artistsbeware2_archive | New "free art" website

Entry tags:

New "free art" website

IMPORTANT EDIT
Just had this comment via FA from one of my watchers:
Major alert - shortly after following that link, my google account has been hijacked and has been mass spammng. I have d/c'ed from the internet (using phone atm), and am virus scanning. Be VERY careful, or avoid altogether.
If anyone thinks they got something nasty I'm really sorry - try running HouseCall ( http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ ) - its an online based virus scanner so it can't be affected by anything on your system. I had no negative consequences from visiting this website but some others have - if you have been affected I am incredibly sorry :(

A friend of mine recently alerted me to yet another art theft rich art site - Never To Much Yiff. You can see it advertised at the owners FurAffinity page and he states:

"You can download and archive of 11,745 sorted by artist. I am not selling it is free to download so enjoy and please donate 2$ every 5$ goes to animal shelter of my choice"
(I took some liberty with this quote... the typos on the picture made me cry).

So in a nutshell, this person Techie9098 is putting up work by other artists without permission, and charging "donation" for them. I haven't checked the artists affected by this though as it requires downloading a torrent with all of these files.

Just a heads up for people.

EDIT:

His main page has been replaced by a Caramelldansen video but the download link remains and the torrent is still on pirate bay.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

yes, that is my logic, because Intellectual property is not like regular property. when you say 'take' it suggests something tangible that can be appropriated to the detriment of the owner. It also suggests that one can own IP as if it were black and white, without having to consider where our ideas were drawn from.

Copyright law has only existed for about 400 years. I would ask you to consider the purpose of it then and even the purpose up to when more radical changes began taking place in the last 100 years. If anything I'M the purist and YOU are the radicals. I'm serious, go look it up and tell me that the attitudes we have now are not a perversion of what this kind of law was created for.

I was never meaning to be offensive, just to question the state of things and whether MORE LAW = GOOD (not to mention the fact that you neglected to comment on the alternative solutions I suggested). I am an artist by hobby myself. Even more, I love law. I think copyright law is a positive thing, but like anything else, it needs to be kept in check. Some of the attitudes we have now, some of the possessiveness over things we MAYBE don't have 100% right to be possessive over, are worrying.

(actually, 'failure to enforce' doesn't quite work that way, and when it comes to IP, is mainly used for the other forms like trade-mark. Nowhere in the copyright act does it say all the rights one is granted can be appropriated in such a way and I've never heard of any case law suggesting it, only that it may hinder your ability to sue successfully)

"AGAIN THEFT IS NOT CREATIVITY" First, define the terms. then look through the history of all those we call creative geniuses and you will find a ton of instances of what we today would call 'art theft'. In terms of writers, a few that come to mind would be Shakespeare and Mark Twain. At the time, adding only a few words to a poem, or publishing an anecdote told by another was not considered 'theft', and so we praise them, as if they weren't 'guilty' of things we'd be up in arms about today. I would be satisfied if at least we could agree that there is a major discrepancy in the way copyright was viewed in the past and the way it is now. Whether either of us think its a good or bad thing is debatable, but the fact remains that terms like 'art theft' are not black and white.

"Go and actually do some research so you don't offend people via ignorance as you have been doing."

That seems to be a favourite retort of yours. The sad thing is, I'm likely one of the most learned people on the subject, especially when it comes to theory. Aren't you the one whom I argued with some time ago who claimed to have read 'legal books', but when pressed, couldn't name a single one?

IP is tangible, you want to be an IP specialist but basic knowledge seems to be absent from your understanding. An image is copyrighted once it is fixed in a tangible form.

Nobody owns an idea, they however DO own their expression of that idea.

400 years? Research, you need to do it, try more like 300, the first law to be considered a copyright law was British and was enacted in 1709, however that law related to printing rights due to the rise of the printing press, the aim of that law was just the same as current law albeit only aimed at printers. The aim was to promote creation and the dissemination of information by ensuring the creators could earn a living from their creations.

