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e621 changeover, new policy, next steps
15 years ago
Wow, what a hectic last two weeks - which were meant to be holidays!
First Reading Festival (which was a blast), then Eurofurence... with e621 landing in my lap literally 4 hours before I was due to set off to Germany to go to Eurofurence... damn, when it rains, it pours!
Still - all's well that ends well, and I got back home in one piece (as well as got e621 back online within 2 days of returning home).
Anyway; this is an informal journal mirroring the one I made on e621's forum (located here: http://www.e621.net/forum/show/8456 ), informing everyone of the details of the changeover, new site policy, and next steps for the future - as well as an opportunity to ask any questions you may have. I may not be able to answer all of them, but I'll do my best.
First of all - the changeover. e621 was passed onto me by Arcturus (the previous owner of e621), because he no longer wished to be the target of harassment (and 'far worse', as he mentioned in his parting statements) - and was given to me because he trusted me to do carry e621 into the future.
The site landed in my lap literally 4 hours before I left for Germany to the awesome Eurofurence - and (as several people at the convention can attest), I spent most of my free time when I wasn't having the time of my life working on getting the site up and running - which I probably shouldn't have done... But anyway, the site is now back up and working well (aside from a few broken resized images).
Secondly - the new policy. e621, in my opinion, suffered considerably due to its less-than-amicable attitude towards artists requesting their work to be taken down from the site - and because of a general lack of respect to artists and their wishes (who, realistically, are the foundation of the furry art community).
as a result, I'm implementing a newer, more artist-friendly takedown policy which will hopefully provide less of a barrier for artists who wish to have their artwork taken down (as DMCA notifications are a pain in the ass to write - as well as respond to, because they're so often incorrectly used).
In addition, I'm making a big effort to increase the accountability and documentation surrounding significant moderator and admin activity, to ensure that any takedowns, bans, right revocations and so on are handled professionally and respectfully - as well as allowing us to look back over this information later in case of appeals and so on.
Thirdly - next steps. The biggest thing I wish to improve with e621 is artist involvement; there are many things which can be done which will turn a previously negative outlook ('Who uploaded my art to e621? I want it removed') into a positive one - where artists are correctly attributed for their work, retain control over their work on the site.
I'd also like to ensure they are even given the tools they need to continue being artists - such as 'order print' links to Inkbunny for example, or 'Commission Information for this artist' links that point to an address of the artist's choice.
While small, I feel these changes can have a massive positive effect on the entire community without significantly impacting it for those browsing and viewing art, and by allowing artists to voluntarily post their own work and have suitable controls over them, could draw even more content to the site.
As anybody who already knows me will attest to, I tend to be pretty neutral and considerate in how I handle issues; running Bad Dragon has taught me a lot about the importance and value of policies and procedure when it comes to managing complicated and/or professional things, and I'm trying to apply some of the best bits of what I learned to e621.
So, please don't be alarmed when things seem a bit more 'formal' in terms of how things are done. It's for the best :p
Anyway; that's about it - no further significant changes are anticipated (aside from bug fixes, and later on maybe a few of the 'next steps' mentioned), and I welcome any and all feedback regarding these, both via email (varka@e621.net - preferred if you wish to keep things private, as notes on FA are hard to track), or via comment below.
Sorry for the length.... Hehe, that's not the first time I've had to say that, rrrrrl ;)
First Reading Festival (which was a blast), then Eurofurence... with e621 landing in my lap literally 4 hours before I was due to set off to Germany to go to Eurofurence... damn, when it rains, it pours!
Still - all's well that ends well, and I got back home in one piece (as well as got e621 back online within 2 days of returning home).
Anyway; this is an informal journal mirroring the one I made on e621's forum (located here: http://www.e621.net/forum/show/8456 ), informing everyone of the details of the changeover, new site policy, and next steps for the future - as well as an opportunity to ask any questions you may have. I may not be able to answer all of them, but I'll do my best.
First of all - the changeover. e621 was passed onto me by Arcturus (the previous owner of e621), because he no longer wished to be the target of harassment (and 'far worse', as he mentioned in his parting statements) - and was given to me because he trusted me to do carry e621 into the future.
The site landed in my lap literally 4 hours before I left for Germany to the awesome Eurofurence - and (as several people at the convention can attest), I spent most of my free time when I wasn't having the time of my life working on getting the site up and running - which I probably shouldn't have done... But anyway, the site is now back up and working well (aside from a few broken resized images).
