Our Apologies: Recent copyright issues!

Hey fellow furs, and furry artists!



As many of you heard, there has been an issue with a particular moderation decision. A user posted modified versions of commissions. Our moderator told the artist that he can't ask for the modified artwork to be taken down. Our mods called the artist "butthurt". When I woke up I saw a mushroom cloud from my window.



First off all: We fucked up. We're a team of volunteers strewn across the globe, so a good number of our team was unavailable at that time. But regardless, the end result was the same, and the harsh language from our side simply wasn't neccessary. On top of that our decision was wrong.



Of course a commissioner can usually repost a commission he paid for (unless the artist made him agree to other terms beforehand) - that's what everyone does in the fandom on all the sites out there. It's called joint copyright under US law.



of course a commissioner cannot modify finished artwork and then post the edited version up everywhere, without permission from the artist. That is simply not covered by joint copyright. It's rude.



That's the legal side of things. On top of that, SoFurry is not here for our own amusement and power trips. SoFurry is made and run FOR YOU. For artists, writers and musicians, for furries, for furry-curious people. So with everything we do, we must take into consideration the person who we're doing this for, and that person is you.



It's now early morning for some of the mod team, and even EARLIER morning for others ;) but in light of all this let me just say that we're working on this. Please accept my apologies for the messy situation and everything bad that has been said. We're looking into our staff organization as well, though needless to say we did fail as a team and the point this post is not to put all the blame on individual mods.



Once again, please accept my sincere apologies for that mess. We're not closing any threads or journals about this by the way (unless things get personally insulting, mind you) so please do feel free to discuss this. We're always open for suggestions. You can also PM me if you want, though chat is probably easier. I'll be on the SF chat later today as well.





Toumal



