Super curious... I had a commission that I posted here 10 years ago. Nothing all that special or edgy. I find out that it was taken down by Artist request <1 year ago for unknown reasons.

I'd like to logically assume said picture of mine bought and paid, never an issue raised... for 10 years. It still remains on FurAffinity @ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/7485703/

I just find it really unusual to slap down something a decade later.

From legal standpoint, it's the artist that owns copyrights to their work. Commissioning simply means that you are paying the artist to use their time to do something.
If you order someone to take photographs of wedding for example, it is the photographer who has full rights to the images. You do of course still own the rights for your likeness so the photographer can't just go around sharing the images themselves, but if you try to use their photos for commercial usage after the wedding, e.g. sell them as stock photos, you cannot do that.

If you want to have full copyrights to content you pay for, e.g. if you are doing artwork for your company to be used and want to avoid legal issues with the artist, then you would need to do it with work on hire. This also means that the amount of money you have to pay for the work is ten- if not hundredfold from regular commission.

And if we bring discussion down to e621 level then yes, I do also kinda see it bit odd when artists post their work publicly and their work is available freely (it's also on hentaifoundry according to google reverse search) and then specifically takedown e621, but then leave it up everywhere else like rule34.xxx. But ultimately it is their copyright and e621 is simply responding to DMCA takedown. Time is irrelevant factor and only comes relevant when work gets pushed to public domain, which is somewhere around 50 years after the death of author, but is depending on many factors and my info can be outdated.

mairo said:
From legal standpoint, it's the artist that owns copyrights to their work. Commissioning simply means that you are paying the artist to use their time to do something.
If you order someone to take photographs of wedding for example, it is the photographer who has full rights to the images. You do of course still own the rights for your likeness so the photographer can't just go around sharing the images themselves, but if you try to use their photos for commercial usage after the wedding, e.g. sell them as stock photos, you cannot do that.

If you want to have full copyrights to content you pay for, e.g. if you are doing artwork for your company to be used and want to avoid legal issues with the artist, then you would need to do it with work on hire. This also means that the amount of money you have to pay for the work is ten- if not hundredfold from regular commission.

And if we bring discussion down to e621 level then yes, I do also kinda see it bit odd when artists post their work publicly and their work is available freely (it's also on hentaifoundry according to google reverse search) and then specifically takedown e621, but then leave it up everywhere else like rule34.xxx. But ultimately it is their copyright and e621 is simply responding to DMCA takedown. Time is irrelevant factor and only comes relevant when work gets pushed to public domain, which is somewhere around 50 years after the death of author, but is depending on many factors and my info can be outdated.

I dont mind it really, I am more curious why since the takedown specifics were hidden.

Did the artist have any kind of contract with you when you paid about copyright. I know a few artists (like bgn) basically state any commissioned work is the commissioners to do with as they please. It won't hurt to contact the artist and ask about it, if you want it reinstated.

pc-king said:
Did the artist have any kind of contract with you when you paid about copyright. I know a few artists (like bgn) basically state any commissioned work is the commissioners to do with as they please. It won't hurt to contact the artist and ask about it, if you want it reinstated.

Nothing particular stands out to me trying to remember the moment, other then they also didn't have any prerequisites regarding what I did with it, stayed friends for awhile and drifted... 10 years just passing by.

There are situations in which the artist can sell both the image and the copyright. It costs more and it seems rare in the furry genre, but it's more common in other parts of the art world.

Almost literally everywhere, the commissioner. The artist still has the right to takedown here but the person who paid for the service is the owner.

demesejha said:
Almost literally everywhere, the commissioner. The artist still has the right to takedown here but the person who paid for the service is the owner.

No, this is completely wrong.

You are not paying for the image (or other thing) as product or as finished thing, you are paying for artists time to create the image. What you actually get and what you can do with the image you get is entirely up to the terms you two negotiate. There can be artists who simply do not care how their works are being distributed, but that does not lessen their copyright of their own work. Generally terms are that you get access to final export (not source files or similar) and can use it freely at least in personal use.
If you want to have full rights to the content after it's done, you have to do work for hire and/or signed paperwork which fully transfers the ownership to you, which I have not seen any furry relevant artist do ever, because not only is it expensive, but also pointless if artist is simply fine their work being copied, modified, etc. and you aren't using the commission as the new hot furry website mascot (because that's how you get to pay the artist royalties from using their work for monetary gain).

One good example I can give from recent years is the photograph of John Bain aka TotalBiscuit where they are laughing. They themselves are in the image and put is as emote on their own twitch.tv channel. However the photographer DMCA'd that because photograph was being used in commercial purpose and they hold the copyrights to it. This emote was then drawn instead later on to avoid said copyright with photographer.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lul#spread
So the person featured by themselves in the photograph and used it themselves on their own profile, were NOT allowed to use the photograph as they did not own copyrights to it themselves.
And this is photograph of real life person. Do try to claim the ownership of character that's pokemon species in court.
http://blog.kunvay.com/why-you-dont-own-your-wedding-photos-how-to-own-your-wedding-day-copyrights-to-your-wedding-day-photos/

Also take a couple seconds to think, why are we giving DNP status to artists but not commissioners or character owners? Why are we prioritizing artists wishes in cases where commissioners want their content out but artists want to keep them? You are thinking it another way around, we do not need to respect commissioners, character owners, etc. anyone else than artist in most cases, at all.