Secondly - the new policy. e621, in my opinion, suffered considerably due to its less-than-amicable attitude towards artists requesting their work to be taken down from the site - and because of a general lack of respect to artists and their wishes (who, realistically, are the foundation of the furry art community).
as a result, I'm implementing a newer, more artist-friendly takedown policy which will hopefully provide less of a barrier for artists who wish to have their artwork taken down (as DMCA notifications are a pain in the ass to write - as well as respond to, because they're so often incorrectly used).
In addition, I'm making a big effort to increase the accountability and documentation surrounding significant moderator and admin activity, to ensure that any takedowns, bans, right revocations and so on are handled professionally and respectfully - as well as allowing us to look back over this information later in case of appeals and so on.
Thirdly - next steps. The biggest thing I wish to improve with e621 is artist involvement; there are many things which can be done which will turn a previously negative outlook ('Who uploaded my art to e621? I want it removed') into a positive one - where artists are correctly attributed for their work, retain control over their work on the site.
I'd also like to ensure they are even given the tools they need to continue being artists - such as 'order print' links to Inkbunny for example, or 'Commission Information for this artist' links that point to an address of the artist's choice.
While small, I feel these changes can have a massive positive effect on the entire community without significantly impacting it for those browsing and viewing art, and by allowing artists to voluntarily post their own work and have suitable controls over them, could draw even more content to the site.
As anybody who already knows me will attest to, I tend to be pretty neutral and considerate in how I handle issues; running Bad Dragon has taught me a lot about the importance and value of policies and procedure when it comes to managing complicated and/or professional things, and I'm trying to apply some of the best bits of what I learned to e621.
So, please don't be alarmed when things seem a bit more 'formal' in terms of how things are done. It's for the best :p
Anyway; that's about it - no further significant changes are anticipated (aside from bug fixes, and later on maybe a few of the 'next steps' mentioned), and I welcome any and all feedback regarding these, both via email (varka@e621.net - preferred if you wish to keep things private, as notes on FA are hard to track), or via comment below.
Sorry for the length.... Hehe, that's not the first time I've had to say that, rrrrrl ;)
Regarding the planned steps, I believe those ideas are a real benefit to the site, in all honesty. Im looking forward to seeing these things implemented.
Also, o murr for that last line :>
I have no qualms at all with what you are doing ;d But if it's not going to be a dump site I'll probably not frequent it as much as I used too. Still have rule34 and a couple others :D
Hope it works out great for you though.
that was the big thing that was bad about e621, i feel.
lack of need for artist credibility and linking back to the artist.
awesome you're making these changes :3
esp. since one artist who did my art (some of the pieces) is no longer reachable by any means.
At the moment, e621 doesn't have a DNP list; we've found that trying to get users to enforce artist content restrictions isn't particularly effective (as well as causes a lot of drama).
We're working on a facility for artists to recieve email notifications when new art is uploaded tagged with their artist tag, which will allow them to more easily keep track of their work on e621 as well as request its takedown quickly. Another thing we're looking to implement at some point is a blacklist, where you as the artist can send us your images to be automatically blocked from re-uploading on the site - this basically mirrors YouTube's implementation and gives you as the artist the control you need to control access to your content.
If you'd like your work taken down from e621, I'd be more than happy to do so for you - but I'll need you to follow the guidelines listed here: http://www.e621.net/static/takedown - and email me the details to varka@e621.net. This is so I can make sure it gets done in a timely fashion =)
Many thanks,
Varka
To the artists so quick to jump to the DNP gun: Read what it is that Varka posted, instead of having selective reading and noticing only the "Requesting to take down artwork" bit. :V
On another note, it's a good thing that you're taking over, Varka; I'm sure things will be running a lot more smoothly now.
Regardless, some artists are still going to jump forward and rush to pry their artwork from the site. At least that's what I'm predicting.
I hope they do the opposite, though, and start willingly uploading their art.
I greatly look forward to seeing where things will go from here. But I've no doubt you'll do a fantastic job with it. :)
I'm all for making the site move more smoothly, and more credit to the artist.
Plus I need a break from dragon cock.... oh wait!
and thanks for great ideas to change
I certainly wouldn't mind my art being uploaded there. ^^
1) artist registers account and uploads art
2) web interface
3) the work is md5'd and the hash becomes apart of a blacklist database
4) current work with a matching md5 hash is removed from e621, future uploads will be denied which match the md5 hash
If your goal is to be "like YouTube," then you'll be interested in implementing such a feature since they perform the same hashing with audio.
