Well, despite my best efforts to accommodate people’s wants and to respect artists’ work, there are still a select few who give me (give us) grief over foolish things like copyright infringement. I’d like to address that for a second, to whom it may concern.

Before I delve into it, the above picture is a screen-shot from my former DeviantArt account. I’d talked with this guy many times; he’s a very intelligent and well-informed individual, and at one point he was browsing my old art and left this comment for me. I told him that I’d begun to put my signatures on most images, along with watermarks, but I wasn’t bothering with marking the crappy images (someone would have to stoop to new lows to claim ownership of the shitty sketches I make). The nuts and bolts being I’m not the only one who is making this point. People who know how the internet works know that it is up to the individual artist to mark their own art. One of the first things you’ll be asked if you decided to make a legal case out of it all is, “Did you mark the image in any way so it could be traced directly back to you, and did you mark it in a distinct way that proves you’re the owner?” (Another would be whether you paid for an official copyright for your image or not.)

(I blotched out the examples ‘cause they had my name on it… Here’re the revised examples:

©USERNAME 2010, 2011

© USERNAME 2011

USERNAME©2013

USERNAME 2011©

2011 © USERNAME

Replace “Username” with your username, obviously. Or, preferably, your real name.)

Most of these explanations are in this blog’s FAQ, so I’ll try to not be repetitive. What I will say, though, is that this isn’t a commercial blog. It’s a casual web portal where we collect all the helpful art tools and references for people to better their art. We’ve never once laid claim to any of it. People say it’s our job to source. Tumblr says it’s our job to source. A dire, dire mistake Tumblr makes, however, is that they don’t differentiate commercial blogs from casual ones (a very big legal lapse in their rules and regulations). People, on casual websites, post whatever they want whenever they want, with whatever tags or alterations or claims they wish. Though I don’t want to associate ourselves with such a vague and potentially harmful category, we are casual. We do not publicize or benefit financially or socially from this in any way. We’re just chillin’ on a blog, helping friends out with art. We’ve sold nothing. We’ve published nothing. We’ve been paid zilch. And that makes a huge difference in our terms of responsibility with sourcing. Do you source every image you send in an email to a friend? Do you put the website at the bottom of the images you print out to decorate your locker? You sure as hell don’t. Would you do it for a magazine or newspaper or book? Hell yeah. People are financed for such things. People make money, get publicity, and climb the career ladder for such things. People benefit from that. But here? When we’re just some college dudes giving unofficial art advice to some struggling artists who draw for a hobby? Any jury would not agree with you that we’re the bad guys, here.

Something I will reiterate is that it is your responsibility to mark your own art when you publish it on the internet (I’m no exception with my own art). If you don’t understand that people will save your art to their computer, upload it to different sites, claim ownership of it, and/or even sell it with or without your permission and without knowing it was you who originally made that image, you are being very, very, very ignorant. You’re supposed to be paranoid on the internet, because anything can happen. It is forever YOUR responsibility to mark your image. Websites that say an image is copyrighted to you simply because you upload it there (like DeviantArt, for example) sure as hell don’t cover the big picture. Now, DA also gives you a watermarking option (or, at least did when I was on there), which does solve most of the problem, and is awesome. I always used that option. But if you don’t check off that option and your art is just sitting there visually unsourced, YOU are not taking the necessary precautions to protect your property. That responsibility falls on YOU, and you don’t get to blame me or anyone else for it. (That, of course, changes if someone is claiming they made your image and/or are trying to sell it [which, again, we are not doing], but you’re also at fault for making it harder to prove that that image was yours to begin with.) You will never convince a jury that a blog like this is in the wrong.

Not only that, but, in the FAQ, I’ve explained why this blog is legally safe for posting anything. If you want the big PDF that explains everything, here you go (they keyword to look for is “Intermediaries”, 'cause this blog is a web-portal and is therefore classified under Intermediaries… also look out for the term “Safe-Harbors”):

http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/copyright/en/doc/role_and_responsibility_of_the_internet_intermediaries_final.pdf

Please note that the PDF addresses worst case scenarios and hardly applies to this blog in terms of “severe cases of infringement”. Particularly since I always (genuinely) tell you all that I’m more than willing to credit you or take your art down if you simply ask me to.

Something people rarely consider is that I have every single image that’s on this blog already saved to my computer (obviously; that’s where I upload 'em from). So, I didn’t create this blog for myself; I made it to help you guys get better with anatomy (just like virtually each artist who made the original images). If this blog, for whatever reason, gets deleted, it doesn’t affect me in any way whatsoever. All of these images, plus many, many more, are well-organized in my computer files for me to access and utilize 'em whenever I feel like it. It does, however, hurt everyone else, and yourself, immeasurably. Sure, you may have saved many (if not every) image on here. But, even then, there are many who rely on this blog as a resource. Not only do you get new references every week, you have a way to search them up via tags. Not only that, but me and the Intern Admin are here to help you find what you’re looking for, on occasion. It’s insanely convenient. That’s the point of this blog; convenience. We can totally find whatever we’re searching for whenever we like, but we’re choosing to help you all out as well, 'cause we want people to learn and feel confident with themselves and their art (your art). We lose nothing if the blog gets deleted. You are the only ones who will get hurt from it.

_________________________

On another note, if anyone wants help with copyrighting or wants information on it, I’m more than happy to help (or even make a reference for it). I’m good friends with a few lawyers (some who have been practicing for over 20 years) and even a judge, so I have good resources to pick at. Plus, I know the laws pretty well (I study some law; for hobby, and for even protecting my own art and creations). I implore that you always mark your art in a prominent way that you know won’t be removed. Signatures, websites, watermarks, even cropping or taking a photo while blocking part of the image with your hand or something.