in the US.

In which case, this would be covered by US law.

But hey, if you ever see someone in another country trying to make a profit by printing my badly drawn dog penises on t-shirts, feel free to alert me.

wolftacos said:
I live in the US. Gonna make a guess that this site is hosted in the US.

In which case, this would be covered by US law.

But hey, if you ever see someone in another country trying to make a profit by printing my badly drawn dog penises on t-shirts, feel free to alert me.

haha lmao, fair enough

Regret109 said:

I. The two year rule was perfectly sensible.

It's unreasonable to think that digital images of foxes getting boned will hold their value after two years.

The rule was arbitrary from the beginning, this rule at least leaves the decision to the artist whether or not it's worth something in 2 years time.

Regret109 said:
II. The price of furry porn is too damn high.

It's unreasonable to expect anyone besides an Arabian oil prince to afford all the furry content they want to see.

Because you can't afford something we need to distribute paid content? This is a problem you will have to bring up with the artists who are trying to sell a product, not us.

Regret109 said:
III. This hurts an artist's ability to build their audience, and reach potential costumers.

It's unreasonable to expect this site's users to find the fine work of artists they want to support without the "Two year rule".

Exposure doesn't pay bills. If the artist wishes to make things for exposure they're welcome to do so.

Regret109 said:
IV. The e621 staff is a self-serving, self-obsorbed, and self-righteous entity, that is not concerned with the best interest of it's artists, or it's users.

It's unreasonable to expect the e621 staff, notorious for incompetence and poor reasoning, to make a decision that doesn't hurt nearly every party involved.

Strangely enough most artists I've spoken to seem to appreciate this rule change. We're also still able to host old content if an artist decides to release it for free later. All we do is give more power to artists, something you seem to dress up as being oppressive and hurting them.
Also, yes, we're such terrible staff for being concerned for artists, if only we'd listen to users who are only invested into their interests of getting porn for free and know everything better than the actual artists themselves.

Regret109 said:
I can only hope that artists will periodically post their art for free after a few years on their own terms and accord. Which may be better, who knows. Things are always better when left in the hands of the individual, rather than an administration, furry porn or otherwise.

Hopefully, some have already started in recent years to release older files they have flying around. Maybe that will catch on.

davidshaw said:
if that's true, why bother paying for copyright, when all it does is apparently give a 'public record' of the copyright? If Copyright is guaranteed, as you presume, then no one would bother paying for patents, trademarks etc. Now would they? Because it's apparently already protected, but that is clearly not the case.

Besides, then you get into the can of worms on plagiarism. You could draw something from scratch, but it could still almost look identical to another piece of work, so therefore was it ever actually yours to begin with?

In the US you don't pay for copyright, you pay for better evidence for use in front of a court.
Trademarks are also completely separate and are specifically used to protect a brand, copyrights are there to protect specific works, patents are protections of specific implementations of ideas.

NotMeNotYou said:
Except not. Your logic is flawed and dismisses the opinions and wishes of other people for your own benefit. A lot of artists have complained about this rule in the past, and still do. It is not up to either of us to decide for other people how they're allowed to earn their money. Many of those artists have elected full DNP status because of our 2 year rule.

Your opinion boils down to that the artists should be happy that their content is being pirated because it means it's good. If it is good, why is it not good enough to pay for it?

Because the squeaky wheel is always there right opinion?

I really wish this would have gone to a poll; I would prefer if only verified artists got to vote on it. I'm willing to bet that this change pissed off more artists than it appeased, and it certainly pisses off all the fans.

Edit: PS: Saying "every artist I've asked didn't mind!" isn't proper data. If you're an admin asking shit directly people are likely to tell white lies to make you feel better. Plus selection bias. Polls are best.

Anticensor said:
I'm willing to bet that this change pissed off more artists than it appeased

I don't see why this would piss off any artist.

Volphied said:
I don't see why this would piss off any artist.

Theoretical for you (and I admit a long shot scenario these days): I am an artist who hosts my own content. I make it a pay site to help offset bandwidth costs, and break even. Let's add that I also avoid FA and other free sites because their ToS leaves me worried about my ownership of my intellectual property.

It's possible this theoretical artist appreciated the exposure that e621 brings over time. They do not want to put their archives public because they'd start to lose money hosting that. But now e621 gives no exception.

Please don't get me wrong - I do think overall the idea is good. But I would have appreciated to see a poll. I also think it would have been wise to allow people to back up items from old CDs and such before the purge (especially for deceased artists). Finally, I think that allowing an artist to have their own conditional exception to the rule would be welcome. I think that a blanket ban ignores a lot of rare but real problematic cases.

davidshaw said:
The last comment from a good person and champion of the public domain on e621 :'( how this constitutes as him being harassing and insulting, when he was merely replying to a rude retort by Fibs is ridiculous and one sided. You will be missed

Fibs, who wrote an open letter to every user who begs for free work under the guise of helping the artist with exposure. The same users who, if I had to guess, get blocked from artists' profiles on sites where artists have control.