Ideally I'd like to make a more comprehensive image matcher that could spot duplicates even if they aren't anywhere near the same size, or even better could spot derivatives (eg cropped / work-in-progress ones), and automatically lump them in together - as not only would it be useful for making the system more effective at blacklisting, but it'd be really, really handy when it comes to automatically grouping images. Unfortunately, given that the only providers of software to do this do it 'as a service', and charge about 10-20c per image, it looks like I'm either going to have to code something myself (ugh), or find some scraped-together code somewhere.
Oh well - nobody said it'd be easy :p
Perhaps there should be collaboration between FA, IB, and e621 regarding an "all in one" interface for all sites.
i.e. implement said features on all three sites, have a checkbox and md5 ban ability for each site.
This of course could be done for a variety of features.
Error: Post already exists
This post was deleted. Reason: image broken. MD5: e6cb49701cd65236fcbc10bfa78bdae3. By: Varka.
I just wish to upload the full-sized version of http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4001940
I have deleted the old md5 hash that was preventing you from uploading the image. You should have no problem now. :)
Or am I just not understanding the situation completely?
We will honor art removal requests ONLY from the legal copyright holder of the art. Simply commissioning artwork from an artist does NOT automatically transfer copyright of that image to the commissioner. If you find a commissioned piece on this site that you wish to see removed, you MUST go through the copyright holder (typically the original artist).
The copyright holder is not necessarily the artist, but it USUALLY is. I included the bit in there about commissions because a lot of people seem to think "since I paid for it, I own it", which is absolutely not true. The reason why we say we'll only honor takedown requests from the legal copyright holder of the image is to avoid situations where the commissioner may want the artwork removed, but the artist may want it to remain on the site. It's the artist, not the commissioner, that has the legal right to request removal of the artwork. Typically, you'll KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt whether or not you own the copyrights to an image (meaning you have all the documentation and paperwork showing that copyright ownership has been transferred to you).
We examine takedown requests on a case-by-case basis though. If you believe you have extenuating circumstances for needing art removed (such as art containing your character used without permission), it never hurts to just follow our takedown procedure anyways and see what we can do for you.
Let me know if you have any more questions. :)
But please, all the pics I have done for Loupy belong to Loupy, so he had all the control about them. if he paid for it, and had only his characters and nonen of the chars belong to me then "he owns the pic, because he paid for it"
Keep posting my art, no problem with that, but please, remove the pics that I did commisioned by Loupy, in short words every diapered pic is a commision, I don´t like that subject, so please, remove them so everybody can be happy. you can keep posting my stuff and Loupy got to control where to show it
Thanks ^_^
Although I disagree that commissioning a picture makes the picture "his" legally, all I was needing to hear was word from you that you're ok with having the artwork removed. I didn't want to delete your artwork without your consent.
Thank you very much for your response!
I´m gald you and all the ppl like my art that much to upload it, and you keep the copyrights visible =)
but its better to aboid all posible problems or uncomfortability as fast as simple posible ^^
I'm not sure if you keep up with your notes on FA or not, so I'm just notifying you here that I've sent you a note regarding removal of some of your artwork from e621.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
I'm French. Any work I pay for is automatically copyrighted to me. And it's free for me to have any work I order copyrighted, and automatic.
But by the rules, weather on wiki or not, the artist has the right to refuse you the copyright unless a written deal or contract was made that you can prove.
If you have proof of the documents which give you shared copyright then show them.
I mean I'm not running the site. So it's not my deal.
IDK what else to say. XP
Your waiting time here! D:
Thank you.
Most artists are reasonable, and it's a very good idea to talk to them about this - but yes, you do need to bring this up with the artist in question. It doesn't necessarily cost money - but you need to be reasonable :)
Wrong, you need to check your facts.
Under French law, only natural persons who create works may be
considered authors. In addition, the law states that all the rights of
a work vest in the creator or author of the work, regardless of any
contract for hire or service by the author. C. IP. Art. L111-1
(2003). This applies equally to the works of employees and
commissioned authors. French courts primarily abide by Article
L111-1 and refuse to imply transfers of ownership to employers or
commissioning parties absent real evidence of such transfers
contained in an employment or commissioning agreement. Thus,
generally speaking, French law disallows employers or
commissioning parties from claiming ownership of works made for
hire.
