Welcome new coders!

Please keep your comments posted to the news journal in line with our posting rules, thanks. =)

Ohh, that's new :o colorful comment. Can i has D:?

Their comment box is red because they're a staff member.

I read it, so it should be red too. right?

Say "read" in past sentence.

Readed, duh!

Your icon fits :D

Looks orange to me. :P

And I'm seeing it purple.

Please schedule a visit to an eye doctor

I don't know what you're seeing, but I'm seeing https://i.imgur.com/XMKEWHc.png on my end, and that sure looks purple to me...

Edit: Also why does my reply to  BALLINLIKESTALIN keep ending up down here???

OK replies are foobared, my reply also seems to appear in the wrong place.

This is a reply to DiscoPanda yet it appears under SppokyHollows.

well i was replying to  vas
fuck this gay website ugh

lol @ how the first comment chain here reminds us all of a glaring issue that has been with FA I think... Forever? Broken comment chains and no expand/collapse options.

Edit: But at least we can edit things now!

im glad to have reminded people of glaring holes in their lives!!!

Most definately! It's confusing, and in desperate need of a fix D:

High five for the beta theme!

your monitor color profiles are WAY off man. its maroon

Screenshot or it isn't true.
It is orange on both laptops.

I know, i like it though.

Red? Looks purple to me... >_>

I'm seeing purple as well.

You should screenshot to show me because I see orange.

DiscoPanda posted this:

https://i.imgur.com/XMKEWHc.png

That's exactly what I am seeing.

Weird, I see maroon. I think we've all got different colorspace settings.

Haha yeah, I see maroon too xD

Orange frame here...

https://i.imgur.com/XMKEWHc.png <-- How is this possibly orange??

Your screenshot is purple, but what I AM SEEING is orange. ;)

Solution: I'm using the beta skin and there it has an orange frame instead of a purple bar.

Ha, glad you figured it out! I was afraid this would escalate to an "is the dress blue or gold" ordeal.

It is orange on the new beta theme. Try it out.

You're not on Beta.

it's a dark red-orange on dark theme settings, and more purple toned on the light theme settings. :)

I dunno, I'm seeing maroon myself... o.O

There is a dark and a light theme. Didn't you know? :))
Go to Control Panel -> "Account information" -> "Account Customization", there you can choose... hehe. ^^
But I also wondered how it can be purple, after the screenshot I knew tho.

The replies are all wonky for me XD lol and yes, I know of the setting...used to be on the light setting for a while then switched back to dark long ago, much easier on the eyes.

It's the dress all over again!

SilverRuneCat: No... I'm using the BETA SKIN where things look different and with different colors.

EDIT: Reply appears under wrong person again.

The color depends on the theme/site version you use. I'm using the old dark theme so I'm seeing red

Purple as a good wine c:

It is actually purple. I think a lot of people are colour blind on here. I know I'm not because I took one of those colour blind tests & got it all right :D

Dark theme, it's orange, light theme, it's purple.

I see maroon, which is red but not red it's darker mix of red and pink O.o

Neer can I say that I love your avatar?

Dragoneer: Something is wrong with the Reply function, my replies appear under the wrong comment. See below (above?) in this very thread.

"Dragoneer: Something is wrong with the Reply function, my replies appear under the wrong comment. See below (above?) in this very thread."

this has been a problem since the site started almost 10 years ago. don't expect it to be fixed anytime soon :0)

I1ve seen comment boxes randomly floating around after several levels, but we didn't reach that many levels yet, and this isn't the floating I'm used to. Maybe they changed something that made the old bug look different now?

An attempt was made to address the comment threading bug some time back, and it improved the situation some, but did not entirely solve it for situations where there's a very large number of replies nesting a relatively large number of levels deep. Unfortunately, that's something that's prone to happening on news journals more than pretty much any other journals on the site.

We know about it and further fixes are definitely something that's on the list for getting coding time, but it's not the sole item on that list.

Hmm, I see. I suppose there are much greater issues that are more important to fix. Hopefully the addition of new coders to the team will speed things up.

And speaking of that list, can we see it? I believe it would be greatly beneficial if task and bug tracking was public, for several reasons: we could see that issues are not neglected but cared for, see progress, check if an issue we want to report is already known, etc.

I remember there used to be a public Trello board and I would swear I saved it to my favorite boards but can't find it anymore. A conventional bugtracker would probably be the best, with the ability for users to register and fill tickets. This would reserve the TT system for reports and support requests.

My understanding is that more or less the entire commenting/comment-loading system will have to be rewritten to completely fix the threading bugs, but I don't work much directly with the techs so I can't guarantee I couldn't have misunderstood that to some degree. From what Silver has said here, it sounds like their current project is some "invisible" backend code that'll make future testing and feature implementations easier.

I'm afraid our bug/features-to-implement list is not currently publicly viewable. I can't speak for when/if that might change. You can, however, see what feature suggestions have been made here. In some cases that'll mention at least issues that aren't exactly bugs but at least are pretty idiosyncratic behavior on the site's part.

Well, FA's code is ancient, so to be completely honest the whole thing really needs to be replaced with modern code. But that's no little task, I know.

Thanks for the Trello link, that's already something. So at least I can check before making a request/suggestion via TTs.

Read

Do you think we'll ever get an AUP rule prohibiting the uploading of "paywall" content?

This is something we've discussed often. Honestly, I kind of feel the best policy is to unwatch the artist and let them know why. Promoting a paysite is fine, but uploading censored art and shortchanging users is, in my opinion, shallow. Teasers can work well without having to be censored. Do I feel it's widespread enough that we need a rule over it? Not yet, but I think users need to "vote" with their watches and faves.

I feel that the Patreon censoring is becoming more and more prevalent in recent months.

I see where you went wrong, but

allow me to correct you here:

artists don't owe you free content

I didn't go wrong anywhere, I simply stated my opinion on a matter. I don't expect artists to owe me anything unless I pay them.

It's all well and good if an artist wants me to pay to see their content, but I feel they should advertise using the ads system, and not through submissions with large censors and often baring the Patreon logo.

Well don't worry, I'm fairly confident in the coming months here we'll be seeing more limits on artists and their ability to advertise using the submission system. I don't use Patreon, but the way I see it, I can put up with some Patreon ads and some YCH reminders if I really like that person's art.

One day the admins will realize this is an art site, not a watcher site. You guys can complain all you want, but if the artists leave and go elsewhere because they aren't making as much money thanks to limitations, you'll have a dead-end pseudo-social site. And yeah, I get it, if all the commissioners left, artists wouldn't make money, but this is still an art site, and they'd still upload art here whether or not they are making money.

Point is, the site is a well-oiled machine, but one half of it pulls waaay harder, and gets waaaay more limitations because of the other side complaining, for some reason.

I'm with you on the Patreon thing. Some artists /really/ do an amazing job at providing content while also using Patreon without it interfering with their content output. If I miss 10 works because I don't support their Patreon due to financial limitations, then I'm content with that.

My suggestion would be to add a category to the front page (after Submissions, Writing, and Music) entitled something along the lines of 'Paid Content' where artists can upload content they wish to get money from whether it's patreon or Pay-To-View content, or even a future pay-to-unlock feature within FA itself. With hopes of also seeing a selective notification system (ie. watched, but only want to see submissions, not journals type deal), I feel artists could get more for their effort.

I'm not against artists getting more money, when I get commissions I tip artists when I'm able to, and I hop on Patreon occasionally to throw a bit of extra money someone's way when I appreciate their content and all. It's just something I don't want to see in my submissions inbox, is all.

Though as an addendum, pay-to-unlock would require more monitoring due to potential trolling and abuse, and if blacklisting tags ever becomes a thing, I could simply filter out "patreon" and easily reduce the number of unwanted submissions.

For the record, I'm not interested in putting more limitations on artists. I'd like to see less long term, and provide more options for users and artists alike. Just a matter of finding a good middle ground that makes it work for all parties involved.