Fewrahuxo; the same guy who wanted TagBot to be open source under the guise of protecting the site.

davidshaw said:
if that's true, why bother paying for copyright, when all it does is apparently give a 'public record' of the copyright? If Copyright is guaranteed, as you presume, then no one would bother paying for patents, trademarks etc. Now would they? Because it's apparently already protected, but that is clearly not the case.

You should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rQsiwQOMw

Anticensor:

In your scenario, the artist could just include a line on their site that says "Feel free to distribute any of my works that are over two years old, particularly on e621." Problem solved with a single sentence.

Anticensor said:
Theoretical for you (and I admit a long shot scenario these days): I am an artist who hosts my own content. I make it a pay site to help offset bandwidth costs, and break even. Let's add that I also avoid FA and other free sites because their ToS leaves me worried about my ownership of my intellectual property.

It's possible this theoretical artist appreciated the exposure that e621 brings over time. They do not want to put their archives public because they'd start to lose money hosting that. But now e621 gives no exception.

So we went from "many pissed off artists" to "one theoretical artist".

How about you instead give me one real example of an artist who's fine with his/her paywalled art being reposted to e621.

Just one.

Volphied said:
So we went from "many pissed off artists" to "one theoretical artist".

How about you instead give me one real example of an artist who's fine with his/her paywalled art being reposted to e621.

Just one.

Do you not get that my complaint is there was no post, no poll, no open question to find if any artists opposed? I'm not here to find the people *you* pissed off for you. I'm just here to offer the possibility that they do exist. I'll admit if no artists complain then I have no point at all. But I've got better things to do with my life than explain on this silly little forum how this was approached from a silly direction guaranteed to increase strife among the users.

Please do yell at me more in the process, it shows off your rational and measured personality.

Clawdragons said:
You should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rQsiwQOMw

Anticensor:

In your scenario, the artist could just include a line on their site that says "Feel free to distribute any of my works that are over two years old, particularly on e621." Problem solved with a single sentence.

Would that though? If it's only on a pay site I think the rules as written would forever ban it. If that works then I see absolutely no issue.

Anticensor said:
Would that though? If it's only on a pay site I think the rules as written would forever ban it. If that works then I see absolutely no issue.

Well, I'm not an admin so I can't say for sure, but I strongly suspect that the administration here would consider that sufficient.

Since they've been around: Hey, NotMeNotYou, Ratte, Knotty Curls, someone, care to clear this up?

Anticensor said:
Do you not get that my complaint is there was no post, no poll, no open question to find if any artists opposed? I'm not here to find the people *you* pissed off for you. I'm just here to offer the possibility that they do exist. I'll admit if no artists complain then I have no point at all.

No artist has so far complained for 21 pages of this thread. Because why would they? No artist likes to see their paywalled art being reposted. This is not controversial.

Anticensor said:
But I've got better things to do with my life than explain on this silly little forum how this was approached from a silly direction guaranteed to increase strife among the users.

OK

Anticensor said:
Please do yell at me more in the process, it shows off your rational and measured personality.

I didn't yell at you. I have no clue where you saw me yelling in my previous post.

Volphied said:
I don't see why this would piss off any artist.

It's clear his/her conjecture is so much better than someone's actual communications with artists. You see, we must do a proper randomized study of anonymized yet confirmed artists with a sample size that would offer at least five standard deviations of confidence, if not an outright census, otherwise it's just confirmation bias driven feelzb4realz.

Also the artists who don't care about the two-year exception should dictate what the artists who do care allow to be posted.

Forgive my lack of tact, Anticensor, but that kinds of reactions I'm seeing from you and too many others besides you makes it hard to give the benefit of the doubt beyond what this site's rules require.

Anticensor said:
Saying "every artist I've asked didn't mind!" isn't proper data. If you're an admin asking shit directly people are likely to tell white lies to make you feel better. Plus selection bias. Polls are best.

For someone demanding "proper data," you are being awfully presumptuous about who exactly is asking/telling who.

You also seem to forget that conditional DNPs exist. Why not let the artists themselves specify their own time horizons for when their art, pay-walled or otherwise, is readily available here? Individually? Instead of imposing a blanket and arbitrary time horizon on all of them, even if it's supported by an alleged majority of artists? What am I hoping to help by posting in an already heated 21 page forum topic?

I'll buck the conventional wisdom here: if all users here actually show appreciation and proper respect for the artists and the staff that make this site as valuable as it is (a pipe dream for sure, if this thread is any indication), this new rule, per the staff's communications with artists artist initialized communication with staff, would over time result in fewer artists who blanket DNP their otherwise freely available work here, and individual artist's or publisher's conditional DNPs that exist for paid art will become more generous and less time-constrained.

