Cry wank, and let slip the hounds of yiff!
Over on the (annoyingly-named) yiffstar.com forums, wank has erupted over the fact that the moderators of said forums have decided to respect artists' wishes of not having their artwork posted without permission.



(You need to sign up for the forums in order to view them, and since I'm fairly sure that most folks don't want to do that, I'll just C&P.)

It begins with a post by chrno998:

I must adress this because this wil be adressed eventually. These copywrite restrictions are really hurting our picutre forum. I know "Artist blah blah blah" but still. I remember the good old days, you liked a picture and you put it up for others to see. NOWADAYS, i go to a topic and i find about 50 links, something i dislike. I mean really, this has. I even bet these restrictions are even hindering a growing population of newcomers. Has these artists really changed their mindset from "good for everyone" to "If i can make money, **** all you guys". Not only that, i might add, but some of us can get these CD's because of our parents. Furthermore, i have found out from a couple people that the quality of this pictures are sub-par. Would you like your father coming to the mailbox, find a CD which you payed lots of money for, then see whats on it?????

Im not trying to be a muck raker in any way, but i want to adress these issues to EVERYONE. Im sure no action will taken form my words, but i want the public to be heard!

I hope you all know that im just trying to help this website, which im an avid fan of. Please, write comments concering this, and, if you want, other things othering you.

I hope this can turn from a puddle in my mind, to an ocean of ideas.

There are many, many sentences here that make zero grammatical sense, but let's translate it: "I'm mad because I can't get free Furry porn, because I'm a minor and can't buy it even if I had the money."

Todd Fox chimes in:

I hate and despise the issue of artists banning their work. however before this gets farther along. [The moderator] is not to blame. do not flame him. i belive his quote was used to prove a point, not point him out. he does his job. we may find it distasteful and fill us with hate. but he did not make the rule, or have the idea to restrict the work, he did not make it. hate the instatute that made the feelings of these artists. good as they are, without us, they are nothing. it is we, who made them. and it is they, that will pull themselves down again. if you have talent and a love of something, share it, if you are paid for your talents to be put into a fine picture. then whoever owns it can plaster it on anything. think of the fandom. who supports you. where do you find those who also feel as you do. and how can you hurt the community as such?

Ah, contradictions of terms: "They're free to make their own rules, and we need to respect that right, only we don't."

Amlin Wolf says:

Hey, chill off and respect copyrights. If not, we will soon find big 'SAMPLE' stamps all over every free picture. Some people actually tries to live on this. It's not like they are running big evil corperation$. They are not going to be filthy rich on you money, they are just trying to find a way to do their art full time. The grim reality is that you have to make money to get food on your table (well, after moving out from your parents).
There are still tens of thousands of free yiffy pictures out there, so what if you can't get every one for free? Boo-fuckin-hooo!

Not a bad point. But it's kind of funny to say: "Look, don't complain about your inability to get free porn, because then you'll just wind up with less free porn for the rest of us."

AlexWard chips in with a good point, and a dig against fanboys living in their parents' basement at the same time!

I agree with Amlin. Toumal has done a good job of running ANY pictures forum for this site, from what I understand, so we should be happy we have it at all.

It seems that one of the biggest complaints will be, "I live with my parents, so I can't buy yiff." It's true, you can't buy everything you want to when you live with your parents. That's why it sucks, and you should move away as soon as possible.

Then, Klisoura speaks up. It's not too loud, at first...

That is the crux of the issue. While you may not like the notion of intellectual property (as I do not; hell, I find the notion personally offensive) you are bound to respect the extant legal standards. Which say that artists have (in general) exclusive reproduction rights. Very little away around that considering how many countries are signatories to the relevant international conventions.

I still am very confused about how someone can be "personally offended" by the idea of someone wanting to keep what's theirs... In the meantime, Vaccinated offers:

Frankly, we're lucky to still have an art forum. It'd have been a lot easier to say "Fuck it" and delete that forum during the controversy over art theft.

It's moving slower, yes, and I've definitely noticed a lot more discussion going on there (which is a little odd), but nevertheless, it's a useful resource.

As for my opinion on art "theft"? I create works that surely take every bit as much time and effort as drawing a picture. Do I put them on a paysite and demand copyrights? Nah, all I've ever asked for is to be recognised as the author. So the whole concept of alienating the audience in favour of an elite is simply irritating to me.

