dredwulf60
Member since: 2007Just a general Public Service Announcement by a concerned SWAG member. It's mostly for people coming here to use the images. (and I'm probably preaching to the choir here on the forums, so if this isn't you, kindly disregard.)
If you are going to use a picture from SWAG on a web site or for some forum role-playing group or whatever, have the common decency to place a link back here to the place you got it, and at the VERY least give credit to the guy or gal that did the work to make the damn thing.
Everything here at SWAG is 'Fricken' FREE to use. That's why we, as artists, put our work up here without charging anyone a red cent. In fact is COSTS money to run a web site so that people can see all this talent.
I've had people send me private e-mails asking to use my images. (Thanks a lot, and fill yer boots.) However, I've recently come across a few images on a site that I recognize as the work of my SWAG comrades, without out a single mark of credit. A few others at least had the artist's name on it. (Because guys like Evan Black sign their work, and the thieving/ungrateful party didn't bother to erase or crop out the signature.)
Anyways, I hope you true SWAG fans out there despise art-theft without credit as much as I do. If you see it, give the transgressors a piece of your mind, and report it back here.
Dred
You are totally correct and have every right to be outraged. The artwork I requested I made sure I communicated with the artist about using the images and agreed to give credit where credit is do. It's the right thing to do.
-LC
This has actually happened to me on several occasions. I've even had people pass off my artwork as their own on sites like deviantart. Now THAT is weird. If people use my art on their site without asking, that pisses me off, but when people pretend it's theirs, it just makes me confused. In a way it's somewhat flattering though.
The thing that bothers me most is when people use my character names for their own characters on message board rpgs or what have you. I've found quite a few "imposters", but I never seem to catch them when they're active. For some reason, when they do that it feels like they're taking something much more personal than just a picture.
I totally agree, I mean, WTF man!
This is a free and wonderful website and is so good for all of us - requesters and artists. How dare people rip off the artists, the people who think up these marvelous characters and scenes, or the hard working people like Eclipse who put so much effort into making this space possible.
I'm actually really angry now. I've never come across anything like this with my own work, but then, it's not like I've been looking. Can anybody who comes across this sort of crap please post it here? I mean, everyone is so giving here. It pisses me off that people don't even have the common decency... And passing it off as your own work!!! Gaaah!
Brain meltdown occuring.
Mercy go now...
This is nothing new, and is a plague among online artists. Some of my comrades even get their work stolen and SOLD on art sites, as well as being passed off as the work of said thief. Now if that isn't low, I don't know what is.
Many people on the internet think that if someone posts their art it is "fair game" to be copied, reposted, sold, whatever. They say it's the artist's own fault for putting it up on the "intarweb." This is as stupid as saying that if stores don't want their stuff stolen, they shouldn't put it on display racks. Also there's this thing called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act...
I'm glad to see the wiki people are willing to work with us here at SWAG and make sure we get credit! That's more than a lot of sites *cough*myspace*cough* would do.
Lastly, let's for sure tell each other if we come across stolen or uncredited works. We can perpetuate the idea that all the artists know each other...muhahaha!
Dredwulf,
Please post the infringing site so that I can contact them and address this. I've been fairly lenient about these sort of things, my personal feeling is that if someone gives the artist, and preferable "SWAG" as well the credit, then I'm fairly satisfied (this always has to be in link format though as we want to drive more traffic our way, not simply talk about us). This is how I've always approached my own art. However, I'll be as strict in these regards as I need to. We give this stuff away for the intent of it being used. People don't have to be sneaky, they just need to give a little credit.
CCR, if you'll point me at the infringing DA members I'll go after that as well. That's completely ridiculous.
Eclipse
Originally I posted notice in the Guild member forums, in case the concerned artists wanted to investigate and take action themselves first. (maybe they granted permission.) but I guess people don't check there that much lately.
Anyways, I just came across a few on random searches...I didn't have the time or inclination to click on every character link to see their pics. (hundreds).
Here:
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Zior
And Here:
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Jenna_Kyil
Another:
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Dim_Wa
Another:
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Alia_DeRoon
What about this one?
