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Art Theft vs Derivative Works?
5 min read
Hey everyone! Lately, I've been asking myself a lot of questions regarding copyright and the use of my stuff, which led to some research that uncovered something interesting things.
So brief background: I've been somewhat conflicted about showing potential educational programs my stuff because a LOT of it is either fanfiction or fanart-- and I presumed that those kind of programs (be it colleges or other organizations) would only be interested in wholly original works. But, as it turns out, I learned today that there is a concept known as derivative work-- "...an expressive creation that includes major copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work)", definition a la Wikipedia-- which made me hopeful knowing that my fanwork still held some legitimacy and legal recognition beyond "fanfiction", if I chose to portray it that way.
The following image is probably the most referenced and well known example of a derivative work:
Looks like the Mona Lisa, right? Except it isn't-- and it's legally recognized as such. Marcel Duchamp, the creator of L.H.O.O.Q., more or less took the Mona Lisa and added a mustache and goatee. Whether or not you like it or agree with it is irrelevant, because according to, well, copyright laws, that's a derivative work.
So why I'm making this journal is because I'm somewhat worried. On one hand, I'm ecstatic that I can present things like my comics and other past projects with (like I said before) some sense of legitimacy, but on the other I can't help but wonder:
That doesn't legitimize art theft, does it?
And I sincerely hope it doesn't, but taking a look at what defines a "derivative work" and how we define "art theft", the two are really similar. And I really want to start a discussion on this because as a community of content creators, we kind of need to know what this means for the content we're creating.
Let's take L.H.O.O.Q. out of its original context and pretend someone on here made it, okay? For the sake of argument we can call him Deviant A. So A takes the Mona Lisa, draws a mustache on her, then posts it up on his/her/their account. How would we as a community react? We'd probably call art theft. There's little to no deviation to further differentiate L.H.O.O.Q. from the work it's inspired by, and everything's virtually the same with the exception of the mustache and the caption at the bottom.
Then again, considering that L.H.O.O.Q. was made well after Leonardo DaVinci's death in 1919 (the general rule of thumb is that the copyright on a work expires a century after the artist's death, but I'll probably need to verify this again), the copyright has almost certainly expired by then and whether or not Marcel Duchamp actually stole the piece is irrelevant (again, it's also the Mona Lisa... everyone knows that Duchamp didn't actually paint the Mona Lisa).
Listen, I've got nothing against Marcel Duchamp, but if adding a mustache on something is all it takes to constitute something as a derivative (and therefore legal) work, I'm kind of concerned for my own art. Unless I'm kind of jumping the gun here, in which case please let me know?
Another hypothetical example could be Deviant B taking J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and switching out all the names. Would it be a derivative work or plagiarism?
Or what if Deviant C took the graphic novel V for Vendetta and pasted pictures of Nicholas Cage or something over all the faces of the characters, then put it up as their own comic? Could that potentially constitute as a derivative work?
Upon turning to dA's policy on copyright infringement, which as of 8/9/15 states:
- "Placing someone else's photograph or creative work online without proper permission.
- Using a creative work commercially without permission.
- Adapting someone else's creative work found in one medium to another medium, such as making a book into a movie or a photograph into a painting.
- Modifying or editing a creative work without proper permission."
... I'm just comparing the legal threshold (like L.H.O.O.Q.) for something to be considered original and what WE consider to be original, and I don't know... I just see a concept like this having a huge potential to be abused (there's already quite some legal trouble over it) by people to justify art theft and the thought of someone doing that is worrying.
The deviantArt copyright policy doesn't even MENTION derivative works. As a community, I think we really need to start talking about this so we can better define boundaries as to what constitutes as something like fanfiction, and what constitutes as art theft-- I feel the concept of derivative works can be so helpful to aspiring artists and writers that have a lot of fanwork in their repertoire, but I'd hate to see it taken advantage of.
I'm sorry if this journal is a little scatterbrained, I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. Thoughts?
Oh! And if you want to read more, here's some more resources:
Wikipedia article on derivative works
And a blog article on the matter as well!
There was some more stuff, but I accidentally closed the tab and lost it all. 
If anyone finds anything helpful, let me know and I'll link it!
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TERMS OF USE FOR MY ART
2 min read
Hi! Many different artists have different terms for their art, I'm no different. My rules are pretty simple to follow, and I'd greatly appreciate it if when you use my art that you go by them.
1) IF YOU USE MY ART AND CLAIM IT AS YOURS, IT'S ART THEFT. If it's art theft, I'm going to take action and have it taken down.
Please note that I'll consider it art theft if you repost my art on other websites without my permission (ie: posting it on your personal tumblr instead of reblogging it from my official blog, etc.).
Even though I support the free use of materials (with credit, of course), I have zero tolerance for art theft. Which leads to my next point:
2) NEVER TRACE, COPY, RECOLOR, OR HEAVILY REFERENCE MY ART PLEASE.
That's more or less still art theft. I also really don't like this, please respect my art and myself and don't do it.
3) Do not alter or remove watermarks/signatures on my art.
That's shady. That's also wrong and related to #1 and #2.
4) Excluding the two conditions previously mentioned, you can use my art if you CREDIT ME.
Try hard to credit me. I might seem like I take forever to reply to people, but if you ever wanted to ask permission to use my art I would get back to you as soon as I could.
5) I have a deviantART a tumblr, and an instagram-- that's it. If you see someone on other media like Twitter, Facebook, Quotev, etc. with the same or similar name, it's not me.
So if they also happen to have my art and are not crediting, let me know?
But yeah! Those are the five golden rules. Naturally, if I run into more issues with this, then the rules will change, but I doubt there will be too many problems.
Thanks for reading!
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Creepypasta Panic!
1 min read
Hello, everyone! The Admiral has some exciting news for people! ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘I have a creepypasta comic that's been in development for a year now, drawing characters, working on concepts. It's been a while, to say the least. XD The title is 'Creepypasta Panic!', and after some extensive revisions I'm finally ready to begin drawing it up (I've done some scratch work, but nothing 'official'). Today I uploaded some concept art for BEN (he was a real pain to pick a design for ;alkdsj) and with any luck by the beginning of next week I'll have an official poster of sorts for the comic as a whole...Anyhow, stay tuned!
[Betty approves this message hnnnhghgngh]Now let's dance. ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In