...this is dumb.

If you honestly think that copyrights are protecting artists, then you need to reevaluate your observation. All copyrights are being used for now are companies claiming ownership to something and suing the fuck out of anything that tries to improve on it, or use it. It's dumb and strangles innovators.

Actually, It's more of that for a piece of propaganda it's not very persuasive, hence why it can be seen as dumb. Regardless for the intellectual or emotive reasoning behind the concept; it is quite dumb in design and impact.

Ah, now this is more of a comment that I can actually use. I tried to restrict myself to purely black and white, trying to adapt a punk flier sort of a style. Any suggestions?

Use Colour. A similar poster would be this one; http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cPhimJr4u.....%2Benglish.jpg That uses colour to bring out a dramatic effect. It helps liven it up and not make it look purely like a stencil. (Which if there's a patent office somewhere nearby...)

Also if you want it to appear specifically like an Anarchist poster (as opposed to a general Copyleft/Open Culture enthusiast) you can try to incorporate some of the symbolism or re-appropriate a theorist's visage who was critical of copyright or patent laws as they were known more commonly in Benjamin Tucker's time.

For a stronger appeal, include the quote but also try and find something that shows Copyright is far worse than just a waste of time. It stifles ingenuity, creates an intellectual monopoly, fosters capitalism free-loading on people's pursuits (Such as how Scientific research is publicly funded but the results are 'owned' by publishers.)

You could also look at histories and contexts of propaganda to see what works and what doesn't. I'd also recommended https://www.facebook.com/anarchistm.....ts&fref=ts

I restricted myself to black and white to keep in the feeling of 80's punk fliers (like this: http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/mar....._ob-705231.jpg ) Thanks for the suggestions though, I really appreciate it. Its a lot more than what *ahem* some people, even try to contribute.

I was in your position once. -_____- why did I have to get so old.

Well to help keep in theme with that sort of appeal; the flier has a helluva of a lot of different typefaces on it and they aren't aligned neatly either. If you're still looking for advice; I'd suggest going back to the Punk DIY Ethic and making it by hand first . Not only am I sure I have the same typeface, I can tell it's computer reproduced by the detail in the H. Where in the flyer the "N's" in dead kennedy's are quite distinct. (Walkman's didn't come with photoshop back then...)

The graphics also has this eroded stippling effect. So finding a decent tutorial on Pointillism may be up your alley. (I love black ink drawings; I did one myself for class: https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd......51250584_n.jpg Stippling is the dots that help act to denote detail and shading which if you want to go down the route of that rough copy effect it could be close to what you want. )

Also first rule of the internet is that it's filled with vicious bastards that voted Tory.

The original plan was to draw out the text first (similar to the Dead Kennedys logo), but last minute I switched to typed, as the heavily-slashed text clashed with the rather too-simplistic design way too much. As for stippling, thank you so much for telling me what it's called. I always wanted to look at some tutorials for it, but its hard to search for something that you can't name. I've been trying to figure out how to do it myself for ages, but to no avail. Seriously, thank you. Oh, and I kinda rushed this out because I really wanted to stir up some shit.

Well, consider it mission accomplished. Also have a freebie: http://ctrlpaint.com/

If you don't mind a little reading material: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Illu...../dp/2940373507

This is pretty good for helping understand Illustration which can be used for making propaganda, or applied art such as posters but it's kinda zany for an art book. It does have exercises that can be used (subverted and abused too)

I'm proud to say that the internets first intelligent argument was held on FA

no..it's dumb because it's dumb.

design aside (and that too is pretty weak)

the concept of Copyrights "destroying" creativity is a purely ridiculous notion.

I could spend my time explain this till i'm blue in the fingers, but your 17 and you apparently have the entire world figured out. It's a pretty adorable notion but get a few more years in the real world under your belt and then reevaluate you way of thinking.

Have a blessed evening, goodnight.