One time I got an exception for a blanket DNP just by asking an artist politely (actually I just asked an artist if I could upload a particular pic here, not realizing she was on the DNP list), and forwarding the permission I received to an e621 admin. Assuming an artist has not dropped off the radar, it's not hard. As for artists who do eventually drop all lines of communication, well... you are not exactly encouraging them to feel comfortable here in the first place. Being on the DNP list for otherwise freely available art is opt-in as well (though it's still basic manners to ask first before reposting what isn't yours, free or no).

Edit:

Volphied said:
I didn't yell at you. I have no clue where you saw me yelling in my previous post.

Can't you see? s/he's being rational, measured and objective, while you are being emotional and subjective #REALZB4FEELZ /s

Anticensor said:
Theoretical for you (and I admit a long shot scenario these days): I am an artist who hosts my own content. I make it a pay site to help offset bandwidth costs, and break even. Let's add that I also avoid FA and other free sites because their ToS leaves me worried about my ownership of my intellectual property.

It's possible this theoretical artist appreciated the exposure that e621 brings over time. They do not want to put their archives public because they'd start to lose money hosting that. But now e621 gives no exception.

Please don't get me wrong - I do think overall the idea is good. But I would have appreciated to see a poll. I also think it would have been wise to allow people to back up items from old CDs and such before the purge (especially for deceased artists). Finally, I think that allowing an artist to have their own conditional exception to the rule would be welcome. I think that a blanket ban ignores a lot of rare but real problematic cases.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record. If an artist decides to release content for free after a while it is then okay to post here. In your example the artist could either just post the art themselves to e621, meaning it's then released for free, or permit someone else to upload it here (which would require the other person to show proof and we would simply whitelist them).

If an artist decides they're cool with something being here then we're cool with it being here (quality rules not withstanding).

Anticensor said:
Would that though? If it's only on a pay site I think the rules as written would forever ban it. If that works then I see absolutely no issue.

Yes, that would be enough as long as we can verify it's from the artist.

Again, this rule is aimed at giving more power to the artist themselves. Those are their works, so those are their decisions to make. If they decide releasing it for free is the way to go then we will gladly host it. If they don't want to release it for free we honor their decision. Nothing more and nothing less.

This whole rule change is just screaming "Varka's being ear-raped by all the Patreon artists. Better change the perfectly-reasonable rule we have in place and nuke every scrap of pay-to-view art we can find, even if it's old as hell and not even remotely Patreon-related."

IF, and it's a big if, the staff truly cared about artist's feelings, this rule would have been in place right from the very start. The fact that this change is being justified with that excuse NOW, after all these years, I'm not buying it. This is more than just feelings, this is outside pressure from artist-led opposition finally rearing its ugly head. If that's not the case, then what is it? No way it can be something as simple as saving artist's a few pennies or making them feel better. Not after all this time.

This place has always been about the users. Sure, you put up measures for artists to have their art taken down if they don't want it here or they rage quit whatever fandom they're in. But, the endless distribution of artwork, free or not, without artist consent or even knowledge is a testament to how far down on the list of priorities that the artist is on. This whole site is a platform for porn image dumping that anyone can access and get their rocks off to, yet you turn around and claim that it's all about the artists. Backwards logic if I ever saw it.

There is a reason for this asinine rule change and I've got a feeling that it had absolutely no involvement with the site majority, that being the users. Hypocrisy at its finest, if that even is the case.

Novalight said:
This whole rule change is just screaming "Varka's being ear-raped by all the Patreon artists. Better change the perfectly-reasonable rule we have in place and nuke every scrap of pay-to-view art we can find, even if it's old as hell and not even remotely Patreon-related."

There was no outside pressure, the idea came from me and not from Varka. Why only now? Because I was taking stock of what we currently have and what areas might need improvement. I simply remembered that rule was a thing and how I always thought it to be a bit odd since I joined. Brought it up with the other staff, poked some artists I knew, and here we are.

Hell, even Char is in favor of this change, and he lead the for a couple years when I first joined. Sometimes there is a thing that is so low priority it never gets dealt with, or it's a status quo nobody bothers evaluating again.

wolftacos said:
I live in the US. Gonna make a guess that this site is hosted in the US.

In which case, this would be covered by US law.

But hey, if you ever see someone in another country trying to make a profit by printing my badly drawn dog penises on t-shirts, feel free to alert me.

By what right a page is covered or where it has its server does not really matter. Sofurry also has its server in the US, but the founder comes from Austria. Although the site has nothing to fear under Austrian law, the rules were made stricter and swastika, as well as underage material under stricter rules. Which rules rule on one side or which are applied there depends on the creators and their factual knowledge about the rights and laws. At Sofurry it was just a decision to "play it safe".

Novalight said:
This whole rule change is just screaming "Varka's being ear-raped by all the Patreon artists. Better change the perfectly-reasonable rule we have in place and nuke every scrap of pay-to-view art we can find, even if it's old as hell and not even remotely Patreon-related."

