Stealing fan art + Have you seen this artist?

[Mrklli]

Here's a shout-out to the artist who created this cool drawing:

If you know who they are, please tell! The thing is, I've been getting pretty irritated by the amount of reposted fan art all over the internet, without any credit to the original creator. Of course it's not just this picture, it's going on everywhere. A moment ago I just happened to see this specific drawing on Steam AGAIN and thought I really need to say something about this gross phenomenon, and it'd be really cool if at the same time I was able to find that very talented individual whose work is being exploited here.

Please. Just stop.

Do not repost art that is not your own without giving credit to the person who actually created it. And even if you give credit it would be nice to ask for permission before reposting content that is not yours. Even if what you're doing isn't really hurting anybody, even if you don't really even try to claim the art as your own and you're just "hey, look at this", you shouldn't just low-key post it without a word about where you originally found the fan art, or any kind of creative content really, that you're going to repost. I think it is stealing and it needs to stop. I know you thought "wow what a cool pic, I too want to post content like this, people will like it!" when you saw it, but that's exactly why the person who created it should be credited. They're making other people smile and they should know their work is appreciated, and taking that credit from them isn't making the world any better place. You can learn to do cool things yourself. I'm sure you already know how to do cool things. Why not show it to the world instead of stealing other people's work?

And for the artists out there: remember to sign everything you post on the internet. Even if you think it's nothing special. It's your art and you deserve credit for it. Your name on the fan art won't stop these kind of people, but at least it will make stealing art a bit harder and that's a good thing, right?

[JazzyGames]

This amazing piece was done by Jess of the Devil's Roost: https://devilsroostjess.tumblr.com/post/159749412827/sometimes-you-need-to-flop-face-first-into-a

While I agree that all artists deserve credit for their work, I'm not sure that it's realistic to demand credit for every instance of artwork sharing, especially when a piece goes more viral like this one did. But if I had a hard time finding original credits (as I did here) but still wanted to share the amazing work, I don't know that I would consider that "stealing" fan art or exploitation, especially when nobody is using the artwork to make money (throwing it onto merchandise, commercial artwork, etc). We're just showing off amazing work done by the community and reaffirming its value; I don't find anything wrong with that.

EDIT: Found this cake inspired by the piece on Reddit: 

 

[Well-met]

I'm afraid things function differently on the internet.

Welcome aboard.

[Mrklli]

Yeah, I know it's unrealistic to expect sharing art without credit to stop. And while I agree it's really nice to share cool stuff, it doesn't properly show appreciation to the artist unless you say who they are, or at least that you don't know where a certain art piece came from and it's not your own when you post it. It's not really hard to do so and it would make at least a small difference.

And I do know things work differently on the internet, but that's not a real reason to just accept crappy stuff. Even if the system sucks people can still make on effort to be nice, which is why I created this topic. And who knows, maybe it could be possible to get a better version of internet if a larger portion of people cared more : )

[MondayNight]

All nice-and-dandy, morality and such, but. Have you seen the amount of stuff just-posted by people, like print-screens or random things from Google Searches on Steam Profiles for-example without any description/context or comment whatsoever (because that's how people "function" usually)? Do you know how many kids are out there on the web that have no idea about Copyrights and-the-like? How many old people just seeing something deemed nice and posting it on their profiles not even thinking there is a creator/artist/etc behind it to credit or having no clue how to find who made the art-piece? There is a whole lot of gray space in between to purely call it "they be stealing". Frankly I for one haven't seen any of such re-posters claiming they did respective art-pieces. Most have no clue themselves who original artist was, but like to keep such tidbits in galleries of their own for future revisits and/or share with friends & family. I myself have a folder (years-old one, mind you) with stuff I tried to find who's original artists were without any luck, and I think myself as sufficiently tech-savvy to know what to do beyond a simple Google image search. Don't assume ill intent where lack of knowledge can be a more probable/Occam's razor explanation.

[wigfrids hat]

your concerns are totally valid but as someone who's had his work stolen several times and has found plenty of stolen work that cannot be removed from the place it was reposted at i must say there is a lot of very tall walls in the way of proper credit and attribution. pictures are cropped and edited to remove names, titles are changed or gotten rid of to obscure searches and in general a lot of people who are not artists or even creators in general have absolutely no respect(or often even understanding) of ownership of things that are created as opposed to bought with money. art is still seen as a free resource for the people with the only restrictions being that one should not outright claim to have created the work if they didnt create the work and to ignorantly claim fair-use regardless of what is being done with the piece that has been taken. at best you can ask if anyone knows who did the work and report theft when the host site allows for it but it is a losing battle and likely will stay a losing battle for as long as corporations are the only creators whose work must be respected legally

[Mike23Ua]

Most my pictures used for Maxwell Meme’s are just plucked from random google search results, that’s the problem with the internet it’s so easy to use someone else’s work- However Everyone knows I can’t draw anything at all ever, and all my photos are just some really clever swapping of images from one photo into a second photo and vice versa (probably over 50 times or so) to make the things I post for Maxwell Meme’s, I do not claim to take ownership over anyone’s works and it’s often impossible to find to credit the original artist- However my Forum Profile Picture specifically I asked a Admin if it was okay before I used it, giving credit to the artist on my profile page.

If it was MY Art it would look like little stick figures- The end. But I do agree with you that people should at least try to credit the original artist.

[viberr]

well i don't take anyone else's art the only thing i have taken is jschlatt's pfp picture ssooo i guess i should talk about that

the pfp that i use is not mine. its owned by a guy named jschlatt and while i don't know if he drew it(most probably not)i at least know that he owns the picture and he uses it for his youtube channel and i just think the character in the picture is really cute so i stated using him as my pfp (its also why is start my posts with"heyo everyone its your favorite schlatty boy here"its a homage to the owner of the pfp jschlatt himself)

well with that out of the way i do agree people should at least try to find the artist so they can credit them.and if they don't find the artist they should say that they didn't make the art 

[Yuuko]

I see it all the time, but really the solution is for artists to sign their work with any tags they want to be credited through.  If an artist doesn't sign their work its kinda their fault they don't get credit when someone pulls an image out of a folder of 10,000 saved fanarts...  Or uses google images or search for artworks.

[minespatch]

I mainly use google images for quick searches and references to print. Seems lazy to just slap the images on pinterest and not at least put the artist's name in parenthesis.

Surprised Pinterest isn't getting the same problem google images had from Getty Images.

[DarkPulse91]

Stuff like this is why I always recommend that artists put some kind of signature on their art, or even a link to their profile on a website where they post said art if they have one. This way it becomes much easier to find said artist.

And now if they did that, and someone went out of there way to remove said signiture/credit. Then I would fully define that as art stealing in almost any context. Even if it's "hey look at this cool art I found".