Well the problem and reality here is that artists contribute perhaps 80% and watchers contribute the remainder. Splitting it 50/50 isn't fair in that case but I get the urge to make everyone happy. Sometimes you just can't though.

As always my biggest recommendation is improving the tags system. Maybe in account settings someone can set tags they do not wish to see. Sure, then we would have the problem of people not tagging correctly. But it will remove MOST of the problem and then allow not tagging to be a reportable offense. Which I think is a reasonable solution.

and then everyone said dildos?

Dildos




_{This trend will never die!!!!}

I made a comment, am I cool now? ;)))))

Super Cool

No

Yet hawt

I feel pretty warmed up now!

*Grabs marshmallows.*

you forgot to include a reference to dildos. D=

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllldddddddddddddddddddon't, it's not funny.

Thank you omg

i wish i could +like comments, but this'll have to do.

Really loooove the rule revisions, and welcome new coders!

Can't wait to see all the people who refuse to cite sources still! I site all mine, except for when I get art of a character from someone else and have to track them down. ;v;

Well hello again(I'm the one who wrote that story called "The Lonely Wolf") :P

I can guarantee a lot of people still won't listen or cite sources and their art still won't be taken down :/

ditto. People keep asking for credits on reposts and others can't be bothered to do it.

"No, man, I drew it in class!"

A lot of the time they erase credit and warp something, making it harder to search,

Yep. I've seen a lot of people not crediting bases, and I doubt it will change.

but its harrrrrrrd, I hate taking 5 minutes to get the link to the original :(

Such time consume. :C

But I wanna take all credit for colouring in some liiiiiiines!

Let me color in these lines 100% by another artist and then charge $50 for it.

Profit!

buy lines for $25

use paint bucket tool

charge 200% price paid

One of the many fine ways some furs squeeze money out of the fandom.
Don't forget coloring them in once,with a design,changing the color palette a thousand times and selling them as adoptables!

origenal desines do not steel!!

Did you report it?

The mods rely on accurate reports. They don't go policing things.

To be fair, the mods dont even know half of FAs rules. I reported an entire gallery of traced base art (as in dA bases made fromt racing users art without permission) and because 'its a base' it's fine! Even when screenshots from anime were included too.

Yet they remove images that don't even break the rules sometimes.

They're really topsy turvy

FA doesn't have any mods. Just idiots running around swinging their little power hammers.

He said on the admin's journal, lol
Although I suppose if they did anything it'd only prove your point... At any rate I think that's kinda generalizing things a bit, huh?

Technically nobody is mandated for any reason to take abuse in a place that they are in power. There is no free speech here. That's a rule about government and FA is not a government. So yes, the mods are absolutely allowed to ban people who abuse them if they so feel like it.

I have a feeling there's rules against admin abuse though... Either way, I doubt many mods actually want to ban people just because someone insulted them in the first place. Although I have to admit, the fact that I'm getting constantly greeted with messages of "the comment or journal has been removed" isn't very reassuring...

People can remove their own comments and journals too.

They can't make it removed by administration! (Look literally one comment up from your original one)

True enough. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to believe that A: not everybody people assume is a scumbag is a scumbag and B: The moderators are trying more to help the site not-suck despite the flood of "interesting" stuff from people.

Without knowing what used to be there, it's nearly impossible to say what was wrong with it. Making the assumption that it was allowed stuff and a mod got grumpy is a disservice, so I shan't.

Even though I completely agree that you need both sides of the story before making assumptions, I still think they shouldn't be hiding comments just because they don't agree with them. I got one of them to send me their reply in a note and it didn't at all look worthy of being removed.
Still, I agree that I can't make assumptions without knowing both sides of the story for the other one.

As a point to that, somebody might cuss a blue streak in the actual reply and then tone it down when sending it to you. No good way to say.

Also, some things that seem innocuous can end up breaking policies. If I had to take a guess, CoC 1.5 is most likely the reason. Don't argue with staff, insult staff, or bring up site issues (ticketable issues) outside of tickets. Since things are not black and white, it's important to take the most strict interpretation of the policy and consider that any un-whacked violation is simply lucky and not your choice unless you are staff. (Generic "you", not you specifically. :) )

You are a brave man. Or a fool.

I've reported an entire gallery, but they only took down a few because most of them were hard to find the source.
The issue is, they have MANY pics, all different styles of lineart, and it's obvious they can't draw, but nothing is being done.

Isn't it a thing that if someone breaks the rules multiple times they get banned overall? I'm pretty sure I've seen that happen several times here.

Yes, but the mods have a LOT of backlog, usually :/

Surely it should ease the progress if you report the same guy twice and link them to evidence that you reported them before too (when they first got stuff removed). I haven't actually had issues with any TT's I've sent not being responded to in timely manner or properly dealt with, I think longest was two months? (but that was when FA was in a really bad spot).

I have one from two years ago I finally gave up on and closed :/

And sometimes they only solve a little of the problem.

Plus, a LOT of rules were recently removed, making a lot of TTs worthless.

You can make copy-paste comparison memes again :/ Neither picture has to be taken or made for the meme, they can just be a random one of you and your fursona.

I might've just missed the time they had too many TT's to handle and couldn't respond to all. It's a good thing they're improving the rules tho.

I also had no idea those weren't allowed at some point, I was under the impression you could post variations of stuff to scraps always, as long as there wasn't 100's of them of course (such as crop one of your pics to use as profile id).

Scraps weren't a "rule-breaking shit goes here" thing until recently.
If it broke a rule, it went nowhere.

And copy-memes were VERY much against the rules, there's a shitstorm about it that caused a massive wave of new rules about spam, journals and original content, especially since they showed absolutely no creative merit (cropping two pics from your gallery together isn't being artistic) but now they're welcome in your gallery.

Got human picture of you and a picture of your fursona someone else drew years ago that aren't even the same pose?
Paste them into a template frame and put them in your main gallery to show up on the main page!

FA is slowly turning into Facebook.

Soon, Google images will be welcome here along with chainpics.

People use the internet differently than before, I don't think posting meme's would be bad if FA had a separate section for non-original content related to you which watchers could choose to not follow (then again, why not just go on twitter if you want to post memes mostly). Common sense says that this is an art gallery and you're not meant to double post anything - who wants to see the same shit twice anyways? Like what if everyone of your followed people did it :I (it's already depressing that half of the new submissions in the inbox are reminders and streams thesedays...)

Report backlog is over, now they are quick. Reported someone recently, got a reply in a few days.

Tho my experience was similar, I reported a full gallery of tracing and got told most of them are only "referenced", even tho they clearly are traces, and my ticket got closed. They removed only one submission which was a straight screenshot from an anime.

Directly from a mods mouth in my most recent report.

We would need the original artists to contact us on these as some appear to have given him permission to use their works and we do not accept third party reports, thank you and sorry for the inconvenience.

Ok some of the images the guy only just recently got an ok on. But the guy I reported has traced art from Forge. Not to mention has several traced images of peoples "commissioned" characters he traced over. When I was told this I was simply like..."I gave you links to the originals, 1 comparison showing everything is line for line, then you tell me I can't report these people on behalf of the affected artist? All because I am not the direct party affected" All of this went through my mind as I nodded and simply accepted the tickets closing.

This is what I simply refuse to understand. How is a "report" for art theft not acceptable? I'm trying to uphold our websites rules. Then I'm blatantly shut down and told otherwise. All because i'm not the original artist? EXCUSE ME! wtf is wrong here...

"I'm trying to uphold our websites rules."
Yet you infringe copyright with your avatar - unless you have written permission from Gorillaz to use that part from their clip.

Except that's not a copyright infringement, otherwise the use of screencaps/GIFs from anime/cartoons/TV shows, album covers, and snippets from comics/ manga or art as profile avatars would all be considered infringement. The property in question is not being used for commercial purposes, while the user does provide a service, they are not attempting to use or claim the Gorillaz' property as part of their business (Advertising, labeling, branding, etc.) It's not an identifying mark used to distinguish goods or services provided by the user (Also known as a trademark), and it's not being incorporated into the user's works itself, it also cannot be claimed that the user's use of the clip could cause any Gorillaz customers or fans to mistake the user's works as official Gorillaz work. Therefore the user requires no permission be granted by the copyright holder in order to use it in this fashion.