IF, and it's a big if, the staff truly cared about artist's feelings, this rule would have been in place right from the very start. The fact that this change is being justified with that excuse NOW, after all these years, I'm not buying it. This is more than just feelings, this is outside pressure from artist-led opposition finally rearing its ugly head. If that's not the case, then what is it? No way it can be something as simple as saving artist's a few pennies or making them feel better. Not after all this time.

This place has always been about the users. Sure, you put up measures for artists to have their art taken down if they don't want it here or they rage quit whatever fandom they're in. But, the endless distribution of artwork, free or not, without artist consent or even knowledge is a testament to how far down on the list of priorities that the artist is on. This whole site is a platform for porn image dumping that anyone can access and get their rocks off to, yet you turn around and claim that it's all about the artists. Backwards logic if I ever saw it.

There is a reason for this asinine rule change and I've got a feeling that it had absolutely no involvement with the site majority, that being the users. Hypocrisy at its finest, if that even is the case.

I can understand the assumption, then it should really concern the artists, why was in the past what they want? Where there were problems with some, because of the TWYS rule and the Cuntboy dispute. The argument was, it's not that many, or something like that. I suspect the real reason is fear of lawsuits by artists, for copyright infringement or the like.

davidshaw said:
The last comment from a good person and champion of the public domain on e621 :'( how this constitutes as him being harassing and insulting, when he was merely replying to a rude retort by Fibs is ridiculous and one sided. You will be missed

I'll be the first to defend public domain when we're talking about things that would benefit from it, and Tagbot is not one of those. I've read that thread, and Fewrahuxo just came off as entitled, forwarding the exact same reasoning as he did on this thread ("If something exists anywhere and can be copied, then everyone should have a right to have it for free"). When the GPL and FLOS software became a thing, the reasoning was that if there's a bug in proprietary code or a missing feature that could be added, instead of waiting on the maintainers of the code to make that change, they could just do it themselves. Tagbot already covers most of the tags that could be tagged automatically, has proven to be extremely reliably thus far, is kept in check by the admins and its owner is relatively active overall. Tagbot would benefit very little from being open-sourced, and even if it did, no amount of whining and convincing on the forum would have changed that, because it's still asw_xxx's bot in the end, and he should have the right to decide what to do with the code.

Novalight said:
This whole rule change is just screaming "Varka's being ear-raped by all the Patreon artists. Better change the perfectly-reasonable rule we have in place and nuke every scrap of pay-to-view art we can find, even if it's old as hell and not even remotely Patreon-related."

IF, and it's a big if, the staff truly cared about artist's feelings, this rule would have been in place right from the very start. The fact that this change is being justified with that excuse NOW, after all these years, I'm not buying it. This is more than just feelings, this is outside pressure from artist-led opposition finally rearing its ugly head. If that's not the case, then what is it? No way it can be something as simple as saving artist's a few pennies or making them feel better. Not after all this time.

Wow. You can tell when people haven't followed the entire thread (and I understand those people, I personally regret doing that), but your response is making it seem like you haven't even read the OP.

NotMeNotYou said:
The 2 year rule has been a relic since the site's original founding back in '07, and was mainly justified to provide an option to have content from art CDs available beyond their original sales windows. CDs age, get damaged or lost, and are only available in very small production runs so it was kind of understandable, if a bit dick move, to provide a mirror so that content could be kept available for everyone once those CDs are no longer being sold.
However, since then we have seen the advent of widespread broadband, cloud storage, cheap website hosting, Patreon and subscription based pages and a sharp decline in the sale of furry artwork on a physical medium.
If artists are selling something in recent times it's almost always done through a service that is for far longer available than manually burned CDs, and usually not limited to a specific amount of sales either. All of this means our rule is causing problems to artists trying to earn money off of their hard work.
As the largest furry archive basically every furry knows of us and most people know how to search for things. By us hosting paid content, even if it's just slightly older one, we directly cut into people's ability to earn money.

Novalight said:
This place has always been about the users. Sure, you put up measures for artists to have their art taken down if they don't want it here or they rage quit whatever fandom they're in. But, the endless distribution of artwork, free or not, without artist consent or even knowledge is a testament to how far down on the list of priorities that the artist is on. This whole site is a platform for porn image dumping that anyone can access and get their rocks off to, yet you turn around and claim that it's all about the artists. Backwards logic if I ever saw it.

There is a reason for this asinine rule change and I've got a feeling that it had absolutely no involvement with the site majority, that being the users. Hypocrisy at its finest, if that even is the case.

The point of e621 is that it's a gallery of publicly available art. If the artists have made it visible on their own gallery for free, then there's no reason why a community-maintained meta-gallery pointing back to the original source can't host a copy of it as well. Stop discrediting e621 as if that would justify hosting unsourcable content.

The salt here is pretty funny. Far as I can tell it mostly boils down to "Screw what the artists want, give me whatever porn I'd like and stop asking for compensation for your work, because it's pornographic."

Many artist's Patreons have what, a dollar as the gateway monthly service amount? If you cant even afford that even for your very favorite artist then you have much bigger issues to worry about.

