I don't know if this has been discussed already. If it has, please direct me to that discussion, and I'll review the posts there.

It's been a little over a year since the last time I was regularly on e621, and during that time, I've begun formal art education. In that process, I've learned a lot about the artist's perspective:

• The unbelievable amount of work that can go into a piece.
• The unbelievable amount of time that can go into a piece.
• The effort that goes into getting something just right.
• That a final piece is about a lot more than the materials that went into it.

Recently, I returned here (I live in a very rural area and actually just got internet installed at my house--ridiculous, I know), I discovered anew that some people take artists' work and make derivatives of it. They add genitalia that weren't originally there, or they remove things that were, or they take a work and turn it into an inferior product by lowering the resolution, making the image tiny, and changing the format. These are reliably categorized as "child" works, but... have artists complained about this? Is it really considered legitimate for one person to add a penis to someone else's art and call it their own creation?

Is anyone else here an artist who might comment on their feelings about this?

Finally, to clarify, I'm not trying to stir up dissent here. I just wish to better understand what the administrative position is, what's permitted, and the logic behind it.

Thanks!

Yes, artists get angry about other people editing their work and calling it their own. Here, we call it art theft if they don't give any credit to the original artist and it's a big no-no.

Peekaboo said:
"Is it really considered legitimate for one person to add a penis to someone else's art and call it their own creation?"
Since when does that not reward you with a quick, swift ban?

And I do not think that is the best example, the user simple changed the format to a gif for people who can't/do not want to use Shockwave files, and therefore prefer smaller filesized, tiny gifs instead.

Yeah, gifs tend to eat less resources than a swf file, making it useful for phones with limited CPU and RAM.

Besides that, as long as proper credit is given for any and all edits we generally accept it, as long as it adds value to the pic.
If the original artist wishes to have the edits removed we'll remove them though.

Also, I like to follow the physicists approach, everybody who can add something is encouraged to do so, the various theories on how things work have been and still are ongoing projects pushed forward by thousands of people worldwide, if somebody wishes to (skillfully) add a penis to a drawing so that people with other tastes can enjoy it as well, what is the harm done, work of original artist doesn't suddenly cease to exist as long as credit is given where credit is due.

Peekaboo said:
And I do not think that is the best example, the user simple changed the format to a gif for people who can't/do not want to use Shockwave files, and therefore prefer smaller filesized, tiny gifs instead.

Yeah, that type of utility-based edit occurs automatically for thumbnails...

As long as the edit is made is tagged as an edit, and the original artist has credit then I see no harm in it.

Conker said:
As long as the edit is made is tagged as an edit, and the original artist has credit then I see no harm in it.

Also worst case the site will side with the artist if any problems arise I believe

CamKitty said:
Also worst case the site will side with the artist if any problems arise I believe

Well artists will bitch about anything, including their herm being tagged as a dickgirl due to lack of female bits. But as a pixel artist myself, as long as I have some base of credits, edits are awesome as it allows everyone to be happy with the work. I mean some images on here with females with muilt nipples was a boner killer for most users, then someone came along and edited out the extra bits and the image was much better. Or in the case someone forgot to draw a penis on a sexless char sucking off a male, and a few days later boom....penis. From my side, its alright, but then again artists will bitch about anything including "posting their art on this site crediting them" as the artist thinks its the same as "stealing" their car. lol

But yeah Ive seen take down requests over artists pissed off at the tag what you see rule, so it doesn't take much to set tempers loose for some.

TheHuskyK9 said:
Yes, artists get angry about other people editing their work and calling it their own.

On the other hand, some artists do not want to be credited for edits, especially if they're a crappy edits. They don't want their name associated with such.

So no matter what you do about edits, someone's going to hate it.

In general, I don't have a high opinion of edits. Mostly because some of my favorite artists stopped distributing their art publicly because of those. And I feel that there's just something inherently wrong about defacing someone else's art.

DobiesHot said:
Things

A thousand times this

People wonder why artists hate e6 so much, and this is partially the reason why

Oh also, welcome back Dobies :3

Wow, thanks for the great responses, Everyone!

For me, I can be satisfied so long as respect is given for the artist's wishes. I appreciate NotMeNotYou's and others' reassurances on that matter.

I'm with Genjar regarding how I would feel if my art were edited. I'm not to the point in my career yet where I can bang out the kind of work that's featured here in only 30 minutes. For me, each piece is still a labor, and to put out that kind of effort means I've created something that's meaningful to me. If someone else were to edit it, then it would feel like they'd blithely defaced my work.