Yes it is.

"otherwise the use of screencaps/GIFs from anime/cartoons/TV shows, album covers, and snippets from comics/ manga or art as profile avatars would all be considered infringement."
Yes they ARE copyright infringements.

It is really damn simple: If you don't have permission, you can do NOTHING with it. Period. It is called _COPY_right for a reason. An avatar is a copy. A website header is a copy. And so on.

"The property in question is not being used for commercial purposes"
Doesn't matter. Still copyright infringement.

I could quite every single one of your arguments and reply with "Doesn't matter, still copyright infringement." It has nothing to do with commercial exploitation, misrepresentation etc. Those are other factors. Protected by copyright means you can NOT use it in ANY way without permission. Not even non-commercially. Not even for charity. Not for whatever.

There is on exception, called "fair use" bat that generally covers only educational purposes, such as putting an image (with precise credit to the source, author, and statement of copyright) into a student book, or an article. And even then, Fair use is not something set in stone, they can still sue and the court will decide if it counts as fair use or not.

"Therefore the user requires no permission be granted by the copyright holder in order to use it in this fashion."
Not true. No offense, but you don't seem to understand copyright. See my points above. No matter the use, you MUST ask permission - unless you want to rely on fair use, but even then, better asking permission than risking.

Fair use allows you to use it for nonprofit reasons.

Copyright assures that no one can sell the original made content for profit, such as me taking Spiderman screenshots from the movie itself and just selling it for profit. That is infringing. Taking spiderman clips for use as gifs for nothing other than entertainment (and at low quality to avoid issues) doesn't infringe on copyright as I'm not claiming I made or own the content in question.

copyright is 100% about money. References are not art theft or copyright infringement. See fair use again on that.

About Fair Use and citing sources:
"Some people mistakenly believe it’s permissible to use a work (or portion of it) if an acknowledgment is provided. For example, they believe it’s okay to use a photograph in a magazine as long as the name of the photographer is included. This is not true. Acknowledgment of the source material (such as citing the photographer) may be a consideration in a fair use determination, but it will not protect against a claim of infringement. In some cases, such as advertisements, acknowledgments can backfire and create additional legal claims, such as a violation of the right of publicity. When in doubt as to the right to use or acknowledge a source, the most prudent course may be to seek the permission of the copyright owner." - http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

It gives specific cases it references as well as states that despite laws, a case can always go one way or another with just the /intent/ of use.

But. FA members are all copyright lawyers so. :\

Copyright doesn't differentiate between commercial and noncommercial. You do ANYTHING with it without permission, you infringe copyright. Period. Only (US) exception is fair use, but it is not something automatic, so if they sue the (US) court must declare that it is fair use. It is, however, NOT covering use for personal entertainment, such as using for avatar.

"Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law establishes the fair use doctrine by stating the use of a copyrighted work for comment, criticism, news reporting, teaching, research or scholarship is not considered a copyright infringement."

So for example, if you write a review of a book, you can include quotes and/or front cover image, because it make sense, and it is there for the purpose of the article.

If you use it for anything else, even just for an avatar, it is NOT fair us, and the copyright owner can demand the removal (and the host, in this case FA must comply or they lose safe harbor and can be sued) and can sue you.

And again, US law only applies within the US. And as far as I know the concept of Fair use does not exist outside the US.

Fair Use does exist out of the US. In fact I'm sorry that you think that using other's items are improper, but if that's the case youtube should be shut down, tumblr too, oh let's not forget IMVU. I mean a lot of their items are used by other people and considering icons, emotes, and page set ups usually come and start from somewhere that means FA and all of the rest of the internet should shut down due to, Copyright infringement.

I guess this means all these memes are copyright infringement.

The internet will be going to court to pay for its crimes! /sarcasm

Haha, if what Storm says about copyrights is *ahem*insert smart ass tone here*ahem* Then yes, the whole internet will have a melt down.

Ignorance is bliss. Yes, the Internet is full of materials that infringe copyright. Just because most of them are not taken down (yet) it doesn't make them not infringing.

But the frame layouts, all come from somewhere, emojis come from somewhere, so technically by your description the whole internet needs to 'poof' abide by copyright law and disappear.

Nope. Copyright protects original content. It doesn't cover generic things. A photo, an artwork, a screenshot from a movie is original content, a basic web layout or an emoticon is not. (Although here I would like to mention the funny fact that someone managed to Trademark the original yellow "Smiley face" and started asking licensing fees from anyone using it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile.....d_legal_issues But that's Trademark, not copyright. Copyeright is automatic, Trademark must be registered.)

Now the question is, at which point does something become "original content"? At which point does it stop being generic? In case of an artwork or photo, originality is pretty obvious, but there are many cases where it isn't, and there have been lots and lots of lawsuits where the court had to decide if it counts original or not.

Ignorance is bliss. Just because "everybody is doing it" it doesn't become legal - just like (almost) everyone is downloading games/music/programs for free from Torrent and download sites, yet it is still a crime.

It's just that copyright owners either don't care about small and literally harmless infringements (like using something for avatar), or that they simply don't have to capacity to act in all those cases. But this doesn't make it legal. If you steal my sandwich and I ignore it, it doesn't make it legal.

You don't understand... it doesn't matter what I, or you think is proper or improper. Copyright is copyright, regardless of anyone's personal opinion on what is acceptable.

And yes, YT, Tumblr and IMVU (and pretty much any site where users can upload media) ARE actually full of infringing material. If you didn't notice, things are constantly being taken down from all of those sites as they get reported. YouTube alone probably takes down hundreds of videos each week.

The sites are not shut down because they are not responsible for users uploading infringing material, but they ARE responsible for taking it down when the right holder requests it (for ex. DMCA notice). The reason they don't simply try to remove it all themselves is because they realize that if they removed everything that infringes copyright they were be going out of business.

it's to skim down on administration labor

If the original artist complains about a useage, it's pretty damn skippy sure that it's not otherwise permitted by some agreement that was made. Someone else reposting, may have permission from an agreement, and a third party (say, you for instance) are not privvy to that agreement. An admin would have to do all the legwork, as opposed to you pointing out the suspected copyright issue to the original artist/owner, and let them decide whether they want it taken down.

It's bad to take action based on allegations that stem from premonitions or gut feelings. If there is a reasonable doubt, don't act. "It looks funny" and "It's obvious" are not the same as "It's this. Period." Without a solid proof, I'd not expect anybody to act.

Thanks for being a pointless jerk just to be a pointless jerk.
The words "It's obvious" mean just that. It's freaking obvious.
Twenty four different styles, no WIPs, no streams, no actual original art, just well-known lineart with the credit erased.

Congrats, though, you've reminded me that there's a block function for a reason.

It might be obvious to someone that's seen it all over a gallery, but to an administrator that may see any one FA profile for mere minutes before having to issue some kind of decision, it cuts down a lot of 'hurry up and wait' for a response from the original artist, querying them as to whether something is in violation of their desire, whereas if the original artist lodges a complaint, the only checking that has to be done is who infact has the right to complain - and that's something that can usually be determined on the spot.

Lol who the fuck is hyoka and why are they such a worthless shit "hey, I don't agree with any of these people, BETTER BLOCK THEM AND STOP ALL DISCUSSION"

Head in sand FTW.

People who never think of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

A gunshot was heard in a room and people rushed in to find two men. One was shot dead and the other was holding the gun and set it down quickly. These two men had been known to quarrel before, but this went too far.

The situation was OBVIOUS and the upset people, knowing the man no longer had his gun, pounced on him and beat him senseless. Sure he was broken and battered, but a murderer deserved it!