As for another point, if an artist wants exposure, they'll usually run a page on a free to view site with either a plug for their Patreon or previews for their Patreon only works. Like how Frisky Ferals will post previews of paid packs and also will post comic pages that are a couple of weeks behind on the FTV site. Movies and TV put up trailers to pique interest. They don't let people pirate them freely for said interest. That's why PirateBay has been nuked so many times.

Though, the whole "artists who are no longer with us" is a point that needs to he addressed. It can be hard sometimes to tell if an artist has truly passed or if they just moved on in life but if E621 is the last surviving archive of their works then perhaps some more finesse is in order.

PlüschTiger said:
By what right a page is covered or where it has its server does not really matter. Sofurry also has its server in the US, but the founder comes from Austria. Although the site has nothing to fear under Austrian law, the rules were made stricter and swastika, as well as underage material under stricter rules. Which rules rule on one side or which are applied there depends on the creators and their factual knowledge about the rights and laws. At Sofurry it was just a decision to "play it safe".

If it's hosted in the US, then it follows US law. I don't see the point in what you're saying. Just because it's hosted in one country doesn't mean it has to allow EVERYTHING the country allows.

It doesn't matter where the founder of SoFurry comes from, but if they own the site and don't want swastikas and cub porn on it, then they are well within their rights to ban swastikas and cub porn.

wolftacos said:
It doesn't matter where the founder of SoFurry comes from, but if they own the site and don't want swastikas and cub porn on it, then they are well within their rights to ban swastikas and cub porn.

He probably banned swastikas so the german government wouldn't try to block access to the site. I heard they had laws against swastikas. Not sure if that law includes sauwastikas, though.

BlueDingo said:
He probably banned swastikas so the german government wouldn't try to block access to the site. I heard they had laws against swastikas.

Aah, that makes sense.

BlueDingo said:
He probably banned swastikas so the german government wouldn't try to block access to the site. I heard they had laws against swastikas. Not sure if that law includes sauwastikas, though.

FA has plenty of images with swastikas, and last time I checked (= right now), it wasn't banned in Tomania.

Munkelzahn said:
FA has plenty of images with swastikas, and last time I checked (= right now), it wasn't banned in Tomania.

But Tomania isn't in Germany, is it?

It's in Africa.

someone close this thread already

KingpinNY said:
someone close this thread already

My thoughts exactly :v

BlueDingo said:
It's in Africa.

Just like Equestria

NotMeNotYou said:
I'm starting to sound like a broken record. If an artist decides to release content for free after a while it is then okay to post here. In your example the artist could either just post the art themselves to e621, meaning it's then released for free, or permit someone else to upload it here (which would require the other person to show proof and we would simply whitelist them).

If an artist decides they're cool with something being here then we're cool with it being here (quality rules not withstanding).

Yes, that would be enough as long as we can verify it's from the artist.

Again, this rule is aimed at giving more power to the artist themselves. Those are their works, so those are their decisions to make. If they decide releasing it for free is the way to go then we will gladly host it. If they don't want to release it for free we honor their decision. Nothing more and nothing less.

Thanks for clarifying NotMeNotYou. I admit a large part of the problem is I didn't want to read twenty pages of fighting to see if anyone asked the exact thing I asked. So I'd like to say I'm sorry for making you repeat yourself ^^; It's just that the rule as written on the first page read a lot more draconian without knowing that.

In my eyes if the artist posting it here themselves is fair game - I'm pretty dammed satisfied.

I will admit there's a data-preservation part of me still mildly worried the purge might have caused something to be lost forever - but in the grand scheme of things it won't matter if a few art CDs got lost.

Volphied said:

I didn't yell at you. I have no clue where you saw me yelling in my previous post.

You are correct, looking back there are no exclamation points so you certainly weren't "yelling". You were still belittling and instead of offering counter-points you attacked my lack of direct contact with artists (which came across as a personal attack but that's my own hang-up). Anyhow, I just wanted to point that out since I don't feel like you were trying to be mean

kamimatsu said:
And those ways don't exist if there is nothing to sell. We can keep doing this but you will lose every time.

Not quite sure how I'm "losing" here. I never said there wasn't anything to sell, I never said no one was spending money, I only said "no site ads."

You're making up stuff I never mentioned in order to "win."

Anticensor said:
I will admit there's a data-preservation part of me still mildly worried the purge might have caused something to be lost forever - but in the grand scheme of things it won't matter if a few art CDs got lost.

It's worth mentioning that deleted images on e621 still exist, they are just hidden.

So they have not been lost forever - at least until such time as e621 goes down, but then if e621 was the only place that artwork could be found it would have been lost at that point anyway.

Clawdragons said:
It's worth mentioning that deleted images on e621 still exist, they are just hidden.

So they have not been lost forever - at least until such time as e621 goes down, but then if e621 was the only place that artwork could be found it would have been lost at that point anyway.

Even though the stuff from art CDs is just hidden on the site, since normal users can no longer access them and they'll never made public again, isn't it pretty much the same thing as them being gone?