Closer. But still missing the point. Then, Klisoura explodes into a fountain of wank worthy of F_W!

Been giving this some more thought over the last couple of hours. This is what I came up with.

I dislike the notion of 'intellectual property' for the same reason as I dislike prostitution. Art is a fundamental part of the human animal, and claiming dominion over creativity seems somehow rather unethical to me.

And I dislike the notion of being able to 'own' intangible things. Does that mean that individual engrams can be copyrighted? How about bought and sold. It's an interesting slippery slope, and it quite possibly raises some tricky issues.

You can own a painting, you don't own the artwork. You may own a book, but not the words. By creating it and publishing it you have set it free on the world, to evolve into a limitless array of personal interpretations and revisions--by logic every bit as valid as your own. You become the cause and originator of a flourishing memic phylogeny; but I do not think that you are the owner.

To 'own' art profanes it, blasphemes it, spits in its face and kicks its broken body while it lies dying in the dust of our modern morality. It is offensive to the very core of the idea. A printed version of a piece, that is tangible. That can be owned, it can be sold, it can be given away. The nuances of human expression cannot, and to say that one can--or should--'own' them is foolish.

I'm not a graphic artist, per se; I'm predominantly an author (not here, but elsewhere, and I've dabbled in other copyrightable fields as well). And you better believe that I explicitly release what I write into the public domain. Other people may seek to exploit and demean art by claiming ownership; I refuse. To think that one reserves sovereignty once your work has been released is naive and foolish. If you love your creative ownership so much, best to keep your hard work to yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Some say that people disregard 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' out of selfishness, which it may be--this I do not doubt. But morally, I feel it is no more so than the selfish nature of one who demands recompense for being allowed to express the latent creativity within us all, and possibly worse. That one creates for beauty at all is a great and wonderous thing, on this earth uniquely human. Artists influence the lives of countless multitudes, change the currents of thought and the structures of our lives. But, the ideas they spawn are no more richer for being owned, and--I would argue--are in fact the poorer for such strict demands of ownership. It would be more profitable to try to own God, and just as rational.

The other great thing about the notion of what constitutes intellectual property rights is that it's so incredibly arbitrary. For instance, take this story by Todd Fox. In writing this story, Todd Fox introduced fundamental new changes to the characters first created by Universal Pictures in 1995. By all objective measures this (the creation of original concepts and art) should be sufficient to make Todd the owner of this story, but it's not. Why? Because the characters aren't 'owned' by him, they're owned by the original studio.

This only makes sense if you pretend that thoughts originate from nowhere, with no influence. The reality is that this is almost certainly never the case--the movie Balto makes use of concepts taken from other movies and (if I thought about it hard enough) probably from classic literary archetypes as well. The behaviour and shape of the characters themselves undoubtedly have their roots elsewhere. So how can Universal rightly claim copyright?

Similarly, imagine that the Mona Lisa were painted today and subject to copyright law (we'll ignore the parody clauses of most copyright law for the next few sentences). The original art, as well as the physical painting, would be owned by Leonardo da Vinci. What happens when someone reproduces the picture, adding a mustache and horns to the image? I know this sounds absurd, because of course nobody would ever do that, but consider for a moment. They have deeply, fundamentally, possibly irrevocably changed within their new picture the meaning and artistic style of the original. By what rights is their ownership denied?

Is it a matter of degree? The only problem is that this is arbitrary. Obviously copyrights are not assigned for wholly original ideas, because then no copyright privileges would ever be granted an artist. Chords are lifted, artistic devices, literary elements, what have you. So it must clearly be that some level of change is definable as that limit at which something becomes 'original enough.' Can that ever hope to be objective? I don't have a lot of faith in legal systems that are so dependent on complete subjectivity--it harkens back to the declaration that you just 'know' pornography when you see it. No, that's not always the case.

Objectively, art should be considered either completely and always original, or never original, for these reasons. Both of these options as delimiters preclude heavy-handed copyright law, I think, which to me illustrates the folly of those laws in the first place, and indeed the absurdity beneath their intent.