Then later, as the police investigated, they found the truth:
The dead man had come in with the gun and intended to shoot the other. The other barely wrestled the gun from the first man and it went off in the struggle, killing the attacker. Thr crowd had no idea the trauma he'd just been through and nearly killed him, because the situation was obvious.

Oh... Too dramatic for the "obvious" people?

A new artist experimented in different styles, trying to find their own comfort zone. They got permission from other artists to trace sketches and linework to try to learn and proudly posted the results as they grew in skill. Then somebody came along and said "Look, all the styles! It's OBVIOUS!" and a stupid site mod banned the budding artist, despite them doing everything correctly and getting permission or using things that had stated permission.

----

So yeah, the site has every right to say "We have to hear it from the artist directly or their authorized representative" and even has a moral and legal reason to. So what's "obvious" may not be cut and dry.

My main concern is that if they're really stealing it and it's really that hard to find, I hardly think the staff is at fault for not removing it on zero evidence. Secondarily, who's to say that it's not a base picture that's totally free to use with no restriction whatsoever? Again, without finding it, the statement is worthless, and expecting the staff to comb over each and every one, do it flawlessly, and do it quickly, is expecting too much of anyone. Most sites used to expect you to provide the proof yourself before FA was ever a big thing, so why suddenly does everyone want FA to do all the legwork? I've only had one negative experience with reporting work, and that's when I reported a midi that had the instruments changed and provided the link, and that was apparently not good enough for whoever took my ticket. That's stupid, but it's an isolated incident. You can't just report something without evidence unless it's blatantly obvious, like a screen capture of a scene in a tv show or a trace of a well known character.

we call that the "mob mentality" one of them societal dysfunctions that we could do without.

Truth of all truth, it's like arresting someone based on hearsay evidence, or eye witness who did not witness the act.

lol I reported an image with an obviously traced wolf's head, included links to the original photo *and* overlays, which match up about 98%, and my TT was closed because it wasn't considered tracing. The TT was "answered" a year after I first sent it in.

Here's the overlay, btw: http://imgur.com/PQg4pAr

Reporting does nothing.

I don't want to sound callous, but tracing something from Artstock is pretty darn close to a victimless crime in the first place

(my .02 - I don't have any other information)

Adding to the bit the other person put, people are allowed to purchase ShutterStock photos and use them to make derivatives, including tracing. So even though it is a trace does not automatically make it an unauthorized trace.

I'm sure there are some submissions out there with insufficient sourcing. There are a lot of submissions on the site, and it is not humanly possible for staff to review every new submission. If you become aware of submissions that fail to adequately cite their sources, you are very welcome to report them, and our staff will handle the issue as soon as we're able.

The problem is, I have.
There's a profile doing NOTHING but using different linearts and saying he drew them.
You guys took down a few, but most are still up because it's hard to reverse search coloured lineart.

He's made it obvious he didn't draw them, though, as they're all dramatically different styles.

Ok, then maybe you can find all the bases and whether he was given sufficient permission to use them or not, and include them in your reports? Like I do?

Read my other comments before commenting next time.
I said that it's hard to when they:
Trace
Erase credit
Warp the pic

But, please, keep being an asshole instead of helping fix a problem, it's SO enjoyable ._.

If it's hard for you to do it, it's even harder for an admin, with limited time and context/insight, to do it. They're not incorrect.

When someone lists all the reasons it's near impossible to do something, don't be a dick and say "Well I do it!" when you don't.
You just fucking don't.

If you CAN'T reverse image search, you CAN'T use credit links to find it, there are THOUSANDS of wolf/fox/cat bases and people edit lineart, it is NOT as easy as just finding the proper credit you freaking idiot. Please, next time, either be polite and offer to help someone (because documenting certain galleries of immense collections of art can take forever) or just shut up.

You helped nothing by being a jerk.

That doesn't stop them from responding to me when they block me :|

God, there's just nothing that boils my blood more than assholes who just want to listen to themselves talk and don't actually have any rational input.

People like that seem to forget that colorists do exist. I don't know for certain because this guy didn't even post a link the profile he's accusing of hosting stolen art. Could for example just be someone using improper wording by referring to coloring something as drawing something.

What fascinates me though is why there is this major obsession in the furry community about people ONLY sharing what they themselves create. I mean even to the point using a pose many of these people still consider a form of theft when in fact a pose is not even protected by copyright law and never will be for obvious reasons. The sad thing is people like that guy are part of why we even have this new part of the AUP that is making FA not just the copyright police but now the sourcing police. I'm waiting for the day when they'll require you to source posing. Creative freedom seems to be getting more of a noose on this site than freedom with all of this unhealthy obsession over art theft. I find it more amusing anyway because art thieves are just so painfully obvious I've never seen anyone in the furry fandom get away with it for long; even without the mob.

Funny, the staff over at e621.net manage it. All submissions on there await approval, signified by the note at the top of it's page and the blue border around the thumbnail. Any approved submission can be removed if there is later sufficient reason, the only real exceptions are things so old they're buried back with everything from before the current administration (circa 5 years ago)..

Perhaps this is because they're actually doing what they've volunteered to do (I believe only EDF-DarkAngel gets paid due to being a Dragonfruit employee/one of Varka's men), rather than sitting around promising to fix a broken site but not actually getting much done.

The staff over at e621 are clearly working with a different system than ours - while I can sympathize with your sentiment you're comparing apples to oranges. They also are, far as I can tell, dealing with a much lower posting rate (their number of posts number in the 6 digits according to their front page, compared to FA's numbering in the 8 digits).

I will politely ask you to cease taking digs at FA staff. We have some incredibly hard-working people on staff, and the least you could do is respect the time they donate to the site.

I'll respect the truth when it's given.

Are people not allowed to vent their frustrations about a failing system like what FA has when it comes to volunteer staff....especially on a public open posting journal by the sites mascot? I rarely every "dig" at staff simply because I know it can be tough since it IS all volunteer, but there really are some HORRIBLE staff members that have no place on the staff list. Its like a big fuck fest of "I have no clue what im doing, so im going to do it my way"

It seems like half the time no two staff members are on the same page, which is essential to running this place smoothly. A post rate of 6 to 8 is not THAT huge of a difference when it comes down too it, as im sure there are more staff working here then there are that place. If there are not enough staff here to handle it, why are their not new ones being trained the same way, to handle things? Now if it were a post rate of say, 3-8 or something, I could understand. There are just so many flawed things in FA's system that need to be looked at, and staff/staff training is one of them. You guys need to all be on the same page. Other then that, I think you guys do good jobs, but if you cant handle peoples sour opinions of a place that has a horrible history of functioning, it may be time to take a step back and look at it as a whole ya know?

Venting frustration is one thing. Replying to a staff member to say that FA staff spends their time "sitting around promising to fix a broken site but not actually getting much done" is taking a very undeserved dig at both myself (as the staff member being replied to), my fellow Administrators, and our Moderators. There are ways to express frustration without being derisive, and that deserves at least a touch of consideration when you're addressing a staff member directly. We have very hard-working staff, and while I'll acknowledge that we're not perfect, I would not agree that there's anyone currently on staff that hasn't earned their place.

Six digits vs eight digits means there's somewhere upwards of 50 times (very inexact math, because the exact number isn't very important and I don't particularly like to math if I don't have to) more submissions on FA, accrued over what appears to be eight years to FA's ten. It's not a 6:8 ratio, it's more than an order of magnitude difference, and cannot solely be accounted for by FA having been around for longer.

We do and continue to bring on new Moderators to our staff, all of whom are trained to handle the types of issues they're set to work on; I wouldn't say that there's any significant problem currently with disparate interpretations of policy (obviously at some point personal interpretation can come into especially the more borderline cases, but those do not account for a very large portion of our overall reports, and should a mistake be made it can generally be cleared up on escalation/appeal), nor do I feel that we in our enforcement generally fail to be on the same page. Most commonly, from what I've seen of public discussions regarding policy matters, misunderstandings arise because a clarification given prior to a policy revision is assumed to apply after that revision as well.

