Molokkx Posted April 4, 2019 Posted April 4, 2019 Ok so this is a rather large, complex subject and I didn't know how to put it in simple terms as a title. So what I'd like to ask about and know more of in this thread is in regards to non-employed / at-home / "amateur" Artists essentially either living off of their work, or at the very least receiving some (any) amount of income out of their work in any ways even if they don't actually "live off" of it (say, donations for example). However, I'd like to bring specific points to the table to discuss about (and for me to ask questions on, since I'm fascinated, but also rather confused about the whole thing). There are very specific conditions that I find to be sitting in very big 'gray' areas of Legality / Copyright Laws / Licensed Assets and so on (even saying this is still vague but we'll get there, subjects are very specific below): Now, the basics first. We need an actual 'Creation Software' as I like to call them myself. So I'll be using some examples here: - Blender - Unity - 3DSMax Second, the 'Assets' and franchises an artist chooses to "base his/her work on" (and this in and of itself covers way more than to simply say an artist is "basing his work on" anything, but I'll cover more on that below). So, some popular examples: - Overwatch (SFM / Animation, Posing, 2D Art / Drawing, etc) - The Witcher (same as above, from animation to posing work, etc) Third, the actual 'work', per se, that an artist does on his/her own. Here I'll use some obvious popular examples: - Animation (anything from full blown 3D animation rivaling Pixar quality, to simple stiff-looking barely-articulated characters in 3 seconds loops; or Gifs and down to animated Pixel art 50x50 icons for forum avatars... name the example you have it) - Posing (3D / 2D posing, with polygonal characters or 2D drawings on 3D backgrounds, or just plain and simple drawing on a sheet of paper or what have you) Fourth, Modding Community works sometimes (not always) being utilized in an artist's work (ok, at this point we start digging deeper into the 'main' meal of this thread). In and of itself this very point here is the big one, but I needed to present the context with the points above first. Now, I'll use some examples of what I mean by "modding community works being utilized", with the other points above taken into consideration (mix and matching conditions to get a better picture of an hypothetical person doing 'work' like that): Let's call the artist Joe. So, Joe knows how to animate, say... using Blender. He also loves the Overwatch universe and its characters. He probably looked at the first couple of cases of Overwatch SFM back in mid 2016 and thought "Damn I'd like to do that one day too!". Lo and behold, and with some practice (most of it probably kept to himself and never published it) he got much better and today can make some pretty decent animations of Overwatch 'stuff' using Blender. However, Joe only knows animation and little else (with only the most basics of knowledge) when it comes to 3D mesh sculpting, rigging, or heck he doesn't even know how to create textures or even how to modify already-existing ones. He wouldn't know how to create backgrounds either, or how to create accessories (earrings, clothing, etc) and so on. BUT... Joe is lucky, he DOES know how to animate! Now, since he doesn't know how to create a full body, and since he loves the universe of Overwatch he decides to animate Overwatch characters instead. But, Blizzard never officially released their characters models, much less being made for Blender and the likes. So Joe starts looking around for assets he can use. He finds out that 'x', 'y' and 'z' artists out there already made and published THEIR own variation, custom-made bodies of Overwatch characters. Amazing! Now all Joe has to do is download them and use them in his animation! But just a plain animation on a white background isn't much. He needs a 3D room, and some clothing! He eventually finds custom-made 'maps' to put his characters in for his animation and also finds a couple of pieces of custom-made clothing to put on the characters. Now, at THIS specific point, what DID Joe actually create? - Overwatch characters? Nope. They all belong to Blizzard. But lucky Joe, he did not end up using Blizzard's actual assets directly extracted from the game. - Custom-made Overwatch characters 'Look Alikes' from around the web made by 'x' artist? Well, now that is what Joe uses, but he never 'made' the character(s) he's using. - The map the animation is made into? Nope, he just found a couple of scenes or full maps to use. - Scene 'clutter' / accessory / furniture / decoration items for the whole thing? None of it made by Joe. BUT - Animation? Oh hell yeah! No one but Joe animated every single bit of motion you'd see on screen. He's really good at it now. Maybe you start seeing where it's now going? Fifth point: Income. Alright so, until now Joe was doing his animation out of sheer passion of animation. But like everyone else he has bills to pay and needs to eat and have a roof on his head. So he's