Copyright law as we know it now in the form of the Berne convention didn't show up until 1886 and was not widely adopted until the 1920's where upon many other types of creative output came under the same protections as printed works had been under.

The concept of copyright however is more than a thousand years old, the earliest case of who owned the rights to a created work took place in Ireland in AD 557.

No, we're the ones who hold true to and understand what copyright law is for, you're the one who hasn't done enough research and is spouting half baked theories. I do not believe we need to add more to copyright law as it stands, but I don't believe that taking away the rights of creators is a good thing and I know it will not foster creativity because people do not create when they cannot retain even recognition for their hard work or earn a living with it.

Tell that to artists who have had their copyright taken and given to other people due to failure to enforce. Just because you haven't heard about it? Well we've already established a base lack of information on your part.

Except there was NO discrepancy, the wording on the first copyright law and the wording for the intention of the current copyright law are virtually identical, they were intended to do the same thing. Do some bloody research will you already!

Taking something that does not belong to you = theft. The examples you gave of Shakespeare and Mark Twain if they did as you claim, could be considered to fall under fair use depending on how they were done, also Shakespeare was born and died long before the first copyright law and Mark Twain again was born and actually died ten years before the US signed into modern copyright law. Ergo, they living in a time when the laws to protect the livelihoods of artists did not exist yet. Still I think it's awfully insulting that you are comparing what you claim two highly acclaimed historical artists did, to someone violating the law by STEALING and PROFITING from the artwork of others.

"The sad thing is, I'm likely one of the most learned people on the subject, especially when it comes to theory."

Only if 'learned' translates as you're making stuff up as you go along since you actually don't know anything about the subject it seems. To be blunt, I hope you never end up in a position working with IP law because your ignorance of basic facts about copyright would be a legal liability to whatever group you'd be working for.

I have to go to work now, at one of Canada's largest IP firms. But let's just run down a quick list, which you yourself have failed to do;

-I've taken several university classes on IP (I majored in law, concentration in business law)
-I have two shelves dedicated to books just on IP law including 'copyrights and copywrongs', 'a citizen's guide to copyright', 'moral panics and the copyright wars', and so on. And that's without even turning around to check, those are just some of the more recent ones I've read.
-I follow blogs from IP attorneys such as Michael Geist
-I often spend my breaks at work reading through articles on the subject.

Since you love claiming ignorance when someone else has a different opinion, and apparently learning = being right, let's see how you stack up? I'll respond to the rest of your claims when I get home.

*sigh* Anyone can make claims like that online, just because you say you work at a large firm and have read all those books doesn't prove you do, especially when you don't even know how long copyright laws have actually been around. Equally well there is the fact that if you are telling the truth, how do we know you're not the tea lady? and secondly reading is not necessarily understanding.

The information you're putting up and the claims you are making about common copyright knowledge are wrong. In that light, it's hard to credit your claims at all.

I'm really not going to get into who can brag more with you, I'm not impressed by your bragging nor am I convinced that you know anything about copyright due to the amount of utter nonsense you have spouted on the subject.

"how do we know you're not the tea lady?"

I lol'd :3

"how do we know you're not the tea lady?"

Exactly what I was thinking!

I really don't care if you believe me or not (though it's telling that you still haven't answered as to your own learnings, when you demand so much from me, but then dismiss my answer so easily), but let me just go grab one of my books... let's see "copyright in Historical Perspective" by Lyman Ray Patterson. This is known to be one of the most comprehensive texts on early copyright. Let's see what Mr. Patterson has to say on page 20, "when William Caxton introduced the printing press into England in 1476, the creation of a new form of property, eventually to be called copyright, was inevitable. The new property concept developed over some two hundred years..."

The Statute of Anne is well known and many consider it as the beginning of MODERN day copyright, but copyright was actually in development long before it, which is why the chapter on the Statute comes in the middle of the book and not the beginning. Your knowledge of copyright really has the feel of someone who only wikis things when they need to for an argument. You don't seem to grasp a lot of copyright discussion as a whole, you just pick and chose from sites off the net, then pretend like you're well versed in the subject. I know I'm no expert, but I at least know enough about copyright to know how overwhelming and extensive the subject is. That you claim to have vast knowledge of it, then fumble even with basic concepts suggests you don't even know enough to realize how little you know.