I think part of this falls to a difference of perspective. To me, when I create art, it's not to entertain others, but to express myself. So, if others change what I've created, it's not building on my work but vandalizing it. Objecting to that is not whining, as some have unsympathetically called it. If an artist creates something and places it on his or her FurAffinity page or other gallery, there's not an expectation that it will be moved to another site where others will vulturize it for their own pleasure. That may not matter to anyone, I realize, but hopefully it gives some a little extra insight.

Lastly, thanks for the welcome, Titania. It's good to be back. :)

Now a question remains, how do you feel about simple converting instead of editing?
Let's say you made .apng that is supported by most browser but got no real support outside of that and somebody simply converts it to gif so that more can view it, would you still count that as defacing?
Or something else that I did, somebody created a picture once that had the white parts inside the characters at 100% transparency, making ot look good on a white background but really strange on our blue one, so I took the pic and removed the offending transparency, that it could be viewed how it was initially intended to be. If somebody were to ask me to not do that I'd look at them as if they just asked me if I'd please stop dousing the flames on their clothes.

It may also help if you put a small "Please don't edit my works" on your profile/works of you wish to have it not happen to you, for one there are people out there who respect others for the others you can point there and tell them to suck it.

I think we should have a "do not edit" list as well as a DNP list. I saw an artist who threatened to take down all their art over somebody drawing a penis on it probably a year back and it'd save losing the entire artist's work too.

Why not have a tag to the effect of edit_by_third_party or something, so you know the original artist isn't the one who made the edit

Sollux said:
Why not have a tag to the effect of edit_by_third_party or something, so you know the original artist isn't the one who made the edit

Usually the edit tag is only used on third party edits, while the official edits are just children to the original image without being tagged.

Seven_Twenty said:
Usually the edit tag is only used on third party edits, while the official edits are just children to the original image without being tagged.

seems legit, also I condone edits unless there are 20 small variations of the same image clogging my front page lol

DobiesHot said:
Wow, thanks for the great responses, Everyone!

For me, I can be satisfied so long as respect is given for the artist's wishes. I appreciate NotMeNotYou's and others' reassurances on that matter.

I'm with Genjar regarding how I would feel if my art were edited. I'm not to the point in my career yet where I can bang out the kind of work that's featured here in only 30 minutes. For me, each piece is still a labor, and to put out that kind of effort means I've created something that's meaningful to me. If someone else were to edit it, then it would feel like they'd blithely defaced my work.

I think part of this falls to a difference of perspective. To me, when I create art, it's not to entertain others, but to express myself. So, if others change what I've created, it's not building on my work but vandalizing it. Objecting to that is not whining, as some have unsympathetically called it. If an artist creates something and places it on his or her FurAffinity page or other gallery, there's not an expectation that it will be moved to another site where others will vulturize it for their own pleasure. That may not matter to anyone, I realize, but hopefully it gives some a little extra insight.

Lastly, thanks for the welcome, Titania. It's good to be back. :)

If you draw for yourself you probably shouldn't post it online for others to see.

Dominion said:
If you draw for yourself you probably shouldn't post it online for others to see.

And why not? Drawing for yourself can be cathartic, and sharing it allows you to obtain criticism to improve your art that you couldn't get if you kept it private. Less scrupulous it also enables you to obtain praise on your art, which really does feel good, so I can't really blame people on that.

This said, I don't agree with the butthurt about edits unless they don't give credit. Someone likes your art style enough to take the time to edit it as carefully as possible to just change one factor that they personally wish was otherwise, while not taking credit for anything but the edit? Big deal. People have differing tastes, they like different things. That's like telling photomanipulators to stop airbrushing photos of models before they get put into magazines and pinups- Not gonna happen. >_>;

As long as people don't claim the art as their own after they edit it, I don't see the problem with people making edits.

Dogenzaka said:
As long as people don't claim the art as their own after they edit it, I don't see the problem with people making edits.

But we can't set a blanket 'edits allowed'/'edits disallowed' policy for the site. Each artist has the moral and legal right to say what can be done with their work.

I think the current policy of tentatively allowing all edits and responding to individual takedown requests works fine. But if an artist ever got fed up with edits of their work being posted here, their only option would be to add themselves to the DNP, which would be sad for everybody.

A middle ground would be better, perhaps in addition to the DNP we could have a Do Not Edit list, for all the artists who want their edits taken down, but not their unedited work.

Wyvrn said:
A middle ground would be better, perhaps in addition to the DNP we could have a Do Not Edit list, for all the artists who want their edits taken down, but not their unedited work.

I think that it's called conditional_dnp

Yeah, if they decide they hate edits of their work we'd do the conditional DNP on all edits and keep the originals, if the artist is okay with that solution.

Wyvrn said:
But we can't set a blanket 'edits allowed'/'edits disallowed' policy for the site. Each artist has the moral and legal right to say what can be done with their work.