looking into making a little bit of extra cash on the side with 'His Art'. He starts looking at what seems to be used by pretty much every 'self made artists' on the web, along with their grand mothers and the dog, too: Patreon. But Joe has a consciousness and isn't that stupid, nor does he have any actual ill intent in his mind. He simply wants to make some cash out of his work if anyone else out there would be interested in 'supporting' him monthly. But he KNOWS, he is fully aware actually that the actual majority of his work does not only include "His" work. It has clothing, maps, maybe even some sound effects or... well, just "other assets" as part of his finalized scene that other people than him made. He does know who the original authors are at least for the big part of "His" work, but he can't really be bothered to look around for the other things he found to check the name(s) of the now-unidentified authors that made 'x', 'y' and 'z' things he's using. So, to avoid potential account termination, or even being sued, he decides to simply not go on Patreon... yet. Instead, he goes on Twitter (this is just an example btw, could be anywhere else where such 'kinky' work is allowed) and, in lieu of asking people in a place like Patreon for monthly income support, he simply leaves a PayPal Donations link for anyone generous enough out there to help support him. And, for now, he keeps it that way to 'test the waters'. But, at the same time, he is fully aware that he would garner a LOT more audience if he'd be present on more platforms for his work to be seen, such as Patreon but also perhaps DevianArt, and the likes. Which all leads into the final main point of this thread: Legality / Laws / Rights, etc. So, basically at this point the main idea is clear enough, and I'll reiterate it below: 1) Joe knows how to Animate using Blender (or Unity, or whatever), but he can't create anything else than that on his own (at least not to a 'good enough' degree). 2) He decides to use known, licensed / copyrighted characters from a universe made by Blizzard for his animations. 3) The very character models themselves he's animating might not belong to Blizzard per se, but don't belong to Joe either; they are made by someone else (who, of course, him or herself created thanks to the fact that Blizzard essentially came up with that design to start with). 4) The whole rest of the 'scene', once finished, might have a bunch of other things at play (sound effects, clothing, accessories, furniture, etc), none of which Joe created himself. 5) But he'd like to get some support, perhaps very innocently so; genuinely thinking that there's nothing wrong in using publicly-available assets that other people than him made and 'shared' in the community. He's thinking "I made this animation, people would support me for the animations I made." 6) He's thinking about going on Patreon but he's unsure of how legal it would be for him to ask for support knowing that he doesn't create everything he uses on-screen. 7) He managed to find his little spot in some corner of Twitter and praying for some Donations to come in from time to time. Now I mentioned rights, laws, etc. Basically at this point it's a mega gray area to me. But I keep seeing known artists (well, "known" at least by now thanks for having been present in the 'SFM Scene' at least since maybe 2016, perhaps since before that; I mention 2016 only because there was a huge spike of interests in general thanks to the sudden exposure of SFM works via the Overwatch universe; even though SFM was of course existent prior to that for a couple of years). So here are some examples I can see, even though I'll try not to actually put too many names out, but since this site here is a giant modding community I'm sure most of us will know what I'm talking about: Now let's take an artist like Yeero for example. Why him by name? Because he - in my opinion - custom-created one of (if not THE) best-looking version of non-official Blizzard asset Widowmaker (I.E. he created one from scratch on his own, one half-naked version, one fully-naked version that he apparently never actually released anyway) there is out there to be used in Blender (specifically the half-naked version that is). The reason why (beyond the fact that I find his work of superb quality) I mention him is also because he shared his Widowmaker to the public. And guess what happened? Well, of course, other artists out there started using that one specific Widowmaker model in their own animations. So instead if listing multiple examples like this one by one and writing too much of a novel about all this I'll conclude on this specific line of thought (about artists using other authors' work for "their own work") by saying that this 'concept' applies all over the place and MANY of which cases can be seen on Patreon where said artist has monthly income because he/she DOES 'create' something specific, BUT also uses other authors' work in their own. Now here's the very obvious part I'd like to cover immediately: NONE of the examples, or the example of "Joe" above actually include cases where original authors actually gave their permission to the artist to use their work in their own. In such cases, of course, it's permitted and it's pretty much case closed. But this isn't about what I'd like to discuss. Instead, this thread is very much about the following: "How Legal / Is it Legal to 'be an artist' on Patreon (for example) and getting income from SOME of the work you're done while - at the same time - using any amount of assets created by someone else?" I just find Patreon to be rather all over the place when it comes to that. Then again, how CAN anyone fully police and monitor every single accounts on Patreon now that it has grown so big. How to make sure that absolutely 100% of an artist's work IS made by himself/herself? And, if it is NOT the case (as I have seen myself; I just don't want to name names here specifically since I don't want this to became an accusations battlefield) then is it even legal to do it? Then comes the 'rights' part I mentioned earlier. What ARE an artists rights if he or she discovers that his work WAS in fact used by someone else say on Patreon or DevianArt or whatever, WITHOUT asking for permission first? On a side note: This may or may not be my actual case if at this point you've been wondering why I'd go in such great lengths describing so many things. But the main point is essentially education (for me, that is). I need to be educated on this subject since I ignore way too much. And also, genuinely, simply out of curiosity here I'd like to know what such platforms as Patreon (or any other type of 'Go Fund Me' type of sites) would do if they discovered that an artist had been using other people's work "In their own work" for 'x' amount of time during which he/she received income out of it. Then again it can go even deeper (that's what she said?). This is one specific example... Here's the thing. Say... an artist uses characters from the Mortal Kombat universe (there's a couple of them doing that out there but again, I don't want to go by name). A specific case that I witnessed happening that said artist (doing the MK stuff) realized that a specific site published his work there (it's not identical to what I presented here so far but bear with me you'll see where it goes when I said 'it can be deeper') without his permission. But here's the thing, beyond the fact that said artist actually tried to 'Take action' on the subject (against the site's author, for publishing his work there) and beyond the fact that apparently not much happened out of it (since his work is still on that site at this point many months later) there's also the consideration to keep in mind that the MK-artist (to call him that way) never had in mind that what he claimed being "his work" was actually thanks to the fact that a company created the MK universe and its characters to start with and that - ultimately - he himself was in essence using the work of someone else (at this point, Warner Bros and NetherRealm Studios, publisher and owner of the MK franchise and copyright holders respectively) to make money on Patreon and then "complained" that some guy out there owner of a web site simply published his work there without his permission. When, in fact, the MK-artist in question never really bothered actually asking Warner Bros nor NetherRealm studios permission to live off of making porn out of their licensed material (characters, universe, etc). Not sure if at this point, like me, some of you start to see the complexity of the subject and how big of a "Legal Gray Area" this truly represents. I don't even know how to present my questions clearly in order to get answers and be educated on this subject. But my constant bahbling from above I'm sure was enough for most of you. I'd really like to know more about all this. About how "this stuff", these sort of scenarios and specific cases can be done, are legal (or are not), and what are the 'rights' of artists who find out that their work was used without their consent. And beyond that, if actual companies find out that even though you might have created stuff on your own, that you still used their game's universe for example to "do your art"; and I'm mentioning this because Blizzard actually DID, for a very short period of time back in 2017 I believe implied and actually looked into trying to 'get rid of' EVERYTHING out there that remotely portrayed their Overwatch assets and characters in any forms of adult content... and obviously it failed because you can't police the whole web and nothing ultimately happened out of it; and today there's DOZENS of artist only in the "Overwatch" scene actually living off of what amounts to Blizzard's work, even though everyone can argue that the "work" in question wasn't Blizzard's, when in fact the artist IS using Blizzard's universe anyway (again, this is mostly an example, I could refer to other companies and other games or universes). Anyway, it's a complex one. I couldn't do a "TL:DR" version of this. So thanks a lot for reading up (or rather down) to this point if you did. I'd love to read the views of others on this subject.