There's a huge difference between being disillusioned with the site, and being sour towards the people donating their time working on it. The former is understandable, and we'll absolutely listen to criticism and suggestions - some of which have been implemented in the last year. The latter serves no practical purpose and therefore I do ask people to knock it off if they direct it at me.

But that's the thing.

I should have never had too see what I saw with ThatTransDude, we're both scarred pretty much for seeing what it was.

To sum it up, it was brutal cruelty to an animal.
I won't say what it is in semi-polite company, but images like it are reasons why every image should go through a mod queue.

Furries won't stay around to see things like that.

Let's just say the person who posted it was banned, but now I know to tread a little more carefully on here.

Doesn't FA pay its staff members? If not, why?

I absolutely understand that position. Unfortunately, any site with the kind of content volume that FA has is unlikely to employ pre-screening of content because of the huge amount of work it generates, as well as the likely associated discontent. (Prior to the SoFurry rebranding, Yiffstar put all submissions through a moderation queue, which resulted both in frustration from users due to the wait for content to go through, and reduced exposure for the majority of content posted due to it all getting posted in a compressed time span when a staff member had time to go through that queue. FA has significantly higher traffic than Yiffstar did at that time.) I'm not saying it's impossible, but unless you at the very least have paid staff working in shifts to ensure consistent coverage, it's highly impractical.

Generally speaking we do usually manage to get to photographic gore/porn/etc shock content submissions pretty promptly, and deal with the individuals posting them accordingly, but of course it's unpleasant for the users who do see it while it's up (just like it's unpleasant for the staff member(s) having to handle the issue - we are of course not immune to emotional reactions to disturbing content).

The staff members primarily handling tickets are unpaid volunteers - Dragoneer is paid for his time but most of that time is occupied with the Beta UI development and other non-moderation tasks. I don't have the specific knowledge to really address reasons, though I will point out that FA is hardly unique in having this type of staffing structure.

You do know there are people that like that sort of thing, I personally don't but I don't look up that stuff so I don't see it
I do have a small complaint with the site but I'm not letting that get me all huffy puffy bout it

Then there is also the fact that sometimes, someone simply doesn't know /who/ is the original source of something, even when they look, mainly because it either was never cited in the original material they drew from or due to where they got it from they're unable to track down /where/ the original is with the credit sources (which happens often when artists reference from something on sites like Tumblr).

This looks to be a double edged sword to me, as if IMVU is strict enough about the legal liability reasons behind these two new rules, that they will actually hassle to take down the countless submissions with uncited borrowed material.....they're likely going to be draconian enough to slam submissions where the artist simply couldn't cite the sourced material regardless of how much they looked.

This also brings to mind the matter of content in the public domain like  Mircea pointed out. What if the original creator of such an image explicitly states, in the open where anyone can read, that anyone is free to do whatever with the image? This includes cases where they explicitly state profit from a derivative, which while uncommon they do happen (I would be such a person to do such from time to time).

Finally, will this affect user icons? At least half of the active userbase uses icons that aren't their work or commissioned but are either random images used as a part of their sense of humor; many of these images could also fall into public domain meaning it would be legally contradicting to enforce this rule against them for their icon if it does.

> What if the original creator of such an image explicitly states, in the open where anyone can read, that anyone is free to do whatever with the image?

Then it's an edge case that does not apply to 100% (rounded down to a whole number) of the cases.

> Finally, will this affect user icons?

If it's a submission, it obviously will like any other submission?

You'd be surprised how inaccurate that rounded 100% is.

> You'd be surprised how inaccurate that rounded 100% is.

Feel free to provide the data to warrant my suprise because I created a session using session based testing methodology on the browsing of front page submissions.... Annecdotally I found nothing. Even now, on a single page of my submissions watches, I have determined there is zero. I'm sure if it was so prevailant, it would have turned up something quickly.

Now, if you say otherwise, I would really like to see something with more substance behind it. Perhaps you could snapshot the first five pages of recent submissions and point out which ones fit your criteria? After all, if it's anything above 0% without rounding, it would be very quick to see in a mere five pages of content.

The larger a total volume of data, the more a percent is. The smaller the ratio of the sample you use to prove or disprove a theory, in comparison to the total volume, the more inaccurate it is. That's a basic concept of surveys.

> The smaller the ratio of the sample you use to prove or disprove a theory, in comparison to the total volume, the more inaccurate it is.

Oh obviously, I certainly wasn't trying to claim my data was perfect, in fact I was being up front about how I came to my determination (you haven't though). But, in the absense of anyone actually providing any better data samples that has been audited for the 'Mircea issue', I'm going to find it hard to be convinced otherwise. Sadly, you have failed to present any data thus far to change my opinion on the matter.

I don't try to change the opinion of people who always try to be right, it's a fruitless endeavor.

ive already asked staff on a couple of these.

If you cant cite the source, you have to show that you put in a reasonable amount of effort to find it. That amount of effort is decided on by the staff. It would probably be better to just not post it if you cant tell people where you got it from.

Also, public domain stuff still needs to be cited. Say you made a base and said anyone can use it anywhere at any time, when I use it and post it, I still have to say that I got the base from you. Anytime I asked on this I got a flat "sources need to be cited no matter what" reply.

super obnoxious since I have this massive laundry list of references that I need to post and then I see like 30 people post in a row with no links or anything.

A big welcome to the new coders from me as well.

I try and cite my sources when possible, though being only human (so to speak) sometimes I forget ^^;
There's a few 3D models I have that I can't remember the source, since I got them years ago and they don't show up on the sites I usually frequent... :/

A brony, as a site coder?!?!?1/ Drama! Controversy! I'm leaving FA! Brb in 5 minutes!

The honesty is brutal with this Comment lol

I'd like to order an extra large brutal with no chill, please.

Coming right up sooner or later!

Would you like a drink with that?

Thanks to bronies, at least furries have SOMEONE to look down on/ make fun of...

You spoke my mind my friend.

I wouldn't really say so, since there are still furries who do worse stuff, people just don't really care about it anymore or don't even see most of the stuff because "lol, bronies"

Isn't Dragoneer sort of into MLP as well?

I heard a rumor that there's some "quoting_mungo" person on the staff team used to have an avatar of a pony wearing a kigurumi.

There's several people on staff who enjoy MLP to one degree or another.

Oh no, a person on staff who probably likes what some people don't like and maybe something I like! the horror!

I heard he's a GIANT prancing pony...

Ok, now you're treading into bullying macros and thus that is WAY off topic.

saying someone is a GIANT fan of something, especially when in the context of the magnitude of their enjoyment of something, is true, is not off topic

additionally I'm almost positive he himself would giggle at that comment

oh i like that things need to be cited and credit given now.
good change for once.
very good~

I'm not quite sure what the new rules mean?
It all reads like stereo instructions.

If you use a base, line art, etc. you must credit the original artist.

Group accounts are allowed to showcase art from others so long as they get permission from the original artists.

it said that?
I didn't get that from reading the new rules at all. If it meant that it should just say that instead of all the legal mumbo jumbo

FA wrote:Content that was not made explicitly by you that is used as part of your submission (such as free-to-use lineart, backgrounds, or royalty-free content) must cite its original source and be used with permission from the copyright holder

If you use a base, linearts, or etc. must site the original source (artist).

FA wrote:Content that was neither made by nor for the uploader is prohibited, unless part of a derivative work (See Section 2.5 for more information) or a group that has permission from the copyright holder. All permissions and copyright holders must be cited in the content’s description. A group is defined as a user account dedicated to showcasing content of a chosen theme with others who share similar interests for the purpose of building a community and giving artists exposure.

Groups can upload art provided they get the artist's permission. ouo

the language is written in a way to be very precise. XD i read contracts all the freakin time and this one is... well... precise enough for what they are trying to say...

The language of lawyers is tailored to leave no loopholes in the rules, unless a loophole is specifically desired as a backdoor plan. It is not inaccurate to say it's also designed to confuse people who aren't familiar with it in order to legally allow a company to screw you over for not being able to read the fine print of something you signed/agreed to.