Dogenzaka said:
Even though the stuff from art CDs is just hidden on the site, since normal users can no longer access them and they'll never made public again, isn't it pretty much the same thing as them being gone?

You never know. With enough dedication and perseverance, e621 might survive long enough for Disney to collapse plus however long is needed for works to start entering the public domain after that.

Acolyte said:
Not quite sure how I'm "losing" here. I never said there wasn't anything to sell, I never said no one was spending money, I only said "no site ads."

You're making up stuff I never mentioned in order to "win."

Does whether you say people have nothing to sell determine if they have nothing to sell?

ikdind said:
You never know. With enough dedication and perseverance, e621 might survive long enough for Disney to collapse plus however long is needed for works to start entering the public domain after that.

Disney will never die!

UnusualParadox said:
Disney will never die!

Yeah, and your current avatar is proof.

kamimatsu said:
Does whether you say people have nothing to sell determine if they have nothing to sell?

I never said people have nothing to sell. You're confusing yourself at this point. I only ever said it's not necessary to have site ads to make money with a website. Nothing else.

UnusualParadox said:
Disney will never die!

Yep, public domain is dead in the U.S. Because Disney will never, ever let Mickey Mouse go into the public domain with their lobbying power. :( And especially now with Marvel and Star Wars under their roof.

(Edit: Yes, this is hyperbole. The point is simply that copyright in the U.S. is basically "Forever, Minus One Day".)

Acolyte said:
I never said people have nothing to sell. You're confusing yourself at this point. I only ever said it's not necessary to have site ads to make money with a website. Nothing else.

Let's go back to some previous posts.

Posts on page 15 :

BlueDingo said:
This site makes money from advertisements.

Acolyte said:
The site makes money from content. Remove the content and leave the ads and see if anyone visits the site anymore.

Munkelzahn said:
remove the ads and leave the content
see if it makes any money anymore

Acolyte said:
As long as there's traffic, there's a way to make money. Even without site ads.

How do you propose that this site make money without ads?

BlueDingo said:
How do you propose that this site make money without ads?

Malware that tracks users' IP addresses and personal information to sell to the highest bidder. It does happen. Less invasive, but just as uncool are cookies that track what pages you visit, how long, and how often also to sell to businesses so they can more effectively target what sort of ads attract your attention more. Sites like YouTube does this.

Not that I'm saying e6 should do this, but it is just one risk of using "ad-free" services online.

Don't tell me artists like Digitoxici are getting put on the DNP List! He has a Patreon, but actively posts his art here, and lets others post it here as well! Are artists like that just fucked? If so, holy fucking shit!!

Heteroxon said:
Don't tell me artists like Digitoxici are getting put on the DNP List! He has a Patreon, but actively posts his art here, and lets others post it here as well! Are artists like that just fucked? If so, holy fucking shit!!

If someone posts their own work then good for them.

The point is to restrict the posting for paywalled images. If you post your own paywalled images, then we don't care. They can also just let us know "yeah I don't care if people post my paywalled stuff" and we'll go "ok" and that'll be it.

It isn't about something just being on Patreon, it's about paywalled content. People post stuff for free on Patreon all the time, even me.

Ratte said:
If someone posts their own work then good for them.

The point is to restrict the posting for paywalled images. If you post your own paywalled images, then we don't care. They can also just let us know "yeah I don't care if people post my paywalled stuff" and we'll go "ok" and that'll be it.

It isn't about something just being on Patreon, it's about paywalled content. People post stuff for free on Patreon all the time, even me.

You make it sound legitimate, but this is going to ruin e621, and you'll all be wondering why so many people are saying "fuck this shit" and abandoning this site for ANY other one WITHOUT absurd commustic rules. And I don't buy the self-righteous "do the right thing" shtick. You do understand that this is going to hurt like a bitch, right?
I'm giving you all a fair heads-up. This is a very very HUGE MISTAKE!

Heteroxon said:

You make it sound legitimate, but this is going to ruin e621, and you'll all be wondering why so many people are saying "fuck this shit" and abandoning this site for ANY other one WITHOUT absurd commustic rules. And I don't buy the self-righteous "do the right thing" shtick. You do understand that this is going to hurt like a bitch, right?
I'm giving you all a fair heads-up. This is a very very HUGE MISTAKE!

ok

Heteroxon said:

You make it sound legitimate, but this is going to ruin e621, and you'll all be wondering why so many people are saying "fuck this shit" and abandoning this site for ANY other one WITHOUT absurd commustic rules. And I don't buy the self-righteous "do the right thing" shtick. You do understand that this is going to hurt like a bitch, right?
I'm giving you all a fair heads-up. This is a very very HUGE MISTAKE!

Did you even read what Ratte said? Artists that release their own content for free are not affected by this rule change.

NotMeNotYou said:
Did you even read what Ratte said? Artists that release their own content for free are not affected by this rule change.