You can have the last word on this thread too. You seemed to revel in it all the other times I've let you have it, so go nuts.

So because I won't get into a e-penis waving contest with you that makes you right be default? No, child. It simply means that without evidence claims don't prove anything and as I said, being well read and actually understanding what you've read are not the same thing.

No child, it simply means that a set of licensing laws whereby government licensed people's own work to them isn't the same as a copyright law which simply asserts that your stuff is your stuff. A licensing law is not a copyright law, ergo copyright law did not exist until the first law was created that was roughly analogous to the term copyright.

Again, just because you make a claim doesn't make it true, fact is you are woefully uninformed, lacking in social graces or perception and worse ignorant to both those issues.

You're as bad as the kid stealing the art in the first place.

"omfg my bf is a lawyer u giuz"

Yes, because questioning the status quo = being a thief.

I spent my day amending patent specifications and writing letters to CIPO for some Industrial Design files. I broke for lunch to study for the LSATs, which I'll be taking in fall when I apply to the University of Ottawa School of Law.

I'm not sure how good you look when you take the easy route and call me first a troll, and now dismiss me as some 'e-lawyer' type. It would be so much better and more respectable if you could just say you disagree with me. I disagree with you, but I haven't made it personal. Why would I? Only someone who can't find or articulate something more clever will devolve into
such antics.

Some bullet points outta' fix this:

* I didn't make that comparison. You talking about your oh-so-important job sounds like the kid claiming he has a lawyer boyfriend. Again I could care less about your job and what qualifies you.

* Don't care. I don't talk about my personal life, I have yet to MAKE this a personal argument. I'm also not here to look good - I'm here to argue a very loud point. "It's not okay." Which you keep reiterating it is, if the artist hadn't turned a profit before the thefter did. That thinking is flat out offensive, no ifs ands or butts. Maybe in Canada they do it different? I don't rightly know.

* Easy route? Troll? I've never said you were a troll. Trolls know when to stop. Nor is this the easy route. Easy would be blowing you off and enjoying myself, easy would be calling you 'crazy' and ignoring you. No, I'm taking the significantly harder route by making an internet argument. One of which I'm ending now.

* I disagree with you. Happy? I thought that was strikingly apparent, especially when you have a group of people giving you good, valid reasons, to rethink your position. You can stand idly by with it, we'll rage and fight and continue being angry when someone yanks our work out from under us.

This is done. You have your own thoughts, I'll stick to the reality of it all. Time for the easy route =).

Wow... You sure like the brag... a lot. If you want people to actually take you seriously you might want to ease up on the whole "MY ARGUMENT IS VALID BECAUSE I DO/STUDY _____." Looking over this in general you've mentioned what you "do" WAY too often. For all we know you could be making it up. Not to say that you are... but this is the Internet, and people say a lot of things.
At any rate... dropping job titles doesn't make a person any more or less credible.

I actually don't. I know I've come off that way and I dislike it...but hmm...if you were in my position, and people were at most responses calling you ignorant and saying 'maybe you should actually read up on the subject' and you knew that you actually spent a good chunk of your time involved in the subject, what would you do?

I'm not looking to make enemies here, I just have a different opinion. It's a shame it couldn't just be debated more calmly.

Well, I definitely wouldn't go the braggart route, as I know that would just make me look worse and annoy people. Rather then telling them what I do, I would just continue to rationally argue my side and actually put my professional knowledge to the test. Telling people you have some 'big fancy job' just makes you look like you're grasping at straws for credibility in your opinion.

I'd say people debated this fairly calmly, considering. People could be a lot meaner... trust me.

I think you're right. I'm sorry for falling into the trap of feeling like I need to react to claims of ignorance. I should just focus on the issue without succumbing to such tactics. Thank you for replying to me in a civil manner, I appreciate it :)

No prob.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

New "free art" website

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject