Really?

For me, unless a post actually says “I made this” in some way or other, I assume that they didn’t make it. (Unless it’s the journal of an individual artist. Which actually would account for all the journals I follow with any regularity that have art posted in them. Huh. )

While I do understand where it comes from, I suppose I should also play devils advocate and point out copyright also protects from the making of derivative works. IE: Fanart. Just because the odds of getting sued over it is almost unheard of doesn’t mean it’s strictly against the law – especially if it’s being sold. Do japanese doujin artists over there get permission to draw all the XXX stuff they sell at comiket etc, or are their laws just far more relaxed compared to ours. If they aren’t paying proper respect to the original creators, why are they expecting special treatment?

Remember, devil’s advocate reply here. Yes, I know there’s a difference between drawing something new (Even if it’s of copyrighted characters) and just using an image you found on the web, but when money starts to get involved it actually starts to cross into criminal territory in most countries that use copyright laws.

Still, to me, it seems both common courtesy and common sense to at least attribute the works to their creators if at all possible. This has nothing to do with whether Japanese fans or American fans or fans of any other country are better or worse than each other. If you don’t list a source or even request a source so that it can be properly listed, that to me implies that it is art created by the poster, unless I actually know the source already. Plus, it would help people who like the picture an easier time finding more pictures by the same artist. Which makes it win/win (if a little more work for the blogger) as far as I can see.

Personally, after reading through all this, as well as the website WAH linked to, which is much less antagonistic in its approach, I think it would be better to at least try and respect the artists wishes, instead of deciding to make a war out of it.

With that said, I have a question. How does this relate to saving pictures for ease of viewing offline? Especially since as mentioned before, most image sites are horribly sloppy when it comes to listing the artists? I have lots of pictures saved for convenience sake, most of which I have no source info what so ever. Should I research and tag them myself, even if I’m not going to ever repost them online? What would be the best way to try and do that?

Saving them for your own viewing pleasure is one thing, but using them as if it was their own content is just something else. Or worse, edited without consent in such a way it becomes exploited for the worse.

I’ll have some metabloggery at the usual side blog in response to this.