Also depending on where the art was made, it may legally fall under the laws of the artist's country, international copyright is very complicated. But basically boils down to for work to be considered work for hire, it usually requires an explicit work for hire contract specifying that the artist is being paid for a work for hire piece. If you don't have that? Then you don't own the copyright whatever you assume.
While you might assume that you can claim copyright under the collections loophole in French law, from what you said, you had a single "author" (legally the idea parties don't count) involved and that nullifies that loophole, and as I said, it could well come under another countries copyright laws depending on the location of the artist.
So if you want to make sure you do own the copyright lock stock and iron barrel? You need to explicitly hire as work for hire, not just commission someone.
You should just wonder about the fact that peoples post art they don't have the right to distribute on a website.
You were making an erroneous claim about French law, I don't really like to see bad information spread around. We've got enough issues muddying the water with international copyright, we don't need people trying to claim that any time a french person hires an artist, they automatically get the copyright when such claims are totally wrong.
That's not how copyright law works, you can't copyright an idea. Only the exercution of an idea, I know French copyright law is convoluted at times with all the loopholes but it doesn't supersede international agreements that take precedent. The french like everyone have a few archaic laws on the books but they certainly don't have one that allows you to copyright ideas.
I didn't insult you, but your doing a fine job of displaying some pretty blatant ignorance between your earlier claim that you hiring someone as a french person makes you the copyright owner automatically (which completely ignores the international legalities that may be involved as well as ignores one of the central tenents of French copyright laws) and now your assumption that being disagreed with is an insult.
Copyright is owned by merely creating a work.
All written work is considered to be copyrightable.
As such, writing an idea as a work makes it copyrighted without filling any paperwork. This copyright law is legal in the 164 countries of the Bern convention.
For the matter, you have also to prove that you didn't wrote the idea at random but in the idea of it has a work, but all my stuff I wrote are stories or work ideas for stories and as such protected by the law. But hey, you seem to have a degree in french copyright laws so you must know all this better than me. BTW their is peoples who study laws for 7 to 10 years to be able to understand all the little details of the laws, and I don't have such a degree. Neither you seem to have one. And you don't seem to care about the fact that peoples posted art I own the copyright for (confirmed by the artist) without my consent, which is a copyright infringement. I don't see you sending them messages on this journal, despite the fact they posted here. So much for giving copyright lessons.
You however claimed you could copyright an idea, that's a load of baloney in all 164 countries, you can only copyright a specific expression of an idea, ie if you write a story about happy funshine the sun, you own that. However you do not own all pictures of suns just your portrayal of funshine.
Descriptions are often too generic to copyright, legally an artist's interpretation of a description becomes a copyrighted piece in it's own right. The legal precendent is not on your side in your "interpretation" because legal precendent is that descriptions are often too generic to enjoy copyright.
You were the one chatting absolute bollocks about copyright law and french copyright law in particular. That's why I replied pointing out that you had got it wrong and the mere act of you paying someone to draw was not enough to confer copyright on you, incidentally you don't seem to have apologised for making accusations against me, but hey, we'll file that under all the other stuff you're ignorant on.
Copyright law in France also asserts that the artist owns the copyright unless s/he sells it.
Hypothetically speaking, you could take this to court, and the judge would say the same thing. The correct legal route for you to take is to go to the legal copyright holder (The artist in this case), and ask for him/her to have the art taken down.
The law exists in this way, to help protect the artist's right to distribute the art in the way they want, which includes their right to explicitly outlay in a contract the surrender of all rights to another individual (as is common for artists working for various companies). But the artist cannot have their rights taken from them by force, which is why without a explicit contractual transfer of rights, you are not legally allowed to speak for the artist.
You are mostly wasting your time by continuing to argue that it is your copyright (when it isn't), when this entire problem could be solved in 5 minutes by asking the actual copyright holder politely to take it down for you.
You are on the incorrect side of the law. Admit you are wrong, and stop wasting your own time, and just get it taken down by asking the copyright holder to do it for you.
Your claim that because it was work for hire that the copyright is yours now, is wrong. You can say it all you want, but you're wrong. The site is denying your claim to copyright, because it is a false claim. You are effectively trying to steal the copyright holder's copyright, and pretend it is your own. Something that would not fly in any court in any country of the world.
I appreciate you dealing with me so politely, I appreciate your work and effort and better management! <3
Just out of curiousity, how are the changes to e621.net coming along? Is the new blacklist operational?