Hearken to me, my subjects.

OOC

Last week, I posted a journal about the wrongness of art theft, and I broke it down into two categories: stealing artwork of a character by claiming that the artwork is in-fact, your character. And the second category was claiming that you created artwork when it was in-fact, made by someone else.

Last week, I covered the first of the two cases. This week, I want to talk about theft of artwork where one person claims to be the originator of a piece of artwork, when it was created by someone else.

I've seen this many times, and (thankfully, rightly-so) it usually seems to end up punishing the thief. Artists are sort-of the rockstars of the furry community, and when they are wronged, the community tends to come to their defense in spades, such that these things rarely go unpunished. I've seen, for instance, the reputations of several artists destroyed when it came-out that they were tracing.

But there is another kind of art-theft that's harder to get justice-for, and that's selling of someone else's work. I've seen this many times while I've been a member of the furry community. Unfortunately, it often comes from outside of the community, which makes it difficult to police (the shaming / social ostracism of a negative reputation in the community obviously doesn't work if someone is outside of the community). Selling someone else's artwork as Telegram Stickers or Icons, or putting it on T-Shirts (etc), or selling it as in-app merch on platforms like SecondLife and IMVU unfortunately happens more often than people realize.

I've even seen a prominent furry artist impersonated on another platform, where the person then started selling commissions (obviously never fulfilled, and damaging the reputation of the artist) and unauthorized artwork CDs/Albums (when the artwork was free to view online anyway!) And of-course there's paywalled artwork artists might make for sites like hotblush and sexyfur that shouldn't be shared. The artists for these sites are trying to make a living, and their business could be destroyed (and therefore make less of the art you love!) if their artwork is shared outside of their control.

I guess I'm just saying (in a long-winded way), "If you see something, say something". If artists aren't being properly credited, or their art is being used to sell merchandise (electronic or physical) and you suspect that the vendor doesn't have permission: tell the artist. In many cases, copyright action can be taken. In others... well, I'm sure that they would appreciate knowing.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry if its been too preachy and moralizing, but these things really stick in my craw. I hate seeing stuff like this happening to talented people, and I think that we, as a community, have the power to do something about it.

Okay, I'll un-soapbox now.

Cheers!
~ Etheras