This is bit of an inquiry.
This situation has been brought up on another site, and I decided to bring it up here, as it has been apparently ongoing for a few years. I am not sure if artists are aware that their work is being resold or the complete legal issues involving this case.
A user is selling wanted posers and gaming cards featuring the work of artists, 6 and 10 dollars respectively. Several of the commissions featuring art drawn by the commissioners themselves (so no legal issues), but I notice a handful of pieces featuring art not by the commissioners, but previous commissions from other artists.
Initially the user in question was not giving the artists in question full credit, and has started typing in the description who originally did the picture, which begs the question has she asked the artists?
Examples (SOME ARE NSFW)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4074991 (Original artist Dark Natasha) She has deleted this entry, however, her commissioner reuploaded it: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4075086 and here the journal specifying he did in fact buy it: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1511654/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4075159 (Original artist Pandor Aalkima)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4074476
Card example: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1198257/ Original artist and piece: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/838678/
I'm willing to dig up more examples.
Questions:
Is this legal?
Is the commissioner allowed to "rebuy" a piece in the form of a card/poster?
Are the artists aware? Have they been asked?
EDIT: I would advise NOT doing business with this woman, here's her unproffessional response:
UM wow: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1514014 She has deleted this journal: here is the screenshot.
She is still going to do her wanted posters. Anyone who warned her about selling other peoples' art is a "troll".
EDIT 2: She has deleted all wanted posters featuring art of other users. There is no mention if she refunded back the commissioners in her journals, or asked the original artists if she could the artpieces. Her attitude however remains very poor:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1515227/
- Current Mood:confused
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Comments
Now, maybe if they provided the templates without the art and allowed the commissioner to put the art on it at will that may be different. I realize that seems confusing, even trivial, but at that point it's clear that the services paid is for the template exclusively and not for the art as well.
There are even greater issues with the cards, because she is using the Yu-Gi-Oh card base. If it were just an edit with no money attached, the legality would be ambiguous. However, once you start charging people for these edits, things can get really messy. The companies that own Yu-Gi-Oh could have a legitimate claim for damages, moreso than the artists.
All in all they really should drop this 'service' of theirs.
But technically speaking I would say that doing something like that is a no-no. :[...Someone else is making money by using someone elses hard work...It'd be a diff story if they drew a new image to wack on a yu-gi-oh card base.
I want to caution that it needs to stay along those lines. I know there has already been a bit of drama surrounding this so lets keep it to the rules.
I think both the Wanted Poster and the card are things on the net that you can use to generate....well Wanted Posters and cards.
I do think that using (or rather reusing the artwork) even with credit is not quite cricket but it is not illegal all over the world but it is in a majority of countries. I think part of the problem is getting the customer to understand exactly what they are buying.
I also think that the people who created the code that is being profited from should get a cut of everyone that is making a profit.
For me personally, I would not do something like this for money. I might do it for friends for fun.
Really? She's trying to copyright such a common idea?
Such as:
http://www.glassgiant.com/wanted/
http://www.tuxpi.com/photo-effects/wanted-poster
What she is doing here is basically selling someone's commissioned art back to them because there's no way the crappy templates she made are actually worth paying for. Her edits are horrible, and if the permission of the original artist was not sought before these were made it was pretty bad behaviour both on her part and on the commissioner.
It'd be different if she was doing it for free I guess. Her profiting from this is what disturbs me most.
Also...$6 for a tacky photoshop edit? Jesus.
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1515227/
I wish I had been watching her more closely she she started posting these things. This whole thing could have been avoided if a friend told her what she was doing was illegal. She is a friend of mine. I feel that she just doesn't have the same understanding of copyright law as we do.
In all honesty, I believe she isn't really the kind of woman who is capable of doing the wrong thing knowingly. In the past she's always taken immediate action to fix her mistakes, and this rings true to this exact situation. This tells me that she will do the right thing when someone gives her advice that she can trust.
She has gotten quite a few trolls after some relationship trouble with her ex, and given some of the past 'advice' she has gotten from trolls I really can't blame her for questioning the sincerity of every comment she gets trying to encourage her to delete something in her gallery. When you've been through a hard breakup recently even the most innocent comments can seem like a personal attack.
I'll send her a message about her old card commissions and explain things to her so that she understands.
However, there really isn't very much evidence to say that "lol @ Trolls" was directed towards the OP's message. It could just be that someone was actually just trolling her at the time. ;)
She did have a journal saying something along the lines of:
- all commissioners NEED permission from the origonal artist beforehand- (which is perfectly legal)
but it would seem that after this AB entry was posted that she has changed it to:
- all commissioners need to BE the original artist- (which doesn't seem necessary imo)