PsychoMachina Posted April 4, 2019 Posted April 4, 2019 Here is the TL;DR version Quote Instead, this thread is very much about the following: "How Legal / Is it Legal to 'be an artist' on Patreon (for example) and getting income from SOME of the work you're done while - at the same time - using any amount of assets created by someone else?"
27X Posted April 5, 2019 Posted April 5, 2019 Objectively speaking, it isn't. At all. Ever. Never. Period. End of. The reason this 'works' at all is technically (and by technically I mean in literal semantic terms) the patrons are not paying for the actual 'art', they are paying for the chance the art they would like to see will be made for their perusal or use. You are paying for the creation of something, that something itself is not held in strict legal terms. The reason the market is as large as it is because the legal hassle of bringing this shit down is expensive, and will bring bad pr. For companies that don't give a shit about bad PR like Rockstar and Capcom, they've gotten several artists charging money for asset work shut down pretty easily and within a week. The second corollary to that is if you use ANY part of someone else's work in an unlicensed capacity, you're liable, period; so all and any artist using commercial stuff in ANY part of their offerings are technically stealing unless that property has open permissions and let's be quite clear, even CDPR's license isn't 100% open in every and all cases. Most absolute licenses are granted by individual creators, not companies. This non octagonal butt is mine, I made it. More precisely, I modeled it. You know what's not mine? The UV. The UV is based on Bethesda's UV and Dimon's reworking of it and then stevierage's reworking of that, and even though I also modified that myself after them, it's still not mine. Never will be. The maps applied are also not mine. The diffuse is a 16K workup of a famous porn actress whom had full body shots available at absurd resolutions which was then blended with haley's existing awesome. The normal map is based also on Haley's work, and the sk and spec maps are outright haley's. Bottom line is the work is only yours if you did everything or used a legally >re<licensed source or asset specifically granting you re-usage for commercial purposes. Any part of that Blender video of mercy skullfucking d'va isn't yours, from rigs to anims to sounds to materials to skeleton to polygons, then you charging for it >directly< is an idiot's move. The reason people like COCO and Nini getting away with what they do is the companies they borrow from choosing to look the other way, which is pretty dumb considering they could be making their own shit instead of lifting from Black Desert or Sakimichan but no one ever accused fetish peddlers of being particularly bright. Thus the incredibly vague _______ is creating 'virtual assets', because _______ is creating Black Desert Dances and SMP rigged asset flips is what someone who wants to be sued does.