Actually, you might want to research something called "transformativeness" in relation to Fair Use and Derivative Work, in response to your first line there. If you give Mona Lisa a goatee, a mustache, and a caption (Specifically, L.H.O.O.Q), you get fair use. ;)

123easy said:
Actually, you might want to research something called "transformativeness" in relation to Fair Use and Derivative Work, in response to your first line there. If you give Mona Lisa a goatee, a mustache, and a caption (Specifically, L.H.O.O.Q), you get fair use. ;)

And you may want to search moral rights for "the right to the integrity of the work". With Mona Lisa it might still work since artist is rather dead.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
And you may want to search moral rights for "the right to the integrity of the work". With Mona Lisa it might still work since artist is rather dead.

post #274191

Conker said:
post #274191

I meant that his approach ("It's okay") will work, since artist is dead and can't claim his moral right. I shouldn't post things right after I get up.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
I meant that his approach ("It's okay") will work, since artist is dead and can't claim his moral right. I shouldn't post things right after I get up.

I wasn't actually making a point, if I did then I am impressed with myself. I really just saw talk of the Mona lisa and felt the need to share that c:

@NotMeNotYou, I suppose conversion is a more interesting topic to me than edits. With edits, I think the non-artists who want to edit artists' work really don't get it. They seem to see an artist's product as something that they somehow have rights to, which concerns me somewhat.

On edits, I guess it may depend on the effect an edit has on the final product. I perceive a difference between converting a .TIF to a .JPG, (where there's really no immediate decrease in quality) versus changing a large-scale Flash video into a small-scale animated .GIF, where you not only lose quality but also remove the artist's original interactive programming and foul up the looping. I can't speak for all artists, but I wouldn't like that done to my work. Maybe other artists are okay with it.

One interesting thing I note in this discussion is that several people seem to think they, the viewers, are the only reason artists create:

• If you draw for yourself you probably shouldn't post it online for others to see.

• Someone likes your art style enough to take the time to edit it as carefully as possible to just change one factor that they personally wish was otherwise, while not taking credit for anything but the edit? Big deal. People have differing tastes, they like different things.

I can't speak for all artists, but for me, I'm not drawing what you like. I'm drawing what I like. If I allow you to see it, it doesn't follow that I'm also inviting you to change it.

I also think there's a big difference between changing someone's artwork and airbrushing a magazine model. The model was hired, and airbrushing was probably written into her contract. That's not the case with an artist whose work was lifted from his or her gallery without express permission, then dropped without consent onto another website, and even edited and changed from the artist's original intent.

What I appreciate about this site is that the administrators side with the artists. I'm still a little concerned by the audience's sense of entitlement to edit the work of others to suit their own tastes.

DobiesHot said:

• If you draw for yourself you probably shouldn't post it online for others to see

Its more like if you dont want your work edited, then dont upload it

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
And you may want to search moral rights for "the right to the integrity of the work". With Mona Lisa it might still work since artist is rather dead.

The applicable link would be: This one.
Since it's the law in the US that applies some of those moral rights.
As the artist you would have to prove that the edit somehow damages your honor or reputation.

Halite said:
The applicable link would be: This one.
Since it's the law in the US that applies some of those moral rights.
As the artist you would have to prove that the edit somehow damages your honor or reputation.

But then its debatable if the edit is purely harmful to their reputation or just art.

Conker said:
But then its debatable if the edit is purely harmful to their reputation or just art.

Indeed, and since the burden of proof is on the person filing the suit(i.e. copyright holder) it is extremely hard to prove, and therefor sue for someone editing your work.

There are some useful situations that it would be enforceable, if for example a whore house in Nevada edited into a popular art piece some of their naked whores as advertising, the artist would have a solid law suit there.

DobiesHot said:
On edits, I guess it may depend on the effect an edit has on the final product. I perceive a difference between converting a .TIF to a .JPG, (where there's really no immediate decrease in quality) versus changing a large-scale Flash video into a small-scale animated .GIF, where you not only lose quality but also remove the artist's original interactive programming and foul up the looping. I can't speak for all artists, but I wouldn't like that done to my work.

To be fair, that wasn't a proper conversion, that was the equivalent of doing an abortion with a shotgun. Sure, the baby will be gone but who the hell will clean up afterwards?

And I also think that the whole "expect your work to be edited" is also founded on the notion that the edit can't destroy or alter the original.
To explain, analog images are one of a kind, of you edit that work you'll not only never be able to change it back; you'll also lose "the original", both of these things simply can't happen with digital images, no matter how often you copy an image or how drastically you edit it, the original remains untouched, there are no damages done (except to the original artist whose vision has been trampled) so it is rather easy to argue that the artist should simply suck it up, because, who cares about respect for the work of others?