Ah, the classic "I say I don't care enough so I don't have to present an actual argument and/or reasoning" tactic. I see you're one of the willfully-ignorant types. Obviously, you've never heard of patent trolling, have you? I mean, even Nikola Tesla got screwed over by it several times in history. Saying "it doesn't happen" is complete bullshit. Just look at some of Apple's recent actions. Rather than discredit everything I say because of my age, how about you put some actual thought in your messages? Also, keep your blessings, I don't want them.

Wow sir you broke a new level in stupid. Companies only have the right to own your work if it is stated as such ie face book. Learn to read the legaleese boy.

Haha, what the fuck are you talking about? This isn't about media posted on websites with the websites using said media, this is about companies that sue the shit out of anyone using an idea they claimed.

no your right its SUPER dumb

"no your right its SUPER dumb "
"your"

RIAA, MPAA = bad
JK Rowlins rags to riches through Harry Potter = good

Is paying your bills as an artist too easy that you want to kill all copyright?

The clothing, open source software, comedy, auto, and furniture industry seem to get along fine without it.

Clothing is branded and occasionally uses copyrighted images to sell branding. Otherwise branding or trademarks (similar to copyrights) are usually what sells clothes. People who create open source software are not doing it to really make money - a lot of programming teams do it to improve something they love cause they have a passion for it. Comedy is a bad argument - comedians need to continually come up with new ideas or else they get booed off popular radar so copyrighting is of little use to them (also since most of their gags are verbal or visual). Auto companies don't necessarily use copyrights, but they do have patents on ideas and some models. There are occasionally lawsuits that flair up over patents between car manufacturers. Furniture too can have branding, trade marks, and some patents...........

it's not really that all these different things just coexist without legal backing, you just didn't look deep enough.

Copyrights and patents are supposed to protect an investment - to companies that shall not be named,.... :::::APPLE::::::..... they are more of a way to stiff competition out. The phone providers in America don't really have much competition between them - none of them are really better or totally worse than another and they are all charging pretty much about the same price for service. People don't have much reason to choose one over another unless one of them has the NEWEST GREATEST OMGWTF thing - and some companies have plenty of money from their cult followings to go sue happy and start tossing out things like "this slide thing to unlock is totally copyrighted and patented by us..."

Copyrights, when used properly by artists is a good thing. I know it seems odd being the furry fandom, but not everyone wants to see their favorite mouse humping a certain waskley wabbit... To some artists that might be considered a huge slap in the face and a nightmare to contain for PR purposes. It also protects artists from having their intellectual property used by someone or something else to make a profit (artists basically need all the money and followers they can get). I know I would be upset if someone used an image of mine to sell something that I get no profit of.

Anyway, I'm not going to propose to the argument that you are too young to understand these things, but I will say (just as I would to an adult) do some more research first. If the world were cake and pie and there was no need of money by anyone, I would overjoyed to share inspiration and work with others freely for everyone's uses. But the world isn't like that. You should research about how and WHY copyrights and patents came to be and even in the early days the problems with them.

-Purn

Copyrights only brings about a legal battle to slow the other person down as much as possible, rather than just having the best and cheapest product available. When it comes to artists, I think someone should be able to draw and distribute whatever they please, regardless of the subject or topic, even if it is offensive to some people, as I see it as freedom of expression. Selling someone else's art as you're own however, is still something I don't agree with. While copyrights do cover that main issue, it does far more collateral damage than its worth. I'm not proposing that artists shouldn't get a cut from their own work, I'm just saying that copyrights are an absolutely terrible way to handle the issue. Copyrights as they were initially intended would work great in a perfect world, but its quite obvious that this isn't the case. In a capitalist society, people generally care much more about getting a slice of profit rather than advancing collectively. Because of this, companies will use any legal leverage they can to stop others from using their ideas, which is a very bad thing. It doesn't matter how great of an idea you have, if people cant use it, its worthless.