Legally, the site has the right to take down whatever it wants; it doesn't have to prove that the user violated a rule. Stuff like "You grant us the non-exclusive right to blah-de-blah-de-blah with your work" has to be written in legalese so they can defend against stupid lawsuits, but there's no reason Da Rules can't be in plain, casual English.

True enough, but also tends to grant them the "non-exclusive right" to do things that could be legally questionable. Oh, but that's right, you told them it's fine when you agreed to their ToS/EULA, so there's nothing you can do if they over step their power.

pretty much the same as the electric company
cable company
internet access provider
phone company
gas company
sewer company
water company

and those are even bound extra by 'utility' legislation in the United States. Literally every single service that requires information to use has a TOS/EULA, why should FA be forced to be any different

I think you completely missed my point.

ditto

So does this mean that if I give an Undertale group full permission to upload my Undertale art onto said account, so long as they give full credit to me it's okay?

A recent event came up in regards to this and I would like to make sure on this.

Correct. If they don't link back to your page or give you credit, it's considered theft and will be removed.
If they give you credit, they can keep the image up so long as permission was given.
Even if a group found your art, gave credit and uploaded without permission, it's breaking the rules.

Yeah, the wording is a tad overdone up there, but it does seem to specify that it's okay. =3
I was just curious as this happened a ways back:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7184972/
And that was a little concerning.

That was, indeed, how the rules were previously written. On review we decided it was not in the community's best interest to be quite so restrictive, and added the group exceptions to address that.

I see, guess it was just THAT specific.
But granted the old way was a little silly.
You give someone permission to upload an image, so to a sense it DOES become FOR them regardless of what the image is about.
But that it a mute point now as the new rule negates that issue. =3

Fucking furries.

Yeah!

Boy, if I ever catch up with one of them, lemme tellya...!

A+!

Welcome new coders! I hope your stay here on FA is nothing but splendid!


But I do have one question, what about brushes bought or free from other sites? Example, as a SAI user, I have access to a whole bunch of textures from a variety of sources, as well as the tons of free brushes available for things like Photoshop, GIMP, etc. If I use maybe 10 or 15 textures in one project, do I have to list every single brush used, and their creator, or no?

I believe listing the name of the brush pack you downloaded, plus the creators name would do.

M'kay.


Now to find the source of every single texture/brush used ever, and to compile them into a notepad doc for this.

yeah, well, who actually has any of that information. It's pretty ludicrous FA seems to think artists just have this info laying around. Free stuff is free for a reason, and most of the brush packs or whatnot dont require credit to be given. I see this new rule as a dumbass move. professional artists dont credit when they use stock photography to make in-game textures for games like LAST OF US, so why the hell would anyone else??

Yep yep.

As someone who relies on a lot of free to use textured brushes, this is gonna be a right pain in the ass. Also, what do we do if where the original source of the brush isn't available anymore? Do we just not use that brush/texture?

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure purchasing a usage license means that he actually has the rights to the iteration of tool he used, and no longer has to cite it.

Does this include bases that the artist states do not need to be credited? And if so, does that put past pieces at risk for being removed if we can't find the image we used?

Hallelujah and sweet St. Joseph! Thank you!

I thought I would have had to quit posting on FA for a few months while I hunted down all my textures and who the hell they belong to! (That being said, all the people who made my lovely textures, they have my thanks, and wishes for many many monies )

Common sense would say that when you download a brushpack or textures, and it sais 'free to use, no need to credit', then it means that no matter what site you use. When something is made public domain, it no longer belongs to anyone. (That being said, always make sure that the textures you get have such rights, makes life easier.)

Welcome and may good things come to FA soon.

I appreciate these two new rules immensely, it makes it so much easier for the original artist to retain ownership of their work :3

I'm also curious too of one thing (maybe you know or the admins will see it);
If you do a commission/approved picture for someone and then they later say they don't want it posted - not that it was private, but that they agreed to it being public but later recanted and wanted it removed - is the artist obligated to remove it? Like yeah, you should maybe honor their wishes, but now it's part of your portfolio and examples and you have exclusive rights to your art, right? Because I was thinking that the commissioner can't dictate what you do with it unless previously agreed upon by the artist.

No. The artist, unless agreed upon before hand, has all posting rights to the art. They can post it if the user changes their mind.

Awesome, that's what I thought but I was double checking! Thanks~

I personally thought this was null if the commissioner owns copyright of their character used, so long as it was properly paid for.

The character is owned by the commissioner, sure, but the artwork and time spent creating the piece is the artists. Each artist typically has their own set of terms of service, which is up to the one paying to read and decide if it coincides with their wishes and such ><

I mean, if I spent my time and such on something, it's a part of a reflection of my work and my effort. If someone just uploads it and talks to others as if they had made the work with no mention of the original artist, its hard to get more in the future. I hope that helps with understanding

My point isn't an issue with crediting artists for their work, I wholeheartedly advocate proper sourcing and credit. My point is that there may and often do come times when someone isn't comfortable with characters /they/, not the artist, own, being on certain sites. Though I will give you credit, I wish I could say it's more often a matter of the commissioner protecting their IP, it's sadly more often a matter of drama.

I personally do read an artist's ToS before commissioning them, and this very issue, the stubborn insistence by some artists that if you commission them, they retain full rights to the content, including posting it to any sites you may be wary or uncomfortable with, or making additional profit off of your characters without your consent by selling prints of the art you commissioned them to make for you......this is the reason a number of popular artists, or artists I otherwise admire the art of, will never be on my list of artists to chose from unless they change that.

I'm sorry to hear you've had issues like this--I've never even considered the possibility of selling art that commissioners have asked for--it's just not something that would be helpful for me, and as you said, mostly causes drama. When I've gotten commissions they were often from people who were a lot more friendlier and able to contact in a more "humane" manner, instead of treating you as money from the internet.

An as for the sites, I understand completely, I don't see how that could be a problem to not post on certain sites if paid for, so, again, I apologize that you've had issues with it. Respect goes both ways, and you're right it should be the person paying to decide if they can't post on a specific site for valid and completely reasonable basis. :3

Thankfully, I've not had those issues MYSELF yet, partly because I don't have money to constantly commission art (I have only a few pieces), and I've heard and seen enough to know it happens and what it does, that I check ToSes, ask people who have commissioned a particular artist before, and check Artists Beware. I did remove my few commissions from here, because I heavily distrust IMVU, and thankfully the artists I've commissioned were understanding. I've told them if they have accounts on places like IB, Weasyl, SoFurry, etc, that I won't mind.


Mind you, I also commissioned CaroXMaster to draw a piece containing a Ralts and a Marshtomp, both Pokemon. I obviously didn't fuss about that, because I don't own them.

There's no such thing as copyright of a character, characters, being ideas, cannot be copyrighted, that's just the way IP law works. Copyright only applies to individual works (sufficiently similar works likes tracing infringe on it because they copy the work, not the character depicted). Characters can be protected by trademarking, and indeed most 'mainstream' characters like mickey mouse are, but this not an automatic process like copyright; and only applies when the trademarked content is being used for profit.

Long story short, when you see someone saying 'this character copyright such and such' that's legally meaningless. Accordingly, unless agreed previously the artist who produces a work has the exclusive posting and copyright control privileges even if someone else's character is in the image. The person who commissioned the image has no legal ability to prevent the artist from posting, distributing or selling copies of it; as far as the legalities are concerned, all the commissioner did was pay them to make a certain work, they don't actually own the resulting piece of art/intellectual property unless the artist explicitly transfered some or all copyright privileges to them as part of the deal.

I apologize for not speaking lawyer all the time, I use the term "Cpoyright" as an umbrella term for these matters even if I know it's not technically correct. Fact of the matter is, when larger companies/corporations commission an artist to draw a character of theirs for their work/promotional material, the artist doesn't get the right to resell that. They get paid for the work, they have every right to say "Yeah, I drew that!" (even if an NDA is part of the deal in my eyes, as I personally consider those to be an illicit business practice in the modern world akin to an abusive restraining order).