I understand that. And that doesn't matter to me. What's bothersome is that many people on this site use Patreon, and People on Patreon don't want to have to deal with talking back and forth so they can get their sorry butts off some list, which somebody put them on without their say in the matter. It's either that, or a whole bunch of additional misunderstandings that will bug the living Hell out of both YOU and a lot of other people. In addition, making things harder, or less convenient, attracts less people to a site.

Heteroxon said:
I understand that. And that doesn't matter to me. What's bothersome is that many people on this site use Patreon, and People on Patreon don't want to have to deal with talking back and forth so they can get their sorry butts off some list, which somebody put them on without their say in the matter. It's either that, or a whole bunch of additional misunderstandings that will bug the living Hell out of both YOU and a lot of other people. In addition, making things harder, or less convenient, attracts less people to a site.

If someone releases their content for free they don't need to be on a list. It will literally be publicly available that they released it for free, because they released it for free to the public.

Please work on your reading comprehension.

Heteroxon said:
I understand that. And that doesn't matter to me. What's bothersome is that many people on this site use Patreon, and People on Patreon don't want to have to deal with talking back and forth so they can get their sorry butts off some list, which somebody put them on without their say in the matter.

And yet it doesn't bother you that people were automatically on the "paid content can be put up for free after two years" list?

You are trying to construct a narrative here, but the narrative just doesn't fit the facts.

NotMeNotYou said:
If someone releases their content for free they don't need to be on a list. It will literally be publicly available that they released it for free, because they released it for free to the public.

Please work on your reading comprehension.

Maybe I don't get what's going on! You ARE saying that people cannot post stuff that has been featured in Patreon before? Right? The ONLY THING I'm trying to tell you is that this will make life unnecessarily hard for you, and a LOT of other people. This site is nothing without your viewers, so what's in their best interest is what's most logical. IF YOU'RE NOT IMPLYING THAT THIS WILL MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR THEM, THEN NOTHING ELSE NEEDS TO BE SAID OR DONE!

Heteroxon said:
Maybe I don't get what's going on! You ARE saying that people cannot post stuff that has been featured in Patreon before? Right? The ONLY THING I'm trying to tell you is that this will make life unnecessarily hard for you, and a LOT of other people. This site is nothing without your viewers, so what's in their best interest is what's most logical. IF YOU'RE NOT IMPLYING THAT THIS WILL MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR THEM, THEN NOTHING ELSE NEEDS TO BE SAID OR DONE!

A rough guide to the new rules, as I understand them:

Is the artist DNP?

Compare with this guide of the old rules:

Is the artist DNP?

Heteroxon said:
Maybe I don't get what's going on!

I got that impression from you, yes.

Paid content is only paid content as long as you have to pay to view it. The moment something is released for free it no longer is paid content. This has been said on the very first post of this thread already, and has been said multiple times after that.

Anything that is released for free is not paid content. If it were paid content it wouldn't be released for free, and conversely something that is freely available from the artist themselves isn't being sold.

You people really like drama, huh?

NotMeNotYou said:
I got that impression from you, yes.

Paid content is only paid content as long as you have to pay to view it. The moment something is released for free it no longer is paid content. This has been said on the very first post of this thread already, and has been said multiple times after that.

Anything that is released for free is not paid content. If it were paid content it wouldn't be released for free, and conversely something that is freely available from the artist themselves isn't being sold.

So if somebody's art has been somewhere which you had to pay for it, and is later posted on FA for free (by the artist), nobody else other than the artist can get the art from that page & post it here?

NotMeNotYou said:
Except not. Your logic is flawed and dismisses the opinions and wishes of other people for your own benefit. A lot of artists have complained about this rule in the past, and still do. It is not up to either of us to decide for other people how they're allowed to earn their money. Many of those artists have elected full DNP status because of our 2 year rule.

Your opinion boils down to that the artists should be happy that their content is being pirated because it means it's good. If it is good, why is it not good enough to pay for it?

I don't disagree with that line of logic, but wouldn't it be better to deal with it on a case-by-case basis instead of an overarching rule banning all content regardless of the creators actual wishes? I don't disagree with the removal of content if it's recent, paywall and especially if the author bids it's removal, but it seems that this sort-of broad rule serves only to include those cases that fall in between, where the artist either isn't around anymore to make such a decision, collect pay for it, etc. I'm probably just misunderstanding the rule, though.

I don't see all of the backlash as whining that it'll be harder to pirate content now (although a hearty chunk of it is)-- It seems to have a genuine concern for older works that might be lost from the site due to this rule mixed in there somewhere.

ikdind said:
A rough guide to the new rules, as I understand them:

Is the artist DNP?

Yes

The art is DNP.

No

Did you have to pay money for it?

Yes

The art is DNP.

No

Did you pirate it?

Yes

The art is DNP.

No

Post it!

This "flowchart" should be on a wiki page somewhere. Hell, it should probably be on the original post.

Fifteen said:
This "flowchart" should be on a wiki page somewhere. Hell, it should probably be on the original post.

