[ SECRET POST #3942 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3942 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 09 secrets from Secret Submission Post #564.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ketita]

I kind of get the logic of this, but I disagree. Media is famous. An artist drawing a Disney character or Dean Winchester or whatever will never be confused for the originator. But reposters piggyback on the work of others for attention, without putting in any effort, and sometimes actively work to obfuscate the source of the art. So to me those would be two key differences - the implication sometimes that the art belongs to the reposter at worst and hiding the identity of the original artist at medium, and the absolute lack of effort.

While I do personally find the selling of fanart a little... off, to me (maybe just sour grapes because I have no way of monetizing my work as a fanficcer? I could use some extra income too!), and kind of gray area, at least there's a hell of a lot of effort that goes into its creation. And especially if it's being posted for free, I think depriving the artist of even that little bit of attention is a dick move.

I'm glad you don't mind, OP, but I certainly would. A lot of people aren't happy when they don't get credit for a job well done.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a big difference between someone being commissioned and paid for fanart to the client's specs and asking the client for permission to post it as part of your commissions gallery afterward, and the same artist taking that finished piece and mass producing and selling prints of it.

I'd feel the same for fic. Writing a story to someone's specs and being paid for it, then putting it up on your fanfic account with permission to share would be fine to me. However taking that same fic and selling it as an e-book about copyrighted characters would be distasteful and way more illegal.

[ketita]

I agree. I'm perfectly fine with commissioned art of any sort, but a lot of what you see at conventions is prints and such. And then there's fanmade merch, which I struggle with, because some of it is really cute, or for series that don't have a lot of merch...
It's iffy. Like, I remember when a bunch of Firefly fans got into trouble for knitting Jayne's hat and selling it. And while yes, this specific hat gained popularity because of the show, it's still a real hat that was hand-knitted... And in that case, each one had to be made individually, no mass-production.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed with you there, the prints at cons bother me too. Including the fact that you are never quite sure they're the real artist.

For the hand-knitted hat, it's morally grey to me. I would say that's in bad taste if the hats were pre-knitted and mass-produced as much as they could, and stockpiled in preparation to sell. On the other hand if one person knitted a hat and 10 more requests came in from people wanting the same, I wouldn't think that's so bad.

[ketita]

AFAIK the hats were knitted to order, and it was on Etsy I think. So not mass-produced or anything, just a lot of people got excited about them.

Yeah, some of my local cons had that problem - booths selling prints that they just ganked off the internet. People did make a fuss about it and work to get them banned from cons, but it's still tough.

I think though, in a way (and this is where I acknowledge some measure of hypocrisy), the bigger the franchise the less I quite care about it. Like, people selling prints of Disney stuff. I mean Disney is a big chunk of what's wrong with copyright law these days anyway... I do find it a bit hard to weep for them.

[(Anonymous)]

Unfortunately, commissions aren't going to sell enough at conventions to actually make enough money to pay costs of actually, you know, getting there. People don't want to wait all weekend for the thing, they want to buy it and go.

[ketita]

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that's how people would go. I'm saying that I personally think there's something a little off about making money from other people's work by selling prints.

[(Anonymous)]

As a fanartist, I agree with a lot of this comment. I was fairly active for five or so years, and it always bummed me out to see someone grab my work and repost it without permission -- I've always been pretty laissez faire about usage if people just ask. I'm also uncomfortable selling or monetizing my fanart in any way, so when randos reposted my work they were depriving me of the only things I got from fanart: the fun of seeing people enjoy my work and the batch of new followers that inevitably followed a popular post. It's incredibly selfish, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

"kind of gray area"

Wow. No, it's theft, pretty much, if you're profiting and it's still under copyright. Not fair use anymore. No gray there. The only out is if it's parody or satire, which I don't think you're talking about.