#I just so happened to find the art on pixiv by clicking on a log that drew me in and was like ‘OH!??’

[tariah23]

It took me like an hour to find this one piece of fanart that caught my eye uhh. I really do wish that reposters actually sourced shit if they’re just gonna repost other people’s work without their permission anyway.

[parisiansulfur]

How Not To Commit Art Theft

Because this is tumblr and people can’t read, I’m gonna start this entire post by saying this:

I DO NOT BELIEVE PEOPLE WHO COMMIT ART THEFT IN 2K18 ARE DOING SO MALICIOUSLY. I SINCERELY BELIEVE PEOPLE SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG, AND THAT NO ONE IS DOING THESE THINGS TO BE AN JERK OR BECAUSE THEY WANNA STEAL. 

Good? 

Read that again.

Alright, let’s move on.

So, art theft. People get accused of art theft a lot, especially now, especially on tumblr, especially in relationship to anime and manga fandom. Let’s talk about what is and what is not art theft.

In the past, art theft (especially on DeviantArt) was a thing where Person A would post an image, and Person B would trace it or color over it or do some other sort of manipulation to it (or not! people are crazy), then post it as original art. Someone would accuse Person B of art theft, Person B would argue that they changed the art significantly enough that it wasn’t theft (or not, who knows), and then there would be Drama.

This isn’t at all what I’m talking about.

Art theft in 2k18 is different than in 1998.

Art theft in 2k18 looks like this:

I’m using this as an example, and while I realize this looks like a callout post, it’s not meant to be a callout. But I need some sort of indication to show. No falsified example is going to show exactly what the problem is as clearly and precisely as something that is exactly the problem. (To point, I have tried, through multiple channels, to get in touch with the person from this blog, to no avail. So on we go.)

Let’s call this a teachable moment. Let’s call this a chance to be better. Let’s call this an example in a fandom that is, frankly, fraught with this kind of stuff. 

Let’s call this an explanation of why art theft is so prevalent and common that it can be hard to recognize.

Moving on.

“How is this Art Theft?” you demand.

Well, chitlins, gather round.

Here’s the source of the screenshot above:

http://grimtwin.tumblr.com/post/177119081910/summer-twins

Let’s look at this image. This is an image, posted on a blog that is not owned by the artist. The blue text underneath is a text, which leads here: 

https://twitter.com/yuyu_hamu86/status/1021016848622481409

If you click on that, you can go to the artist’s twitter page, with the image: 

So how is posting a picture on tumblr art theft? 

First, let’s talk about what was done.

The person who posted this on tumblr went onto this twitter page, downloaded/saved the image, then went back to Tumblr, uploaded it, posted a link with the translated name beneath (the artist’s name is NOT in the link), added some tags (including the artist’s twitter handle as a tag), and posted it.

Now, let’s talk about what this means. As of this posting, the tumblr post has 1310 notes. The artist’s post, on twitter (this particular artist also has a pixiv account, but this image was not posted there) has 563 retweets, and 1643 likes, for a combined total notes of 2206 notes. 

The tumblr page has 1310 notes that the actual artist will never see.

“So what?” you might say. “It’s exposure, and there’s a link to their twitter. What’s the problem?” 

Well, for starters, don’t just decide for someone else what they want and don’t want. Artists who want their art shared are pretty vocal about it, but for the most part, most artists clearly state: Do not reupload onto other sites. Most image sharing sites like Pixiv (a closed service, meaning you need to have an account, agree to the Terms of Service, and be logged in to view images) clearly have it in said Terms of Service to not do exactly what was done above, to the point that Pixiv has it as the second point in a highlighted section at the very top of their Terms of Service that you must not repost an artist’s work without permission:

So even if you willfully ignore both the will of the hosting site and the requests of the artist, even if the art is posted somewhere without a terms of service, and even if the artist doesn’t explicitly say 'please don’t reupload my art elsewhere,’ the best policy is to move in respect for the artists, and understand that if they wanted their art on other sites, they would post them there themselves.

And also, since you really should want to ask permission in the spirit of like, you know, the kind of consent we’re always going on about on this site, you can always ask the artist.

Here’s a really great breakdown on why asking the artist matters.

Please also understand that fandom is not monolith. Just because YOU don’t mind exposure doesn’t mean someone else feels the same way. Just because your friends don’t mind exposure doesn’t mean someone else feels the same way.

Anecdotal: I had a eastern-fandom friend whose family found out she drew BL doujinshi semi-professionally. She was outed, and she was kicked out of her house, lost support from her family and close friends, and basically had her life ruined for a good chunk of years because of it. There are still consequences to this, despite it having happened some fifteen years ago.

Anecdotal: I have several fandom friends have their work shared onto sites like Facebook and Tumblr, where they’re found by people they work with/family, to the point that they’ve left fandom altogether because the risks were too great.

“But Paris, the person above put a source, a link to the twitter where they found the art!!! You’re just splitting hairs!” you say. “The artist is still getting credit! Don’t be a bully!”

