More unfair use
posted by Keith at 9:52 AM"EXQUISITE IMAGES! Thank you for sharing your beautiful art.
Do you mind if I print a slide or two to hang on my wall?"
That is one of the comments on another slide show that is packed full of my art. At least the person asking the question had the integrity to ask for permission before printing "a slide or two", even though the slide show creator has no authority to grant that permission.
There are a few other slide shows on slideshare.com with my art as well, but that list is getting smaller.
My first discovery of my art on slideshare.net was in Kapitán József's gallery. After some conversation, Kapitán and I agreed on what he could put in his show. I explained to Kapitán that I wanted him to say that he used my art with my permission. That was important to me because I did not want to give the impression that my art is free for anyone to take. That's a valid concern because it is exactly what happened on at least one other slide show. That slide show, now removed, was copied from another slide show.
What's happening here is that people are innocently thinking that the art in these slide shows is art that is in the public domain. I mean, I used to do it all the time. I would get an e-mail with a cool slide show or pictures and forward it on without a second thought.
When I looked at the stats for one of the slide shows on slideshare.net, I found that it was embedded on a 5th grade school teacher's web site. That teacher was showing her students my ripped off art. What am I supposed to do with that?
I have the same concern about my images that appear on blogs or websites under the fair use doctrine. I don't want people to assume that they have automatic permission take whatever they want from my galleries just because one small piece appears in a blog.
Labels: fair use, stolen art
5 Comments:
An interesting post! It just goes to show that your work is good and people obviously enjoy it. If a 5th grade teacher was showing my work to her class I'd be really happy :)
You do bring up some serious questions though and I can certainly understand that you do not want people using your art without your permission. Do you sign your images? If not, perhaps you might wish to do so. It makes it obvious that the work belongs to someone and might make honest people think before they share it without permission.
It seems to me, that if you release work onto the 'net, then one of the risks is that people will take it and use it. If you don't want it used, then you can try watermarking your images as well as signing them. At the end of the day, if the image is meaningful to you and you don't want it in the public domain, then, sadly, you should not release it.
Most of my work now features illustrations / clipart on the side. This adds to my message but also limits its commercial value somewhat.
I've had a few people ask for permission to use my work and when that happens, I pretty much always say "yes" and offer to send through larger versions without the clipart. I could charge them, but somehow asking the 33c that I'd get from Shutterstock if I sold it commercially seems a bit petty.
At the end of the day, the big question is "Why do you create your art?" If it is a commercial enterprise and you wish to protect your rights, then releasing the work onto the Internet is a risk that you may not wish to take.
I create both commercially and for fun. If people do use my work without permission, I'm *sort of* OK with it. Its nice when people do take the time to ask, but I'm flattered if it gets used. Most people do seem to have gotten the hang of crediting their sources and as artists, part of our job should include educating our audience on how to credit / use our work.
The 5th grade thing is really cool, too bad about the circunstances.
Do you sign your images? If not, perhaps you might wish to do so. It makes it obvious that the work belongs to someone and might make honest people think before they share it without permission.
I don't know, people might think it's ok to share anything if it keeps the credit. It's better than not giving credit, of course, but it doesn't mean the artist agreed to it (although as you say, trying to control distribution on the internet is a losing battle. Getting credit may be the best one can hope for).
And it seems that in the case of this slide show site, the warm fuzzies go to the person who put together the slide ("thank you!" "wonderful collection!") even when there is credit, which is rather frustrating.
The larger, and more serious issue IMO, is that people today seem to think that if they can download it, they are free to use what they download. It doesn't matter if it is images, music, movies, software, etc. The concept of intellectual property is a foreign concept to many. Putting things online is a great benefit to everyone. But, along with that comes the downsize.
I don't know what the answers are. But, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is often not worth going after many of these cases, but it is the right thing to do. Personally, I don't think accepting the fact that your images can (will?) be stolen and used without your permission is the right attitude.
The only reason that I was able to find these slide shows was because they were identified with my name and most of the images also have my name on them.
As far as I can tell, these slide shows do not live in the US. The one that was deleted was copied from here: http://www.ppsmania.net/as2coeurpps.htm
I don't know what language that is so I wouldn't even know where to find an e-mail address to ask for the show to be deleted.
I am not opposed to having a slide show with my images flying around the world. For various reasons, I just want to have a choice on what is in it.
Kapitán József was apologetic and bewildered when I confronted him. He thought that he was doing me a favor by promoting my art. He did have a link to my web sites in his slide shows so he really was promoting my art. He would have deleted anything that I asked him to. After seeing his attitude, I decided to give him a break and work with him to select which images that he could have in his slide show.
My point is, we worked together and it says so in his slide show.
Personally, I don't think accepting the fact that your images can (will?) be stolen and used without your permission is the right attitude.
Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest that people don't deal with the cases that they know of (by reaching an agreement or in some other way), but there will inevitably be a next case; and others that one never learns about.
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