Crediting artists in the web revival

[Necrosia]

~Admin note: This topic has been split from a separate discussion and reconstructed here to better suit the content of the posts, some messages may be slightly out of context, but the overall discussion seemed to be worth keeping

This is a thought exercise, nothing is entirely good or bad, on this thread lets take a moment to think about the things that were not so good in the old web so we can learn with them.

1 - Uncredited content everywhere
I dont mean using images from actual big copyright holders like nintendo, animes, published comics or authors, etc, screw them, use their content as you please, I mean small creators like using fanart without giving credits to the artist or taking pixel creations that clearly were not meant to be used elsewhere. Of course we still have these problem today with the likes of pinterest but at least it is somehow credited (sometimes). Back then some images used to travel miles online to be edited in avatars, signatures, make into layouts and the original author didnt even know.

[Melooon]

You might enjoy this discussion (we build this city on stolen gifs)
https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=178.0

And this one (How do you feel when someone blatantly rips off your website)
https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=1093.0

Of course in general; I advocate crediting active creators when possible and making sure that their work is intended to be reused - however I think after a while that becomes impossible - sites go down, images quickly become abandonwear. I seen personal homepages as an arts practise and in arts "found objects" are a well accepted medium - so I think if you find something that appears to have been abandoned its not only acceptable to re-use it, but its preferable, it gives that object a new life!

[Memory]

I don't really majorly mind anything that has been posted so far. I actually enjoy the fact that we have kind of gotten back to the guerilla school of art and asset reusing.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

I don't really majorly mind anything that has been posted so far. I actually enjoy the fact that we have kind of gotten back to the guerilla school of art and asset reusing.

Excuse me, may you elaborate on "guerrilla school of art"? Sounds interesting but I don't quite get it yet

[Memory]

Excuse me, may you elaborate on "guerrilla school of art"? Sounds interesting but I don't quite get it yet

I just feel like there are two schools of thought when it comes to the role of art in society.

Traditionally, people view art as the property of the artist, that which the artist feeds themselves with and therefore akin to a physical product. Just as a regular physical commodity as produced by a craftsman (think a table by a carpenter), where the output is their very own tangible commodity with a use and a resale value, a painter might paint and sell a painting. What is done to the artistic output, for example a remix or a copy, requires permission by the artist as its rightful owner. This has propagated to digital art, too: even though they can be copied and moved without losing the original (as opposed to a painting which only exists once), they are essentially the property of the artist and should not be considered a common good in their eyes.
In this framework, reusing art in your own works without payment, or just straight up lifting it to reuse for yourself as we would a cool GIF we found on our website, is pretty much theft: hence the negative reaction to not crediting artists, "stealing" art, and neural networks building on art.

Others meanwhile, whose viewpoint I spontaneously titled "guerilla school of art", view art as a product of society as a whole, where the artist is but the executive arm of a much larger corpus of society's past artistic output, building upon it like a single ant extends an anthill. Art grows as a phenomenon upon itself; generations of artists before have built a foundation of knowledge, experience and canon where no artist can truly claim any work as their own alone. Art therefore is a product of all of society, not a single person, and should be freely accessible and reusable in the same way that we currently treat language: as a social good that belongs to everyone and no-one. In this framework, art can be freely used, reused, remixed, "stolen", displayed, built upon and redistributed, as it is a common good. Of course, this view of art often conflicts with the more material needs of artists in a capitalist society: they require to be paid to survive and be able to create more art to pay themselves, which requires marketing and a recognizable name, a certain exclusivity and the ability to sell and control your own work. It is a tragedy; for the economic system we live under requires art to be ripped from society's collective ownership into the limited commodity form.

My personal opinion about all this is that the social spaces that we are building here in the web revival are precious and powerful to many people, and would not be possible if we all rigidly credited and licensed the assets that we use. On a small scale like this, "stealing art" is okay in my book: especially the GIFs and buttons and backgrounds and layouts and scripts that we all share and occasionally lift. The existence of the web revival does not threaten the livelihood of artists but instead perhaps even promotes it; for if I really like a person and their art, I might commission something off of them, and I would not have been able to get to know them in the first place if positive spaces such as these that allow people to express themselves did not exist. Naive creativity like web crafting with simple (X)HTML and CSS like back in the day is a joy, and using art without crediting is almost an inherent part of it. Of course, claiming something as your own is not okay; but using others' assets to build a very new thing is what all art is about in the end, is it not?
 
