I have large quantities of stuff I would love to post up on either my gallery or on my deviant art space. But every time I go to do it, I find myself deciding not to.
Why?
Because fan art, especially my desktop images wallpapers (I'm particularlly fond of making collauges,) are in clear violation of copyright. Now I can argue, and probably reasonably sucessfully, that me making the works is within fair use. However, the moment the presentation audience expands beyond myself, and maybe a few of my friends, by say, putting it up on deviant art, what little argument I had dissapears. But because of this, I feel stifeled as an artist. And worse yet, when I'm working with the art of a "fan artist" who has an explicit thing about stealing work, I find myself torn.
Specifically, all forms of fan art are in some way dervitive works, (see Circular 14. from the U.S. Copyright Office) and as such, can only be commisioned by the original author. Because of this, without special permission, drawing your own picture of the Sailor Moon character is a blatent violation of U.S. copyright law. Because of this, people like Fred Gallagher, dispite the fact that they have wounderful talent and bring a whole new outlook to the character, have violated the law.
Now normally I say, let the fan community be. Realisticallty speaking, the fan community (Well, I should specify, the fan artists, not the people who share their favorite animes over the web) Have no intent to devalue the work of the original author. It's just something they do so that they can show thier support for a given work. This behaviour is normal and does nothing but increase the value of the original work. But the moment that those fan artists loose sight of the goal, and begin claiming the inspiration as their own, not only have they fallen away from the spirit of the fan art community, but they have also moved out of the protective shadow of fair use. This is where ol' Mr. Gallagher has gone. He has placed strong limitations on the use of his work, (*read can not use for any purpose*) and as such, hampered the spreading of his work to other fans. The question that comes to my mind is, does he know that he's in violation in the first place.
Mr. Gallagher has endorsed, and even encouraged the generation of fan works derivitive from his work base (Megatokyo) in many situations, but in the same breath he has staunch limits posted on his sight that clearly indicate that in-fact no one without his explicit permission may use his works and even has a link on his site to a group that he participates in of "fan artists" who state with harsh, direct language, that producing derivitive works of their fan works is STEALING. The funny thing to me is that the process of generating fan works classifies as generating dirivitive works in the first place, and that the right to all the content from the original source remains the property of the original author (This has an interesing effect when dealing with works that are in the public domain, since that means that all the content from the source work REMAINS in the public domain, even while used in a derivitive, copyrighted work.) The "crusaders for the preservation of the IP rights of fan artists" are effectively a non group, since they have no IP rights within the context of their works.
So this raises the question to me: why would people like Mr. Gallagher (No, he's not alone, I just like to pick on him because of the pleathora of contradicting evidence,) participate in this kind of practice? If they where complaining about people who don't cite their source or try to claim someone else's work as their own, I'd have no problems. Both of these are not just IP rights problems, their a matter of artist pride and courtesy (Honor among theives ^.~) But it's not about those things (Ok, yes it is, but their arguments include more than that,) it's about people publishing their works in additional contexts and people who derive works of their own based on their work base. Under the common (yet legally flawed) thought process of the fan community, there are two things that should always be allowed. #1, the ability to publish fan works (this rule does carry over slightly into professional works but only under the review section of fair use) that they enjoyed as long as proper source credit is given, and #2 the ability to derive fan works of their own from either a professional work, or another fan work. Now, like I said, this is legally flawed, and BOTH actions are in violation of copyright law, but the community has always felt that these where a fair thing to be alowed to do as long as no compensation was expected. Donations are kosher in he fan work system, but demanding money for premium content derived from a professional work was just wrong.
I guess I should jest send him an e-mail and ask. Maybe his big thing is that he wants to know is who has his stuff so he can keep track of how it's being used. However, I think that's probably not it since he has a quote, "don't snag my stuff. make your own. i'ts more fun :)".
We'll just have to see.
Mood: Depressed, angry, slightly confused