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/%22Sal%22_Sayl_Kunp
Hey...*This* looks familiar: (good thing Stirzy signed right on the image.)
http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Benn_Bils
As a member of the Exodus community, I'll put a post up about giving credit where credit is due. http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Benn_Bils I did edit this one and put the proper credit on it. If the other artists tell me which one is theirs, I will make the appropriate changes to all of the pictures on the Exodus wikia site.
Post concerning this issue on Exodus can be found here http://starwarsexodus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7793 ... I know they don't mean to skip out on the aknowledgement. And I know that they are very thankfull for the work that is done... I'm sure this will correct its self soon.
First off, let me apologise. I am afraid that I am one of the great perpetrators of the heinous crime (no sarcasm intended).
I often go through sites such as SWAG and DA, and save pictures I may be able to use later. As such, I have been very bad at remembering to save the name of the artist as well. When I use the picture months later, I have forgotten the name of the artist, and as I have little time available, I prefer to spend it with my wife and daughter, rather than browsing through seventeen art sites to look for an artist.
That said, I will of course be happy to add credits to the pictures - it was never my intention to steal the pictures, nor claim them as my own. And in the future, I will do my very best to credit the artists. You guys do very good work, and while I may have been a fool, my use of your pictures should be viewed as a tribute to you, rather than an attempt to belittle your efforts.
My apologies
Jagtai
We appreciate the upfront reply and honesty. Work with us to help take care of this and we'll be quite happy. I know as a wiki you're not 100% in control of what is and is not there, but we'd like to have the credit pointed at our artists any time we can. There is a small issue of making sure that the artists are ok with web-reproduction, but I doubt we'll have much objection in general.
Again thanks for helping us resolve this, and we appreciate your honesty.
Dred,
Since this is a wiki we should be able to edit some of these ourselves. I've already updated the Stirzy pic http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Benn_Bils
This doesn't have the artists ok to do yet, I just wanted to show how I'd like to see it done. A small statement under the credit section saying "This was used with the artist's permission." would be grand, but you'll need the artist's permission for that. :-)
Eclipse
With all due respect, I'd prefer to have the credits placed on the image, rather than the article linking to the image; like this: http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Image:BennBils.jpg
However, if you'd prefer the credits to be visible in the article itself, I am sure we can reach some solution that we can all be satisfied with :-)
Jagtai
I can't believe the wikis are lifting our art!
Can't really blame them, though.
Boshuda
I'm a fellow admin on the Star Wars Exodus wiki... We do always try to stress that due credit be given to the artist in the image tags and try to be prompt about taking down art that an artist doesn't want us using. Lack of sourcing has been a problem for us, mainly for the reasons Jagtai mentioned earlier. To my knowledge, no one in our community has tried to claim credit for something they didn't create though.
Is there still a search feature on SWAG? Perhaps I missed it, but I can't seem to find one now. It would help us to track down any other images that may have been missed.
I've spotted several of my pieces on there, I don't mind it staying up but it'd be nice to be credited for my work. Do you need to sign up to be able to edit the entries?
It's not neccesary to sign up to edit, however it would be nice. It helps us to keep you seperate from vandals or spammers.
Halomek, Jagtai:
I think it's very important the the credits be in text form. We as artists don't always mark our work... this isn't a good thing, but even if we did, it would make it much more difficult for someone to find said artist and look at more of their work. The text credit does that (since we can do links) and the link is critical in my opinion. Plain text-no link is just as useless as the signature on the art.
That said we REALLY appreciate your help/cooperation on this. Some sites make this sort of thing very difficult on us.
As for the search feature, I kind of screwed it up when I made the new theme for the website, so... I need to fix that. I will try to fix it today. Apologies all around for the lack of it for the last couple months.
Eclipse
Our stuff is all over this site as well: http://starwars.yahoo.com/
I found several of mine, a bunch of Imperial Lackey's, and at least one of Mazzic's. There was one of CucumberBoy's as well, but the poster at least had the decency to credit him. I'm sure there's more SWAG stuff on there that I missed.
Yeah, I've just looked into this, and I've found a couple of offenders already. I'll get a membership to the site and report them, but this is going to be a growing problem. I'm going to post some thoughts in the Guild Only Section and we'll all talk this out.
Eclipse