Nah, boo. I’m not being a bully. I’m trying to educate you, darling.

What you have to keep in mind is that even by putting a source, you’re still committing art theft, because you are taking away the ability to choose where an artist puts their art.

“But Paris, like, what about unsourced art in like museums?! Are you saying we shouldn’t put anything in museums if we don’t have the artist’s permission?” 

Listen, I can’t believe I’m honoring this absolute garbage with a response, but you and I both know there’s a huge difference between a piece of art from a lost artist, and an artist publicly asking for their art to remain under their control, and people deciding to ignore them.

“But Paris, you big old jerk,” you ask, "how can I have pretty things on my tumblr if I don’t just download art and post it?”

Well, one of two ways:

1) You can contact the artist and ask permission to post. Here’s some cute templates for how to do so. If you don’t like these, there are others, or, you know, you can use Google Translate. It’s not hard, and even if it was hard, that’s not an excuse. You can even reach out to people like me or other multilingual people to help you if you aren’t comfortable trying to contact them in English.

"But what if the artist says no because they’re a giant meanie who doesn’t want free exposure?"

2) The second way you can keep your blog full of pretty shiny things is by linking to the image properly. On tumblr, when you link to things, an image shows up. For example, if I copy the above twitter link and post it as a twitter link here in tumblr, I get the following:

This allows the very cute art to appear on my blog, without having to going out of my way. Anyone who clicks on it will go directly to the twitter page, and it includes the artist’s name as the primary part of the caption.

If the link is from pixiv, it looks like this:

(Please notice how Pixiv has been so fraught with art theft that at this point, they have an automatic filter that appears on the art itself, with a hard link to the image and the artist on the bottom right. This is because art theft is a huge problem.)

We have an obligation to the artists who enrich our fandom lives with their beautiful, beautiful porn art, to treat their works with respect. We can respect the wishes of the artists for the totally selfish reason of wanting to encourage them to make more art, but it should be enough to say we don’t want to be assholes. I mean, it’s simple niceness, people. I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

If someone says, “Please don’t repost my art,” don’t repost their art. If a site says, “Please don’t repost the art found here,” don’t repost the art. Simple mathematics, kids.

“But Paaaaaaaaris!” you wail. “What am I supposed to do when I come upon stolen art on my feed? I wanna reblob it! :C And since I’m not the one who posted it originally, it’s totally okay to just reblob it, right? :D Right?”

Well, darling, you have a choice. You can just hit that big ol’ reblog button and continue to perpetuate the same issues I’ve rather clearly delineated above. OR YOU CAN FOLLOW THE GUIDE ABOVE AND MAKE A NEW POST. For example, let’s say I really like the “Summer Twins” image above. I could just hit reblog and move on with my life, who cares, la-dee-da, or I could go to the source, and post a link from there. 

The choice is yours, fandom. It’s all about the kind of world you want to surround yourself with. If you want to be a person who treats others with respect, you shouldn’t repost or post stolen art. If you want to be a person who is a credit to the fandom, follow the guides above, educate yourself, and make changes to the way you interact with content.

IN CONCLUSION, I WILL RESTATE MY THESIS: NO ONE WHO IS COMMITTING ART THEFT IN THIS WAY IS DOING SO TO BE A JERK. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG. BUT KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, AND WE SHOULD ALL STRIVE TO KNOW BETTER.

DON’T STEAL ART.

DON’T REPOST STOLEN ART.

More reading, because I know y’all love to read:

http://raspomme.tumblr.com/post/68028153710 http://raspomme.tumblr.com/post/69226532697 http://chocoleeto.tumblr.com/reposts

And sources that can help you find out where that stolen art is from:

https://saucenao.com/ https://www.tineye.com/

Thanks, and my inbox is open, and ready for hate. 😘

[hydrus]

Version 312

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I had an ok week. I mostly worked on smaller downloader jobs and tag import options.

tag import options

Tag import options now has more controls. There is a new 'cog' icon that lets you determine if tags should be applied--much like file import options's recent 'presentation' checkboxes--to 'new files', 'already in inbox', and 'already in archive', and there is an entry to only add tags that already exist (i.e. have non-zero count) on the service.

Sibling and parent filtering is also more robust, being applied before and after tag import options does its filtering. And the 'all namespaces' compromise solution used by the old defaults in file->options and network->manage default tag import options is now automatically replaced with the newer 'get all tags'.

Due to the sibling and parent changes, if you have a subscription to Rule34Hentai or another site that only has 'unnamespaced' tags, please make sure you edit its tag import options and change it to 'get all tags', as any unnamespaced tags that now get sibling-collapsed to 'creator' or 'series' pre-filtering will otherwise be discarded. Due to the more complicated download system taking over, 'get all tags' is the new option to go for if you just want everything, and I recommend it for everyone.