Molokkx Posted April 5, 2019 Author Posted April 5, 2019 Thanks a lot for your reply 27X Yeah, that was indeed the 'gist of it' I had in mind from the start, that basically the only instances where an artist can get income out of his/her 'work' is only when the "work" in question (everything in it) is original creation and made by said artist. Be it on Patreon and getting revenue monthly, or even by PayPal donations. However, indeed, some artists out there are capable to creating Textures, character Models, they can rig, they can animate. Heck, some of them are also capable of creating physics effects with liquids and clothing. BUT... despite the fact that they clearly do know the "How To" do 'x' thing in a given Software, they STILL opt to base their work off of an existing Intellectual Properly / Licensed / Copyrighted franchise. I did say I didn't want to put out specific names too much but here I'll go with another one: Firebox Studios (on Patreon). The guy (or the small team, at this point; just check his monthly income) DOES "make" stuff. He 3D-scultped the meshes of the characters. He also most likely created the 3D models of essentially all the models he made. He probably re-created the clothing too. He also made some animations and, obviously, he's the one (at least mainly so) doing the 3D renders / posing he's primarily known for (and lives off of today). HOWEVER, the big irony is that despite that fact that by now he certainly knows his way around Blender and IS actually talented (I do actually like what he does, subjectively-speaking) he IS - after all - using Overwatch characters and there's absolutely ZERO counter-arguments on that one. They don't even LOOK like "knock offs", they don't even have visually differing body shapes when compared to the actual models in the game (except obviously that his own models are certainly in a MUCH higher quality / poly-count condition). They are, basically, the same characters. The names aren't different, the faces and bodies are for all intent and purposes identical (or you need a REALLY good eye to tell the differences in proportions beyond maybe slightly bigger or smaller breasts and overall body polygonal count), heck the clothing is completely identical (save of course for the fact that the re-created textures are certainly much higher resolution than they are in the game even at highest settings). Heck, he even went as far as re-creating D.Va's Meka and it IS identical too. Basically, even though he does technically 'make his own stuff', the stuff he makes IS NOT his own Intellectual Property, "his universe", original stuff. Everything he makes, along with the fact that he probably now manages to live off of it and how he considers himself a "Studio" now. ALL OF IT, is, from the start, because Blizzard came up with, invented, created Overwatch. If anything, he OWES them his livelihood and I am 500% convinced that - obviously - he never actually asked Blizzard / Activision "Hey guys, I am a guy tired of his normal full time job and I'd like to create porn off of your franchise and live off if it on Patreon, could I get your permission to do so, please?". And the worst part about Firebox Studios is that he (or they) are not even limiting themselves to Overwatch now. He even makes stuff with Lara Croft (and I haven't checked his "work" in some time but he probably has 1 or 2 extra characters now from even more franchises beyond Overwatch and Tomb Raider). The guy is VERY bold... to say the least. That's not even talking about how Patreon itself, the very web site itself and the people in charge of it seemingly themselves get away with "allowing" Artists to be there while they are supposedly "creating their art" based off of Licenses / IPs / Copyrighted materials. Same thing with that Mortal Kombat artist I didn't name and used as an example. He had the 'guts' to "threaten" the owner of the website to go against him for having publicized his pictures of "his work" even though the very franchise he's making stuff of does NOT belong to him anyway! And he certainly didn't ask permission to Warner Bros about it just like Firebox Studios. Same thing with Yeero applies. Yes, even though I DO very much respect Yeero's actual talent as a 3D mesh sculpting artist (he really does know how to make good looking bodies, objectively speaking) and as an animator... BUT... what are the chances that even though he custom-made his own Overwatch characters that he actually would have asked permission to do it to start with to Blizzard? Probably next to zero. Yet, he has been (probably still is) on Patreon creating "Overwatch Adult Content" and making a good chunk of monthly income off of it. Basically: WHY is that allowed?! Yes, I agree with you 27X at 1000%. It SHOULD NOT be the case. If, for example, Yeero REALLY wanted to, he COULD (and THAT is the big irony) make his own stuff easily (his own characters, name them, make his own clothing, basically make his own little bubble universe of characters to fap to whenever he happens to animate them) and most likely still be able to make money off of it (of course, probably not as much as he does via using the Overwatch universe; but still I'm sure he could be a successful original artist out there). But noooo... instead, let's go the big Legal Gray Area and profit off of the fact that this very area in "Adult Content Creation" on Patreon is apparently allowed. Maybe one day big companies will wake up and - at the very least - attempt something against Patreon itself (or any similar web sites with public / community-based funding for projects of any types) and THAT would have a major impact on the "Content Creators". My big problem