TL;DR: unless you have signed paper that is clearly moving all ownership of created artwork to you, you do not own the artwork you commissioned.

Some incorrect info is being spread here.

"(b) Works Made for Hire.—In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright."

from https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf page 201

demesejha said:
The artist still has the right to takedown here but the person who paid for the service is the owner.

Literally reversed.

mairo said:
[Copyright stuff]

I've said it in another thread but it's also a similar thing with the music industry.
When you go to a studio to record music, unless there's a specific contract clause the owner of the recording is the studio/producer. They don't inherently own the music itself, but they own the depiction of the music. (Much like an artist commissioned to draw someone else's character is the owner of that depiction of the character, but not the character themselves.)

iceink said:

"(b) Works Made for Hire.—In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright."

from https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf page section 201 (page 126)

Edit:

I dug into the definitions section, turns out a "work made for hire" is more specific.

(Section 101, page 7)
A “work made for hire” is—(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

So, to qualify as a "work made for hire" in the first place, there already has to be a written and signed contract, and it has to be a part of another publication.

So, the source is the person who commissioned it, and their journals and comments... I can see why the artist wanted that stuff removed. You could try contacting the artist directly if you want to be sure it was actually them.

iceink said:
Some incorrect info is being spread here.

"(b) Works Made for Hire.—In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright."

from https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf page 201

Private commission work is not work for hire, it is freelancing. Art made for private commission is still property of the artist, or author. The commissioner does not own the intellectual property of that work.

https://contently.net/2013/07/09/resources/money/contracts/work-made-for-hire-what-it-really-means/

I always forget how lacking in knowledge most people are about copyright.

It's entirely the artist unless something was signed lol

camkitty said:
I always forget how lacking in knowledge most people are about copyright.

Considering how complicated copyright law can be, it's not surprising. Even copyright lawyers can be wrong about things that seem simple, because often it comes down to a judge's interpretation. As it is, most laymen have trouble understanding the difference between owning a copy and owning copyrights, and even what copyright encompasses. Also the fact that copyright law is not particularly well suited to the digital age, and the treatment of certain actions and doctrines is flipped around just by virtue of being in the digital realm instead of analog.

TBH I think this topic is incomplete without mentioning 'licensing'. The reason that work done for, say, Disney, is owned by Disney is that the copyright is explicitly signed over. If you privately commission someone to draw something OTOH, you are paying for a) them to do the work and b) a limited license enabling you to do certain things with it (for example, use it as your avatar or upload to your DA account). That concept of 'copyright owner grants a limited license to a second party' is important to understand what is happening copyright-wise when commissioning -- if the artist didn't own the copyright, that licensing would be invalid (and may have other implications -- the artist being liable to a charge of fraud?)

This whole situation is obviously somewhat obfuscated in that there is no guarantee that licensing is clearly negotiated in a private commission. Ideally it would be. I don't know what a lawyer would make of the legalities of that, but I thought it should be pointed out that most reproduction requires a license, because to me that makes it somewhat more clear what commissioners actually are getting.

savageorange said:
TBH I think this topic is incomplete without mentioning 'licensing'. The reason that work done for, say, Disney, is owned by Disney is that the copyright is explicitly signed over. If you privately commission someone to draw something OTOH, you are paying for a) them to do the work and b) a limited license enabling you to do certain things with it (for example, use it as your avatar or upload to your DA account). That concept of 'copyright owner grants a limited license to a second party' is important to understand what is happening copyright-wise when commissioning -- if the artist didn't own the copyright, that licensing would be invalid (and may have other implications -- the artist being liable to a charge of fraud?)

This whole situation is obviously somewhat obfuscated in that there is no guarantee that licensing is clearly negotiated in a private commission. Ideally it would be. I don't know what a lawyer would make of the legalities of that, but I thought it should be pointed out that most reproduction requires a license, because to me that makes it somewhat more clear what commissioners actually are getting.

Disney does not acquire a license from their workers, as they don't use freelancers. They quite literally hire people as employees, and those are then automatically making things in the name of the company, hence the company owns everything in full. There are no licenses that could be fought, retracted, sub-licenses, or otherwise affected by the hired artist. All rights to the image belong fully, 100% to the company, and not the artist at all.

notmenotyou said:
Disney does not acquire a license from their workers, as they don't use freelancers. They quite literally hire people as employees, and those are then automatically making things in the name of the company, hence the company owns everything in full. There are no licenses that could be fought, retracted, sub-licenses, or otherwise affected by the hired artist. All rights to the image belong fully, 100% to the company, and not the artist at all.

Uh yes, that was the point of that bit.
Disney owns the copyright and is thus the party granting licenses (to tv stations, for example).

savageorange said:
Uh yes, that was the point of that bit.
Disney owns the copyright and is thus the party granting licenses (to tv stations, for example).

Ah, I misread the first part. I read that as if you were saying the artists working for Disney would just grant Disney a license to use their creations as they see fit, hence me trying to correct that.

Yeah, I admit I tend to omit key words when I know that a technical term is important but don't know the correct term, and that can make things a little ambiguous. I think the mechanism for copyright signover is part of contract law, but am not entirely sure.