That art is never completely the creation of the artist, but instead relies (indeed, if sub/un-consciously) on the works of those that came before is an inherent and quite permissible artefact of culture itself. The recombination of old ideas to create new ones is not something that should be condemned, but the acknowledgment of this is virtually contingent on the recognition that intellectual property rights are inherently illogical.

When everything was printed, and could be carefully regulated, the delimiting was easier. Individuals had the right to sell and distribute the tangible outputs of their artistic effort--this I agree with, and for all I've said I think they should retain this. But computers and the Internet have largely changed the way intellectual property is viewed. The memic phylogeny I spoke of can develop in scant days or weeks (instead of decades), and the tendrils born of that original creation can reach millions. Controlling this is the source of unending dilemma; of course, I do not think it should be controlled.

I would say in regards to my own writing, that I would promote its free distribution, but that printing it and selling my work in book form is unethical, for tangibility has re-entered the equation. Since I cannot choose both, I would suggest my own interpretation when asked, while standing by free distribution in terms of the law. I do not think this selfish.

Similarly I would say that printing and selling the unchanged artwork of another is unethical, but free distribution without tangibility is not. I am in a minority; I accept this.

But then, I don't generally deliberately violate artistic copyright, as I don't generally harass prostitutes. You're free to think what you like, and I shan't interfere if you decide to copyright every damn thing you do. Don't expect my moral support for your actions, though.

Jesus Christing Fuck! Wank muck? 'Memic phylogeny?' Whining about how you're not allowed to write Balto porn and call it your own work? And what the hell is this analogy to prostitution? Does anyone have any idea what logic this argument stands upon at all, other than 'I'm bitter and I can say what I want'?

I hope this grows. I so hope it does.

If you're interested in joining the forums to follow the thread, it's here.

ETA: GOOD FUCKING GOD! Now we've got this addition from Todd Fox:

I agree totally with Klisoura. also, i want to see the copyright registration from a copywright office or notary. i want a certificate placed with every piece of "Copywritten" artwork saying that that idea Character and situation is copywritten to that individual.

also i want to see the busness licence of every merchant artist selling their artwork for profit. the IRS needs its leagal share of the booty too. you want to get leagal, i can go there. what about all the tax laws not adheared to by these internet artists. untaxed income is unlawful.

so if you want to keep artwork restricted, Pay for a licence and the accual copyright registration, then print it and sell it by order only. then its win win, only a small amount of people will know about you. and your art will be seen only by them.

and thank you Klisoura, for using me in your example ^.^ well done and said.

Stop it. Please, please, make it stop. My brain cries for the sweet release of death...

ETA x2: Oh, and it just gets better and better and better! Gabriel Mobious comes in and displays intelligence!

Okay, as nice as this is and all, this topic has been done already, and if I was a mod, I would've locked it already. But, because I love to bitch as everyone else does, let me go ahead.

I do not think we should be railing on artists who keep their work from us because they want to make money. I mean, fuck, these guys probably don't have anything else and try to at least make some money to liveon. Artwork takes a lot of time to finish and make pretty so that the 'fans' won't gripe the artist into oblivion. But the artists do also need to realise something: the fur fandom is not that big. We don't all have money to shell out to buy your little portfolios, or your half filled fucking CDs. We need money too ya know. And to all those artists who lovingly and graciously donate their stuff to places like Pureyiff.com, I worship you, because you keep pissed off furs from doing anythintg too drastic.

Now if an artist wants to keep their work from the public and sell it only to those whose sole fucking purpose for viewing it is to whack off, then yay; you are now a whore. Some of us like looking at the finer side of art; some of us like commenting and giving constructive criticism; some of us also like whacking off to it.

But in the end, it is not the fan's place to gripe or complain, because the fact that kickass artists show us their stuff is a privalege. Hey everyone: imagine what it would be like without some of the greater artists. Just think on that, and be grateful for what you have.

-sits back and patiently waits for WolfByte to come in and start ranting-

After this, the suggestion is made to lock the thread... upon which the original poster, chrno998 responds with:

Fuck it then. You want it locked? Well then fuck it. Just delete it. I try to get people to say what they feel and i get this CRAP about this being noncence. Just say screw this "stupid" thread and delete it. I dont want anymore damn bullshit or more bad ties between people. Jesus Christ.

[...]

This is what im talking about. Just get it over with because it seems IGNORANCE is running rampant

Oh, it's so beautiful! *sniff*