is that I'm 500% sure that they would all come out and say "Hey!!! That's MY work! You don't have the right to force me out of this!". I am SO fed up when I see that shit. YES you do your animations, YES maybe you "re-created" D.Va's exact default suit textures yourself at a higher resolution, YES maybe you created new textures for her Meka... BUT NONE of "your work" is ORIGINAL. It. Is. Intellectual. Property. That. You. NEVER. Came up with. Period. And THAT part is what pisses me off because it IS the main reason as to why I wanted to discuss this. Because I was basically browsing the various artists on Patreon this week and started to really look specifically for the ones actually (most likely) living off of "their work" when in fact their work consists of taking things and characters off of an IP / Licensed franchise. And the sheer number of them doing it was mind-blowing. I never realized there were that many (when you look into that specifically you really end up turning a lot more pages in a much bigger book than you initially thought it might be). So be it Patreon, or "just Donations", or anything. It shouldn't be legal. It already most likely is NOT actually legal per se. Yet, it IS allowed, it is happening and the big companies or any of the holders of licenses and copyrights seemingly don't do anything about it because, yes I can imagine, it would cost them a crap ton of money (that's the irony I hate) to get shit done about all of this. And I could keep going on with so many more examples of course. I do mention Overwatch a lot because it's the obvious one (no shit, the whole "Overwatch SFM" scene is pretty much now an actual industry in and of itself and I'm not even exaggerating; there's entire web sites focusing their efforts on maintaining presence specifically of JUST OW-related adult content and many of them have revenue from various types of ads to add insult to injury). But there's many more that seem to be maybe not as popular but are still big enough on their own; The Witcher is one, then I also noticed there's a LOT of Street Fighter stuff around too (mostly for SF4 and SF5, the majority of course being Naked / Naughty scantily-clad character models; one big artist doing that stuff I can name as an example is BrutalAce on DeviantArt who has the 'guts' to post a Donations link to his page and probably has a Patreon page, although I didn't check for him on Patreon but I'm seeing a bunch like him doing SF-related stuff); as well as Avatar The Last Airbender stuff (not related to the movie but instead the anime series it looks like). I mean basically, there's WAY too many artists out there without actual permission to do what they do... simply doing it anyway in some nonchalant, complacent way not even thinking about potential backfire scenarios in the future. I am an artist myself, but even though my work is extremely minor and is pretty much nowhere on the Internet (I simply keep everything I do for myself and that's it, not even a single picture) I cannot imagine what it is like for IP owners (whoever they may be; the big ones out there as well as the smaller ones) seeing THEIR genuine own original work being used in any way, shape or form (including so-called 're-creations' and 'custom made' variations) by "Artists" out there and making money (in some rare cases a SHIT TON of it) from it; while you stay there looking at it powerlessly (imagine if the big companies don't do anything about it because it's too expensive; what do the smaller IP owners do? They are the big victims there I'm sure of it; not everyone has the money that Blizzard / Activision has to pay the lawyers you'd need to do something as big as taking down all artists on Patreon doing something from Overwatch). Anyway, it's a big subject, it's vast. It implies a lot. But the gist of the story is clear (and I agree with it): It shouldn't happen the way it is happening right now.
Flantomas Posted April 13, 2019 Posted April 13, 2019 its a self regulating system, if you start to make MONEY, off of stolen work, you will be sued, if you stay as a hobbist you are safe. My issue with all this post is that you have conflated techinicians and artists as the same thing, and we give art and artists a moral pass because we understand that art is good for the world, but you havent described a single artist, just technicians or illustrators. And I might come off as bit of a dick, but Ive had classical artistic training and I would never describe myself as an artist, because I dont have a unique, personal narrative or message to express in my work, and it seems that none of the people involved in the asset flipping described have any type of personal narrative either.
DragonbornEva Posted April 13, 2019 Posted April 13, 2019 this is a question of fair use, and if you are in the us, just such a law exists. here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use ( a wiki article that describes us Fair use law) and based on what i've read i should think these "creators" by using other's Intellectual Properties (IP) in their paid artwork or the commercialization of their artwork if you will means that they are therefore infringing, and thus subject to legal consequences. 17 U.S.C. § 107 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:[6] the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors theres also the new patreon DMCA policy... https://blog.patreon.com/a-fair-dmca-policy-for-creators i think its interesting that they dont say that they will check images, or videos or have any sort of system for ensuring legal permission other than a direct response to DMCA notices.
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