Bad Dragon either hires or commissions Narse (as well as some other artists, I saw Braeburned's work for one of their recent products) to draw the promotional art for their products. Narse is credited, and his art style is iconic. But he is not permitted to take the art he draws for them, of their model characters, and sell them as prints later, unless THEY, the holder of the character rights, give him permission.

Typically artists avoid drawing characters from mainstream franchises such as Disney's large library of IPs, Digimon, Pokemon, etc. This is to avoid legal liablity for profiting off of these characters, that neither they nor the commissioner own, without permission. The same applies for drawing another artist or user's characters in a commission without permission (not drawing free pieces as a gift, and the like, is more a matter of personal respect/standards/etc than legality).

In case of corporations commissioning artwork, you run into "work for hire" scenarios that should not be compared to fandom commission work - those corporations are, in most cases, paying to have the copyright for the work released to them. Smaller companies wanting promotional graphics may instead pay for specific usage rights; e.g. "the right to use this graphic on the website www-dot-website-dot-com through April 2017" (Yes, this is how specific usage rights for graphics usually are. My old teacher actually ended up sending a pretty hefty bill to one of her commercial commissioners when they proceeded to use the same graphic in more places than specified in their contract). This is why the artist's rights to their work may be severely restricted when work is done for major corporations. As Bad Dragon uses their commissioned artwork to market a product, I would say you can safely assume there's a similarly detailed contract spelled out there.

Fandom personal commissions don't pay enough for any of that - honestly receiving indefinite online reposting rights for your commission is something that alone (going by pro illustrator rates) should cost several times the going rate of the typical furry commission.

Legally, nothing stops an artist from making prints of a typical personal commission - they have permission to use the intellectual property for that work, and the commissioner has not purchased the print rights off of them. Most artists will, however, ask or abstain from doing so out of courtesy.

There's no sort of character-creator's rights involved in the reselling of their depiction? Or is that something that would have to be negotiated in advance?

Not inherently, no, unless your character is trademarked (which is not the case for the vast majority of personal furry commissions). If you are concerned about artists selling prints of a commission, or including it on art CDs, or what have you, the best thing you can do is ask in advance and if necessary work something out.

A lot of artists will refrain from making further profit off of commissions by e.g. prints out of courtesy, but from a purely legal standpoint they have no obligation to.

ouch :L but thems the breaks

It's not really 'speaking lawyer' in this case, it's plain English. Copyright covers exactly what it says it does: the right or rights to make and/or distribute copies of the work; that's it. More complex stuff is, as Mungo stated, a matter of contract law (like the NDAs you mentioned, which are incidentally often an enormously important piece of legal work protecting the privacy and rights of both individuals and companies). Ownership of a character's likeness is a very different kettle of fish from a legal perspective, and it's not automatically assumed the way copyright is.

Accordingly it's always good to make sure an artist is okay with you re-posting work that you've commissioned from them, most are quite willing to give it, but it's not an 'assumed' privilege under copyright law unless it's clearly spelled out in the artist's terms of service or your personal contract with them. Certainly the reverse (telling an artist they can't post a work you commissioned from them or demanding they take one down after the fact) carries no legal weight unless the artist has transfered the copyright of the piece to you. The fact that your character is in the work is legally (if not morally) irrelevant.

I may be mixing up comment chains between you and another person regarding this, as I'm tired and the time lapse between my responses and others' is notable, but the thing that is being ignored here, is I'm not concerned about whether or not I'm allowed to repost a piece I commissioned elsewhere. My concern is with the artist respecting where I /don't/ want my characters posted.

For example. I removed all of my content from FA following IMVU's buyout of FA, because I did not agree to IMVU's EULA/ToS regarding what they may do with anything of mine. I don't want my withdrawal of agreement being sidestepped by an artist posting works of my characters to FA, for the very reasons I didn't agree to IMVU's EULA/ToS regarding content.


Unfortunately, it seems from the comments I'm noticing on here, that FA/IMVU is more concerned about appeasing artists who contribute to any possible profitability of the site, than people who actually own IP that could be on here (with the exception of IP owners who also are their own artists and thus could potentially contribute). I forsee a considerable legal snafuu should they enable a slight against anyone who actually has the finance, time, and concern to do something about it.

But that's just the thing, frustrating as it is the artists DO own the IP when they do a commission for you. Unless you've filed trademark paperwork before commissioning the work than it's not your intellectual property no matter what characters are in the piece. You have zero legal grounds for asking an artist to take the work down in their own gallery unless they signed the copyright over to you when you commissioned the piece.

It's unlikely that there will be a legal snafu, because again, there's no legal disputes to settle where these works are concerned, at least not on your end because you as the commissioner have no legal stake in the piece whatsoever. As long as the copyright holder for the piece (who is the artist unless they sign the rights over to someone else) consents to it being uploaded there's no problem. The characters in the work, provided they aren't trademarks, are not a factor in a legal sense. Accordingly, whether or not the artist agrees to take them down is entirely between you and the artist and ultimately the final decision comes down to them. IMVU/FA should not and legally CAN NOT force them to remove the piece just because the person who paid to have it drawn no longer wants it here.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I've just found that a lot of furries seem to have a very shaky understanding of copyright law and assume rights where none exist. If your worried about art containing your characters being posted on this site, then you need to make sure that you don't commission artists who upload here or agree in writing with the artist that the content won't be posted here before the commission is completed. That's really all that you can do in a legal sense, unless you want to take the considerable effort and investment required to have the character's likeness trademarked. As it is, you don't own the copyright for your characters because copyright cannot apply to characters, and you don't own the copyright for art you've commissioned because the creator of a piece of work, not the commissioner, automatically holds all copyright for the work in question. They can transfer those rights or share them with others, but that only happen if they explicitly in writing transfer some or all of the copyright to the commissioner.

Unless your agreement included signing over the copyright to the piece, you as the copyright holder have final say in whether it's posted to FA. Whether you want to honor a request to make the work private is entirely up to you.

Thank you very much for the information! I was assuming this was the case but just wanted to make sure

I'm curious about this as well. I thought that FA sided with the artist in these instances, but after seeing a few incidents where art was forcefully taken down because the commissioner wanted it pulled after the fact, and there didn't seem to be a consistent explanation, I'm no longer sure where FA stands on artist's rights in this regard.

Thanks for clearing this up, this is really important to me and why I had problems allowing others to repost work since people did it without permission.

I believe there was a case reported on Artists Beware where a person had commissioned SFW art of them and their friend, and the artist went ahead and made it outright NSFW with exposed genitals and touching each other there. The commissioner repeatedly clarified that they paid for SFW art, and that their friend was in a real life relationship and agreed not to be in NSFW art with other people. The most the artist ever did was hide the genitals, but left it plain as day what the original image was, and even publicly (in the comments section) taunted them in reply to their requests since apparently they found the fact that the commissioner couldn't do anything was funny.

It was eventually ruled in favor of the commissioner, and the art was taken down.

That might be more of a case of harassment than any copyright/IP violation.

It's at least both, as they staunchly refused to take down the content at the character owner's request.

Wow, I feel so lucky that people noticed my comment haha, but yeah that's been a huge issue for me because people have had problems with me simply because I didn't want people to reupload. The reason being is because the good commissioners will ask permission, others just post up and not link credit, often just thanking commenters about the art.

That is killer for business, especially for those struggling to gain watchers and we often just go unnoticed. ><

Exactly! Publicity is a good thing but only if people can use that artwork to find you

^ Don't we all know it haha ;3

I personally have a similar issue. As a commissioner with characters, and the intention to use my characters in a future work of my own, and with a hefty distrust of IMVU, I don't want art of my characters on FA anymore. I'm fine with it being posted to the artist's account on the other usual sites with exception to Deviant Art due to it's shady management of art theft and the like. Thankfully, the artists I have commissioned thus far,  Royalty and  CaroXMaster have all been understanding of the matter and respected my wishes not to have my characters on here.