For those who do just want a subset of available tags, I will likely be reducing/phasing out the explicit namespace selection in exchange for a more complicated tag filter object. I also expect to add some commands to make it easier to mass-change tag import options for subscriptions and to tell downloaders and subscriptions just to always use the default, whatever that happens to be.

misc downloader stuff

I have added a Deviant Art parser. It now fetches the embedded image if the artist has disabled high-res download, and if it encounters a nsfw age-gate, it sets an 'ignored' status (the old downloader fetched a lower-quality version of the nsfw image). We will fix this ignored status when the new login system is in place.

Speaking of which, the edit subscriptions panels now have 'retry ignored' buttons, which you may wish to fire on your pixiv subscriptions. This will retry everything has has previously been ignored due to being manga, and should help in future as more 'ignored' problems are fixed.

The 'checker options' on watchers and subscriptions will now keep a fixed check phase if you set a static check period. So, if you set the static period as exactly seven days, and the sub first runs on Wednesday afternoon, it will now always set a next check time of the next Wed afternoon, no matter if they actually happen to subsequently run on Wed afternoon or Thurs morning or a Monday three weeks later. Previously, the static check period was being added to the 'last completed check time', meaning these static checks were creeping forward a few hours every check. If you wish to set the check time for these subs, please use the 'check now' button to force a phase reset.

I've jiggled the multiple watcher's sort variables around so that by default they will sort with subject alphabetical but grouped by status, with interesting statuses like DEAD at the top. It should make the default easier to at-a-glance see if you need to action anything.

full list

converted much of the increasingly complicated tag import options to a new sub-object that simplifies a lot of code and makes things easier to serialise and update in future

tag import options now allows you to set whether tags should be applied to new files/already in inbox/already in archive, much like the file import options' 'presentation' checkboxes

tag import options now allows you to set whether tags should be filtered to only those that already have a non-zero current count on that tag service (i.e. only tags that 'already exist')

tag import options now has two 'fetch if already in db' checkboxes--for url and hash matches separately (the hash stuff is advanced, but this new distinction will be of increasing use in the future)

tag import options now applies sibling and parent collapse/expansion before tag filtering, which will improve filtering accuracy (so if you only want creator tags, and a sibling would convert an unnamespaced tag up to a creator, you will now get it)

the old 'all namespaces' checkbox is now removed from some 'defaults' areas, and any default tag import options that had it checked will instead get 'get all' checked as they update

caught up the ui and importer code to deal with these tag import option changes

improved how some 'should download metadata/file' pre-import checking works

moved all complicated 'let's derive some specific tag import options from these defaults' code to the tag import options object itself

wrote some decent unit tests for tag import options

wrote a parser for deviant art. it has source time now, and falls back to the embedded image if the artist has disabled high-res downloading. if it finds a mature content click-through (due to not being logged in), it will now veto and set 'ignored' status (we will revisit this and get high quality nsfw from DA when the login manager works.)

if a check timings object (like for a subscription or watcher) has a 'static' check interval, it will now apply that period to the 'last next check time', so if you set it to check every seven days, starting on Wednesday night, it will now repeatedly check on Wed night, not creep forward a few minutes/hours every time due to applying time to the 'last check completed time'. if you were hit by this, hit 'check now' to reset your next check time to now

the multiple watcher now sorts by status by default, and blank status now sorts below DEAD and the others, so you should get a neat subject-alphabetical sort grouped by interesting-status-first now right from the start

added 'clear all multiwatcher highlights' to 'pages' menu

fixed a typo bug in the new multiple watcher options-setting buttons

added 'retry ignored' buttons to edit subscription/subscriptions panels, so you can retry pixiv manga pages en masse

added 'always show iso time' checkbox to options->gui, which will stop replacing some recent timestamps with '5 minutes ago'

fixed an index-selection issue with compound formulae in the new parsing system

fixed a file progress count status error in subscriptions that was reducing progress rather than increasing range when the post urls created new urls

improved error handling when a file import object's index can't be figured out in the file import list

to clear up confusion, the crash recovery dialog now puts the name of the default session it would like to try loading on its ok button

the new listctrl class will now always sort strings in a case-insensitive way

wrote a simple 'fetch a url' debug routine for the help->debug menu that will help better diagnose various parse and login issues in future

fixed an issue where the autocomplete dropdown float window could sometimes get stuck in 'show float' mode when it spawned a new window while having focus (usually due to activating/right-clicking a tag in the list and hitting 'show in new page'). any other instances of the dropdown getting stuck on should now also be fixable/fixed with a simple page change

improved how some checkbox menu data is handled

started work on a gallery log, which will record and action gallery urls in the new system much like the file import status area

significant refactoring of file import objects--there are now 'file seeds' and 'gallery seeds'

added an interesting new 'alterate' duplicate example to duplicates help

brushed off and added some more examples to duplicates help, thanks to users for the contributions

misc refactoring

next week

I also got started on the gallery overhaul this week, and I feel good about where I am going. I will keep working on this and hope to roll out a 'gallery log'--very similar to the file import status panel, that will list all gallery pages hit during a downloader's history with status and how many links parsed and so on--within the next week or two.

The number of missing entries in network->manage url class links is also shrinking. A few more parsers to do here, and then I will feel comfortable to start removing old downloader code completely.