"Copyrights only brings about a legal battle to slow the other person down as much as possible, rather than just having the best and cheapest product available."

- this point has nothing to do with copyrights - that's economics. UNLESS, you preferred that you copyrights don't matter; Let's say for a moment you are a writer. You've spent years of your life dedicated to writing, editing, and refining a novel. It's a good sized story that is really desirable to readers. You finally wanted to get it published and want to sell it for $50 cause you believe your work is worth it. Would you be happy if someone else stole your book word for word and started to sell it for $15? You'd be outraged! That person deserves not a penny in sales for your years of work, but without copyrights I guess that would be okay.

"When it comes to artists, I think someone should be able to draw and distribute whatever they please, regardless of the subject or topic, even if it is offensive to some people, as I see it as freedom of expression. Selling someone else's art as you're own however, is still something I don't agree with."

-Freedom of expression and doing whatever I feel like are two different things. I'm not saying just offensive art should be disregarded either. There are times and places for fanart and usually fanart or gift are is welcome between artists. Blatantly taking someone characters or intellectual property and using it for personal fame or as slander is not okay though. You want to be able to use every ones ideas (and characters and intellectual property, even artwork[art comes in many forms]), but you'd be unhappy if your artist property was used for gain? Those are two conflicting arguments.

"While copyrights do cover that main issue, it does far more collateral damage than its worth. I'm not proposing that artists shouldn't get a cut from their own work, I'm just saying that copyrights are an absolutely terrible way to handle the issue. Copyrights as they were initially intended would work great in a perfect world, but its quite obvious that this isn't the case."

-No, the world isn't perfect. But occasionally there are times when copyrights work well for the artists involved. They aren't a terrible way of keeping creative art from being used unjustly. You just normally hear about large companies throwing money at a situation to slow things down, but that really has more to do with economics again and how we are verging back into a monopoly system.

"In a capitalist society, people generally care much more about getting a slice of profit rather than advancing collectively."

- Of course people want money, cause once you get out on your own your entire life will be about being in debt to someone else. There are dues that have to be paid to get by, and we haven't found a Utopian society that doesn't want money in exchange for goods and services. There are people and organizations like in your earlier comment who work on things with Open source. Open source still has copyrights in place on certain parts of their software and development, to prevent people from stealing the core of the systems they have built. But they distribute their ideas around and let people tweak with them and advance them together. But the copyrights are in place so a person tweaking with the main dev can't take the tweaked version and sell all of it in entirely as their own.

"Because of this, companies will use any legal leverage they can to stop others from using their ideas, which is a very bad thing."

-This isn't a bad thing at all. Again, would you want someone else taking your idea and leaving you penniless for all your years of hard work? If I owned a company that sells a super awesome invention that I developed on my own, over years of time, and I work to support and advertise and manufacture - I would be pretty pissed if someone took my invention exactly as it is and start selling leaving me in the cold. I would totally pay someone to legally go after them and get them to stop.

"It doesn't matter how great of an idea you have, if people cant use it, its worthless."

-you..... you really don't get this do you? Copyrights don't prevent people from using your idea so much as prevents them from stealing your work. Also, it's not worthless to the person selling the idea - it only seems worthless to you since you don't have legal rights to copy it exactly.

When you get out into the real world and start working you will probably understand more. Also, take a class on business management and entrepreneurial business and you might see the importance of copyrights and laws that protect certain investments.

-Purn

"That person deserves not a penny in sales for your years of work, but without copyrights I guess that would be okay."
"Again, would you want someone else taking your idea and leaving you penniless for all your years of hard work? If I owned a company that sells a super awesome invention that I developed on my own, over years of time, and I work to support and advertise and manufacture - I would be pretty pissed if someone took my invention exactly as it is and start selling leaving me in the cold. I would totally pay someone to legally go after them and get them to stop."
"But the copyrights are in place so a person tweaking with the main dev can't take the tweaked version and sell all of it in entirely as their own."

-I'll state this again: I understand why copyrights are in place, and I do think that claiming ownership to someone else's idea should be legal. I am merely saying that copyrights are a bad way of handling the issue. The problem does exist, and it does need to be dealt with, but there are more ways to handle it then just copyrights.


"Freedom of expression and doing whatever I feel like are two different things. I'm not saying just offensive art should be disregarded either. There are times and places for fanart and usually fanart or gift are is welcome between artists. Blatantly taking someone characters or intellectual property and using it for personal fame or as slander is not okay though."

- Why isn't it okay? I may not agree with it morally, but legally I think it should be fine. Morality and law are two different concepts and should be treated as such. People have the right to be assholes if they want as long so long they aren't infringing on other's rights. People have freedom of expression, and I don't think that putting it on physical medium should suddenly make it illegal.


"This isn't a bad thing at all."

-Restricting use of an idea for personal gain is indeed, bad. No one would want to use a new technology if they could be sued out the ass for doing it, essentially creating a monopoly. I would once again like to remind you that I do agree that claiming/selling someone else's idea as you're own is bad, but not allowing people to utilize the idea is also bad.

ownership to someone else's idea should be illegal*

as vosyl said, this just gives me the notion you're a sort of immature tryhard who doesn't actually seem to understand the full impact of copyright and how it protects us as well as hinders us, the fact you're just spitting quotes doesn't necessarily help either.

Copyrights do protect artists from big businesses occasionally, but the system is so ridiculously broken that it is often used as a weapon against competition. There is no repairing this system; an entire rethinking of protecting artists is needed.

well it;s a concept that's been used for ages and it's the thing that gets the job done, and so many people endorse it that it's unrealistic to think it could be fixed through propaganda and things people have said alone. Noone's gonna take action against it, and these days it's not as big a deal as say the economy faultering is :V but as propaganda, something as simplistic as this doesn't really get the message to me, and instead (like i said) gives me the notion the person who made it is immature. Sometimes more colors, more words, and even more edgy visuals can draw in more attention.

like, think of colors that pop, colors that strike you as alarming or demand attention, red's a good example but that's used pretty frequently in this way too. as well more visuals in design can drag in a person's interest, aesthetically appealing things will probably catch somes eyes just so long as it follows the rule of bold and demanding colors too.

I'm not sure what else I can offer as advice for this sort of thing though, I've never even tried to dabble in graphic design but from what I know this is what I can offer

Well yeah, propaganda wont fix everything. Its supposed to rile people up. I also wanted to keep it as simple as possible to give it an 80's punk flier feel similar to this: http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/mar....._ob-705231.jpg As for colors, I would have typically used red and black (traditional colors for anarchist communism), but once again, I wanted to restrict it to purely black and white.

The system is broken man, the big CORPORATIONS are in TOTAL CONTROL guy. I think you need some EDUCATION on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks4bD2RL3dM

Because if I have radical views then I must be a typical dumb hippie stoner high-school drop out. Fuck off.

you said it, not him

soccerskyman i think you might need to exercise your use of the hide comment button

Censorship is silly.

not if people are being an ass to you
there's a different between a mosaic'd dick and erasing general douchebaggery that didn't need to be displayed

Disagreeing with someone isn't being an asshole to that person. He's saying that copyrights shouldn't exist on a site full of artists - he is of course going to have people telling him that his view is backwards.

"this is dumb"
"immature tryhard"

ok

So some of the people on here could use a bit more elaborate language to express their unappreciative views, but this is the internet. There will always be people who will blurt out , "this is dumb." And if you're going to provoke it you should have a thick skin...

he provoked no one, people are voluntarily targeting him because of his views.

these comments, the little convos that have taken place here, they all SCREAM "your opinion is wrong".


jesus dick

He's provoking a discussion on copyrights by stating that he strongly feels that "copyrights are poison killing art", but he hasn't made any good argument for his position. I do agree that copyrights need to be tweaked, but they aren't poisoning or killing art at all. His views are naive and under developed on the subject. He hasn't given me any other reasons as to why he feels the way he does - he just keeps on repeating the same thing over and over without supporting his view with any grounds as to why his argument is a good one.

Copyrights help a lot of artists and this is an art site - there are of course going to be a BOAT LOAD of people stopping by to see, "I wonder if he has a good reason for feeling the way he does about Copyrights." or "what has heard that I haven't yet?" but really he's just being boring about it and not giving any reasons other than it's cramping his style essentially and that he thinks people should be able to do what they want willy nilly with any bodies things.....

Also, I hope you aren't calling me a "jesus dick", cause that is probably the most awkward thing I've heard someone say before o_O;

i honestly don't want to try and argue with you, i absolutely hate e-fights.
but i didn't call you "jesus dick", it's an expletive phrase equivalent of "oh my god".

I'm not trying to pick an e-fight.... I would classify spamming "FUCK YOUR MOMS BLUE JEANS FUCK YOU EAT BABIES" sort of crap more of an e-fight. I'm just having a conversation with people.

I also must be getting old cause that phrase was totally lost on me X3

How would you protect an idea legally without the legal backing for it???? Copyrights make stealing of an idea illegal. Also slander isn't just a moral thing it can seriously damage someone's reputation and take away their bread and butter - dollars and cents. That's why certain things should be copyrighted to make sure that the use of suck idea/image is done only with the artists intentions backing it.

Disney is a terrible example, but they have always promoted the family friendly image. They definitely don't want to see their character, beloved by children and adults alike, pegging one another in orgy scenes because that sends the wrong message to protective parents. They stop going to the parks, stop buying the movies and merchandise and Disney looses money. Then Disney gets pissed and comes after the son o'bitch and hands them a nice cease and desist order. ( it has happened to some furs in the fandom)

Technology is less of a big deal when it comes to copyrights cause technically copyrights don't protect methods of operation or systems, but they protect the way those things can be expressed. Patents generally are geared more towards physical technology - like a cellphones design.

This is why apple hasn't always done too well in their pissing matches over things like slide locking function on their phones or search functions.....

So, while I know your intentions are good at trying to break down the walls of legality and open a world of free thinking and innovation, there just are too many reasons to keep copyrights and patents and trademarks even. Do the rules for them need tweaking - yes probably, but that does happen. Generally that happens when the courts decide or make rulings on certain cases as they are brought up.

-Purn

"How would you protect an idea legally without the legal backing for it?"

-Well for one, taking legality out of it would take away the offenders main weapon: legal authority. There's no need for a legal shield if legal attacks aren't being used. As the comedy and fashion industry have shown, social reinforcement is a significantly strong shield.


"Copyrights make stealing of an idea illegal."

-This is just an irrelevant technicality, but it isn't stealing as the original owner isn't being deprived of the idea.


"Also slander isn't just a moral thing it can seriously damage someone's reputation and take away their bread and butter - dollars and cents."

-That's kinda the point. If a person is doing something that can be found disagreeable, then people have the right to call him out on it.

In the end, it all comes down to weather or not you think its justifiable to forcibly limit communication based on the possibility of being used for bad.

The Comedy and Fashion industry have their ideas stolen all the time - there is no "social reinforcement" for not trying to steal someones ideas there. http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/natura.....-eco-designers
People took others designs for their fashion and used it on Forever 21 stuff - Forever 21 gets the money and the original designers got pissed cause their ideas were being sold by someone else.

You said, "ownership to someone else's idea should be illegal* " I said, "Copyrights make stealing of an idea illegal." It's not irrelevant - it's the process by which you make stealing of someones idea illegal - copyrights have a place and are needed. People aren't just going to be nice and ask if they can use your stuff whenever they feel like it. More people are driven to get away with things if they can - there is an old saying that goes like, it's easier to ask forgiveness than for permission. People will just do stuff if they can get away with it and hope they don't get into too much trouble when caught.