I think as long as you say you don't want it posted here upfront, many artists will be understanding about it!

There are unfortunately artists who, on their front page and/or ToS, explicitly say they will always and only post to certain sites such as FA, or that the only way to keep the commission off of FA is to request ahead of time that it remain private, IE neither they nor you can post it anywhere.

I avoid these artists entirely, because I've seen too many times where someone has an issue with a site they post it to then or in the future, and when asked to remove it the artists smugly says to read their ToS next time before trotting off on their high horse.

I don't think it's them having a high horse. Artists live by examples they have for customers. If you have a piece that ends up popular, it's good exposure because it'll be in peoples' favorites, reposted in galleries, and end up in searches. If someone told me after I finished that I wasn't allowed to post it, I'd be annoyed because submitting and showing off art is how you gain traction on an art site as an artist and a businessperson. If someone asked me ahead of time, I'd probably agree with an additional fee since it's taking away from it. It's not them being assholes; I think most artists are okay with it if given a head's up. The reason for saying no isn't that they think they're better, but it not making business sense for them to keep things private normally - you're essentially pouring time and effort into something only one or two people will ever see which often goes against the mindset of art is meant to be shared (in addition to the business aspect).

And most of the time, that spreading of art is a good thing, because yes it IS how you get exposure as an artist. But for some people, more commonly artists or people with well developed and creative characters from what I've seen, their art and/or commissioned art of their character holds an emotional value to them that makes them not want it on places they aren't comfortable with (one of the common reasons an artist will request to be added to e621's DNP list is because they don't like the kinds of sexualized comments on submissions there being given to their representing character).

When I refer to the artist having a high horse, though, I'm talking mostly about cases where it's rather clear from their wording and actions that they look down upon their customers if they aren't being praised, only see commissioners as money that should be given to them, or otherwise think people should be euphoric that they had the opportunity to get art from them. That's more a personality issue than what I'm trying to get at overall though, the legal grounds behind one's ownership and control of their own characters and IP.

Oh yeah, definitely I agree with you. If an artist is being shitty, that's really lame. If it was agreed upon prior to starting to be private, the artist should honor that verbal/typed agreement even if it isn't a contract. Sorry you and your friends have had bad experiences with it.

I always reupload anything I commission, and while technically artists are under no obligation to let me do so, I've never had a single one object to it (if I ever have an artist object to that before the fact, I'll simply find another artist). But I always credit the artist who created it (as well as credit the owners of any third-party characters in the art) and link back to the post in the artist's gallery, if the artist posted it there.

Okay? To each their own :3
It's just sometimes difficult for artists who are under the radar to get those views/comments/watches without getting proper credit. That's all, it's not a blanket statement if the artist is okay with it? ^^;

Nothing I said was meant to contradict the idea that artists deserve proper credit; I fully agree that they should, and I always give it to them. I just don't think there's inherently anything wrong with a commissioner posting something they paid for in their own gallery (so long as they give the proper credit, and the artist is OK with it, which in my experience almost all of them are).

(Not trying to be argumentative here, just clarifying my statements.)

There are worse crimes, sure, but it's rude. I mean, it's not a crime to slap your date if they said something in bad taste, but it's not really nice or considerate, is it? It goes the same way. An artist works really hard for them, the hope would be that the commissioner could be polite and just make sure they are respecting a boundary. Again, if they don't care either way, that's also fine :3 Or if they have rules saying don't ask, then good! It's just for me as an artist, and for others who might feel similarly. I recognize that my opinion is an unpopular one, but just one that is just as important as making sure people are respectful and fair on both sides =3

I understand, thanks for clarifying, Nichara :3 It's always really interesting hearing all these other people's viewpoints. People have so many ways of taking it

Personally I think it's rude for an artist to demand that a commissioner not repost it; they paid for it, after all. (In addition to being rude, it's also bad customer service.) Politeness and respect is a 2-way street. Regardless of what the law says, I believe an artist owes just as much consideration of the commissioner's wishes as the reverse. That's all I'm trying to say here.

I'm not saying that, but, I think it's wise to just drop it. x3

Welcum coders and hello new rules

I wonder how things will turn up.

it's about damn time for those rules to be added....

Dildo

Worry about me not. I always link back, it's what I do.

I'm all for site redesigns...but...the layout of the profiles still looks stretched out? It just looks really wide. It might work well for mobile, having the vertical design and the boxes taking up almost all horizontal space..but it doesn't work very well on laptop displays. Especially the profile info, takes up a LOT of space, even if I tried to keep mine minimalistic. Personal info and trades/requests (a feature i personally enjoy) should be displayed before submissions, since I think this is a little more important than reading someones whole bio? Perhaps some kind of distinction between favs and submissions, putting them side by side in separate divs?

I like these new rules! I always credit the artists on my page, but I see a lot of people who don't, and are just content to let people think they drew the picture themselves. ;n;

Now choose a citation style. I vote for MLA.

http://www.theonion.com/article/4-c.....chicago--30806

*Snerk* Thanks for the laugh. I was actually thinking something along the same lines, because there's plenty of material out there which is free for use, which the artist doesn't care about being credited. I don't use any, but I've seen it while flipping through some creative commons type webpages. Mostly game assets and little musical jingles and such. Them demanding ALL CITATION ON EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF CONTENT WARGL BLARGH is just preposterous on so many levels. It reminded me of writing annotated bibliographies in school.

I'm not saying the new rule is wrong, I'm just gonna say it's pointless. If the original artist demanded citation, the very idea that FA thinks this new rule will make them cite any more now than they ever did, is the second funniest thing I've read all week. I belly laughed.

(The first funniest thing was when I was talking to someone about RWBY, and how they never actually explain WHY the faun are hated by humans, and they said, "Uh, uh... FURSECUTION!")

No problem... I've always provided credit where credit is due. :3
Also HELLOOOOOOO, NEW CODERS!!! 8D

are submissions posted before this grandfathered?

Ay. This might be a sticking point!

And yes, they should ruddy bloody be grandfathered in, and eventually users add in citations for what they used.

my concern is over backgrounds that came from who knows where, in pics posted years ago so there's be no way to find the source again

What you can do is take a clean picture of the background you have, and then search it in Google to find the old one again.


Atleast, thats what's worked for me for finding backrounds for various desktop pictures.

what, did you actually expect them to think about the implications of their rule? dont fall into the trap of giving them too much credit lol

neat

The mobile layout looks a bit wonky on my LG G4. i'm sure this is a your mileage may vary type of thing. I wonder what devices are these optimized for? Can any iphone and samsung galaxy users confirm this?

Also for a while the dripdown menu didnt work until I used the "request desktop version" on google chrome for android. im guessing this is a work in progress? In the meantime, can we get a link that will let us opt in to use the desktop layout?

It's being tested in an iPhone and Windows Phone 10. As it's still Beta, we're working on trying to identify where errors are and correct them, and making improvements along the way.

And we're working on getting mobile to recognize the mobile/desktop preference and show the page accordingly.

I know it may be better to open up a support ticket, but on my Android phone the dropdown menu doesn't work, so I've had to switch back to classic layout since I'm unable to navigate the site entirely otherwise. I can only guess you guys are working on that, but I don't know if I'm the only one with this issue.

We'll take a look into it and try to troubleshoot why that may be.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 and I'm having the same issues! Just to let you know. <:

Originally, on my iPhone 6, the drop downs did work until I restarted the page manually. If you haven't tried that yet, you might want to~

Yay that fixed it! \o/ thank you!

No problem~

https://www.netmarketshare.com/oper.....mp;qpcustomd=1

JUST for the record. You're testing with 2nd and 3rd place currently as far as mobile OSes and distribution goes. MIIIIGHT want to invest in something Android.

I was thinking the same when I read Neer's comment :o
Everyone I know has android, and two have windows phones because they were given them through work haha :'3