I thought it was at least a creative use of the section tags. :3

Heteroxon said:
So if somebody's art has been somewhere which you had to pay for it, and is later posted on FA for free (by the artist), nobody else other than the artist can get the art from that page & post it here?

No, at that point it is free for all to upload. The important part is that the artist themselves has to release it for free initially. It can then be posted to us by other people.

skelitor120 said:
I don't disagree with that line of logic, but wouldn't it be better to deal with it on a case-by-case basis instead of an overarching rule banning all content regardless of the creators actual wishes? I don't disagree with the removal of content if it's recent, paywall and especially if the author bids it's removal, but it seems that this sort-of broad rule serves only to include those cases that fall in between, where the artist either isn't around anymore to make such a decision, collect pay for it, etc. I'm probably just misunderstanding the rule, though.

I don't see all of the backlash as whining that it'll be harder to pirate content now (although a hearty chunk of it is)-- It seems to have a genuine concern for older works that might be lost from the site due to this rule mixed in there somewhere.

We should be honoring the wishes of the creators, even after their death. Once the content flips over into the public domain we'd be willing to host it again.

NotMeNotYou said:
No, at that point it is free for all to upload. The important part is that the artist themselves has to release it for free initially. It can then be posted to us by other people.

Well I was going crazy because I thought you meant that when something was on a paysite, it was DNP "Forever". "Forever" implied to me that it would be that way FOREVER, and that posting it on sites for free wouldn't change that. I was lost in confusion towards the fact that if it'd be forever, then the paradox strikes right when you said it'd be for free once it was posted for free, going against the whole "forever" thing.

In other words; I overthought this whole thing WAY too fucking hard.

Heteroxon said:
Well I was going crazy because I thought you meant that when something was on a paysite, it was DNP "Forever". "Forever" implied to me that it would be that way FOREVER, and that posting it on sites for free wouldn't change that. I was lost in confusion towards the fact that if it'd be forever, then the paradox strikes right when you said it'd be for free once it was posted for free, going against the whole "forever" thing.

In other words; I overthought this whole thing WAY too fucking hard.

666th Forum Post! Lol

No, but really, sorry for overthinking it.

Here then is a legitimate concern I have: when hidden content becomes public domain who will un-hide it? How will they know to un-hide it?

'Admins' is certainly the answer to the first question.
Probably they would be prompted by posters, with evidence of the artist's year of birth. Evidence of year of death might be a lot harder to get, so standards might need to be relaxed.

I guess that leaves the question of who would care enough to bother to prompt admins, given length of current copyright terms. I certainly don't know the answer to that.

savageorange said:
Probably they would be prompted by posters, with evidence of the artist's year of birth. Evidence of year of death might be a lot harder to get, so standards might need to be relaxed.

I mean, if I tried to post something that had been made public and found out that the same md5sum already exists and has been deleted, I would certainly start with a Dmail to an admin, mod, or janitor with the public URL and, if available, the md5sum and/or post ID that had been deleted.

I'm not really worried about that case, though, because most likely the publicly released image is going to have some form of compression applied to it (because posted to tumblr, FA, or something) that nudges the md5sum so it no longer matches previous postings.

As for works expiring copyright--- in the U.S., within our lifetimes, that's basically going to be "never". Assuming an average human lifetime of 80 years, assuming the average work is done by a 30-year-old artist, something produced today would be in copyright until 2137 (life of the artist plus 70 years).

I'm not really worried about that case, either, simply because it's well beyond any point where I expect to be alive.

Well, yeah. They were asking about public domain (which is specifically about copyright, it is not the same as 'publicly viewable')[1], though, so I presume they were in fact concerned about the latter case.

If you were uploading a publicly accessible file, then it seems reasonably clear that the link itself could be evidence, depending on how obviously official it is.

[1] It should also be noted that the idea of 'public domain' is not universally recognized, so in practice I believe it's possible for a work to neither be copyrighted nor public domain.

Mmm, it is a shame about the limited doujins and old art which is a good lesson to save what you like (and back it up). As for the whole piracy thing, i think that the "E621 will not pimp out pirated porn to you any longer" is acceptable attitude\conclusion.

BlueDingo said:
Let's go back to some previous posts.

How do you propose that this site make money without ads?
[/quote]

There are several ways.

But the easiest is to ask for it. Like Wikipedia does.
Will the site make a fortune, I don't know. But SOME people absolutely will give.

Some will give, but enough to make a difference? This thread alone has more than a few examples of people who want furry stuff but don't want to pay for it.

Acolyte said:
There are several ways.

But the easiest is to ask for it. Like Wikipedia does.
Will the site make a fortune, I don't know. But SOME people absolutely will give.

And the easiest way to answer a question is to say "there are several ways" and then only mention the "easiest" one.
Let me add one that isn't as "easy", but it's all the rage now:
JavaScript(tm) cryto-currency miners

KnotCoin(tm) - mine while fapping to animal genitalia!