NotMeNotYou said:
To be fair, that wasn't a proper conversion, that was the equivalent of doing an abortion with a shotgun. Sure, the baby will be gone but who the hell will clean up afterwards?

I ike this analogy. It's dark and messy, just like this conversation. :D

And I also think that the whole "expect your work to be edited" is also founded on the notion that the edit can't destroy or alter the original.
To explain, analog images are one of a kind, of you edit that work you'll not only never be able to change it back; you'll also lose "the original", both of these things simply can't happen with digital images, no matter how often you copy an image or how drastically you edit it, the original remains untouched...

If we were talking solely physical media that are being modified I'd be 100% behind your opinion regarding editting, DobiesHot. But this right here is almost 100% exactly why I will never agree, because we are a digital community discussing digital artwork as inferred by talking of posting artwork on the site, et al. where the original cannot be damaged by such things unless every single other copy of the original is lost, a major feat in and of itself- which would require at least some level of negligence on the part of the author. To translate that sort of concept to physical media, having an oil painting displayed with a candle mounted in the frame below it isn't exactly a smart idea. :P

...there are no damages done (except to the original artist whose vision has been trampled) so it is rather easy to argue that the artist should simply suck it up, because, who cares about respect for the work of others?

That's a gross overstatement, Nemmy. Firstly, you're stating that the artist is entitled to damages, which implies that they have been wronged so greviously that the law sides with them to the point that they deserve redress, which usually isn't the case (or I'm misreading that, it's possible, I've done that before with your posts). Secondly, Respect for the author of the work =/= the artwork must be preserved as is and only as is. Many edits are done with the editor having high regard for the original artist, which is why they seek to so closely emulate the original's drawing style to redraw any space that they edit to look uneditted.

If you don't want your original piece to be redistributed, you have that right; but you or any other artist have/has no right to quash derivative works, quite literally- Copyright was originally created to foster creativity after all, even if it's been perverted from that original purpose since its conception.

And to address, "I can't speak for all artists, but for me, I'm not drawing what you like. I'm drawing what I like. If I allow you to see it, it doesn't follow that I'm also inviting you to change it." as Conker said, "If you draw for yourself you probably shouldn't post it online for others to see." Making a work publically available by definition opens it to derivative works, because that's how the process works, and the law agrees. In Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., The court said that, "a party who distributes a copyrighted work cannot dictate how that work is to be enjoyed." In the context of the furry fandom, if you do good art, but someone edits out (or on) a cock because of personal tastes, you have no right to dictate that your art is appreciated only as you provided it.

I have to say this discussion has given me a lot of insight into users' perspectives, beliefs regarding copyright law, and respect for the artists whose work they're viewing. I really appreciate that. Thank you, Everyone.

123easy said:
I ike this analogy. It's dark and messy, just like this conversation. :D

Sometimes these analogies are the only things that make people stop and think, in all other cases it's just amusing to watch the reactions.

123easy said:
That's a gross overstatement, Nemmy. Firstly, you're stating that the artist is entitled to damages, which implies that they have been wronged so greviously that the law sides with them to the point that they deserve redress, which usually isn't the case (or I'm misreading that, it's possible, I've done that before with your posts).

Yeah, that is the problem with missing out on smalltalk in english, I wasn't talking about the definition of damage in the sense of Laws but in the 'you hurt my feelings :c'-sense.

123easy said:
Secondly, Respect for the author of the work =/= the artwork must be preserved as is and only as is. Many edits are done with the editor having high regard for the original artist, which is why they seek to so closely emulate the original's drawing style to redraw any space that they edit to look uneditted.

That is absolutely true, but respect means to me you go up and ask first for permission first instead of just 'taking' the right to do so, kinda like the difference between a douchebag kid grabbing a handful of candy from grandma's table and the good kid asking first.

NotMeNotYou said:
Sometimes these analogies are the only things that make people stop and think, in all other cases it's just amusing to watch the reactions.

Yeah, that is the problem with missing out on smalltalk in english, I wasn't talking about the definition of damage in the sense of Laws but in the 'you hurt my feelings :c'-sense.

That is absolutely true, but respect means to me you go up and ask first for permission first instead of just 'taking' the right to do so, kinda like the difference between a douchebag kid grabbing a handful of candy from grandma's table and the good kid asking first.

Oh, I am 100% behind asking first, every time, unless carte blanche has been applied by the author publicly in regards to edits. I'm against the "better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission" mentality that dominates most people these days, though what I said might seem to be at odds with that, heh. Even then, asking permission is about the respect more than it is about legal rights, in that respect.

And thanks for the clarification on the meaning you intended for 'damages' .