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I hem-hawed on responding to this after it was sent to me, as I don't really want my name attached to drama, but I also do not want things blown out of proportion.

I'm the first artist they featured. When they featured me in the post, they took the left picture (please note the lack of shading and tail lineart) from the Discord Art discussion channel. The message I had posted accompanying the piece was that I was procrastinating finishing the tail lineart by working on the background instead. If they had read the message before lifting the image, they would have realized it was a WIP.

Drava species (c) Santae LLC

I was still credited in the news post (by Ash #68), but I had not been contacted prior to the image being posted. If I had been, I would have let the staff know that the image was 1) a commission for another user, and I would want their permission first and 2) currently unfinished.

On one hand, I'm flattered that a WIP of mine was seen as spotlight worthy. I have somewhat low self-esteem when it comes to my art. So, for an unfinished image to seem nice enough to want to post, that's really cool! If I were asked, I would have tried to get the piece finished ASAP and asked for the commissioner's permission because getting spotlighted is really kinda cool!

On the other hand, the conversation I had with CJ was an awkward one, but at least his responses were pretty prompt. The thing that bothered me about his response in particular was this:

CJ said that they would "verify completion," not ask for permission. Legality aside, I believe you should still ask for permission before posting someone's fanart. Especially since it wasn't submitted to a contest or posted somewhere that says, "If you post in this channel, your artwork can be featured!"

All said and done, he did take down my image and swap it out. He had done so in only a few minutes, too. There wasn't much drama there at all. Also, I don't really want to pick apart and psychoanalyse CJs responses, as they were rather prompt replies to my rather frantic ticket about the embarrassment of having a WIP posted up on the news. Considering my state of mind at the time, I appreciate the quickness of his responses, even if that means he couldn't sit around and think of the perfect response to everything.

I do think the spotlight was made in good faith. I think they wanted to engage the community and encourage artists by saying, "Hey! If you draw art, you could get the spotlight!" Adding "artists will be contacted for permission" to this news post alleviated the concerns I had about this feature in the first place. I think they were just overzealous about the idea to create a spotlight that the logistics hadn't yet been hammered out yet for the first few.

Additionally, the terms and conditions have stated this, even before I contacted Santae about my image being used in the spotlight:

If you are going to take commissions or draw art for Santae, please bear this policy in mind. I'm still not entirely sure they can legally claim copyright of your art, as I believe they only have IP rights and copyrights of their own images, but that's splitting hairs and I am not a lawyer. In the end, you agree to the terms and conditions when joining the website, and these are the terms and conditions you have agreed to.

As to if I will draw Santae art in the future? Right now, that is doubtful. I prefer to retain a bit more rights to my art, but if I do, I am at least better informed.

-Ash

"Going forward SanArt Sunday featured artists will always be contacted for permission to use their work before it is featured on social media or news sites" Does that mean the last "featured artist" wasn't asked for any kind of permission before their art was slapped on literally every form of Santae social media? Hopefully that's not the case but somebody tell me it isn't true

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Customs for aywas - hosting images here since imgbox broke

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Finished vers