Noun
slander (plural slanders)
a false, malicious statement (spoken or published), especially one which is injurious to a person's reputation; the making of such a statement


Slander isn't something that someone necessarily is doing wrong that someone else is pointing out - like Disney in my example. There was a fur artist (who I mentioned received the cease and desist order from them.) who was SLANDERING Disney by drawing their copyrighted characters in yiff art. That was slander because he was throwing his own perverted views on their characters out there for all to see while Disney has always tried to be family friendly and certainly not XXX rated. He was served with a cease and desist because of slander. The copyright holders did call him out on it - with all their legal backing.

Also, we aren't limiting communication in anyway by having copyrights - if someone has already published the idea why would it need to be redundantly published word for word? Why would I want to search through 1,000 of the same exact picture? Copyrights, if anything, force others to be more creative by challenging artist to think outside of the box of what has already been created.

"The Comedy and Fashion industry have their ideas stolen all the time - there is no "social reinforcement" for not trying to steal someones ideas there. http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/natura.....-eco-designers
People took others designs for their fashion and used it on Forever 21 stuff - Forever 21 gets the money and the original designers got pissed cause their ideas were being sold by someone else. "

"Otherwise branding or trademarks (similar to copyrights) are usually what sells clothes. People who create open source software are not doing it to really make money - a lot of programming teams do it to improve something they love cause they have a passion for it. Comedy is a bad argument - comedians need to continually come up with new ideas or else they get booed off popular radar so copyrighting is of little use to them (also since most of their gags are verbal or visual)."


"Slander isn't something that someone necessarily is doing wrong that someone else is pointing out - like Disney in my example. There was a fur artist (who I mentioned received the cease and desist order from them.) who was SLANDERING Disney by drawing their copyrighted characters in yiff art. That was slander because he was throwing his own perverted views on their characters out there for all to see while Disney has always tried to be family friendly and certainly not XXX rated. He was served with a cease and desist because of slander. The copyright holders did call him out on it - with all their legal backing."

-Why is Disney suddenly unable to defend themselves by saying "That's not our work, neither is it our message. We are a family friendly company... (etc)"? Once again, social reinforcement is a think.


"Also, we aren't limiting communication in anyway by having copyrights - if someone has already published the idea why would it need to be redundantly published word for word? Why would I want to search through 1,000 of the same exact picture? Copyrights, if anything, force others to be more creative by challenging artist to think outside of the box of what has already been created. "

-Except it really is restricting communication. People don't have to copy everything 100% to be attacked by copyright holders. Just because someone made something that looks/sounds/reads similar to, or builds off of another persons idea is not a good reason for legal attacks. By forcing others to "think out side the box", you are also forcing them to not use ideas that already work.

And on another note, this worked out great. The intention of this art piece was to get a good healthy discussion going: Mission accomplished.

Copyright laws are needed for plagiarism purposes, but much like everything these days, it's too extreme now. Music gets taken off the internet, you can't sing certain songs and put them on youtube, you can't use parts of songs in a youtube videos, If you do report in school and if you research something and write things down a little too word for word, you get suspended. If you forget to site a website, you fail the project. It's getting ridiculous. But like I said, copyright is needed to a certain extent.

The only thing I don't really understand is how are certain artists supposed to protect their work and such without copyrights? It'd be cool if you could catch someone reproducing your work and be like "hey, stop doing that" but they wouldn't actually listen. By bringing legalities into it, they might be a little more willing to stop stealing the work.

I know I won't change your views, that much is obvious, and you not being an artist yourself is partially why you may not understand where some of us are coming from, but it's just a thought.

I dislike copyright and censorship laws and such, but if someone is going to take for instance my comic book idea and make money off of it themselves, I'd want something saying they can get in trouble for doing that.

Indeed. Most of the great pieces from the Renaissance were created by people actively spring-boarding off each other.