Just as I could not have built my website without assets from some 1998 asset CD, GIFs and assets taken from other people's works, not to mention endless tutorials and guides, Picasso would not have been able to define a whole new school of art without all those who came before him and figuratively painted his way forward; those who manufactured the paint and the canvases, those who gave him a home and an education. No piece of art is the product of one mind only, and if you think about it, neither is any product at all.

Common ownership of all that society produces, without copyright and property, is impossible in the economic conditions of our time, but perhaps we can live out our own little corner of this utopia in this web revival we are building. That is what I mean with guerilla art.

[Melooon]

guerilla school of art

I love this phrase and I actually assumed it was an established term when you first said it! Its like Gurilla Warfare but for art, its making do with what you have, breaking a few rules when you need too, getting the job done and being creative even when conditions are not in your favor - it feels very liberating - like being a Robbin Hood of the arts 

And I agree with your expanded definition; I'm not really into the economics side of the argument, simply because I think it gets in the way of the creative process (at least in my mind) - but I agree that honest reuse and adaptation is key; nothing gets done if you have to reinvent everything each time you take a step.

[Necrosia]

I just feel like there are two schools of thought when it comes to the role of art in society.

Yours is a popular opinion, which I personally like to call the "programmer mindset", let me offer a counter argument and explain the problem with this.

Programmers and "tech people" come from a place of privilege but we just don't realize it.

Often programmers who enjoy open source and think code should be free and editable by all and wish to do the same with art forget that programmers enjoy one of the higher paychecks available while most artists struggle to make ends meet. Of course a programmer don't mind someone taking a piece of their code since they know they will have more job to do tomorrow but this is not true for artists. If you work as a tech person on a company you are used to having your code edited and mangled by others, its part of the business and the reason we work in teams but artists work mostly alone as freelancers.

Picasso would not have been able to define a whole new school of art without all those who came before him and figuratively painted his way forward.

True, but when someone steals art from XYZ person it's not me, you, picasso, dali, davinci and all other artists who are harmed, it's XYZ alone. It's XYZ who lost one potencial costumer, its XYZ who spent hours studying and creating for it to be stolen in a second. Even a programmer who doesn't like sharing their code will probably not make a big fuss about being stolen because they know they will have another costumer tomorrow or so, which is not the case for artists and if you browse any art commission community you will see this.

The only reason we think its okay to take art and use it is because art as a corporate industry is weak and not unionized.

Here's a fun experiment: make a video using a very popular song, wait and see youtube remove it on a second. Now try and make a video with a popular piece of art, lets say RJ Palmer for example. Watch and see youtube do absolutely nothing about it. Why? Because music is a huge industry were millions and millions of dollars flow and they can and will sue you for copyright infringement while art is "just art", "just a silly picture someone drew out of love".
Even funnier experiment: make a website to download free brand music and see what happens.

On a small scale like this, "stealing art" is okay in my book: especially the GIFs and buttons and backgrounds and layouts and scripts that we all share and occasionally lift. The existence of the web revival does not threaten the livelihood of artists but instead perhaps even promotes it

This mindset enables big companies and people who can actually pay to do the same, using somebody else's art with the excuse of promotion is dangerous, its one of the most used excuses to get artists to work for free, because "you will get more free views".

I agree that using a silly picture in a personal retroweb website is pretty harmless but it sets a dangerous precedent, where do you draw the line? Artists are already exploited by so many, AI company admitted to using art without permission to train their datasets. There are plenty of cases where musicians and even video game companies did the same, and no we are not talking small indie people, we are talking big companies (but I don't think indies have an excuse as well).

Whats the difference between the "programmer mindset" argument and this?


On a perfect world everything would be free from the corporate hands but this is not our reality so when you use art disregarding the artist opinion you are helping put down an already pretty exploited portion of society. This may not be the intention but its harvesting the benefits of an exploitation created by the capitalistic society.

Edit: I also think it's pretty egoistic when an artist says "please dont use my art because it hurts my business" and the best argument people can come up to not follow this very simple instruction is basically " I don't think this hurts you enough " or " I don't think you are hurt at all. "

[Memory]

Yours is a popular opinion, which I personally like to call the "programmer mindset", let me offer a counter argument and explain the problem with this.
Programmers and "tech people" come from a place of privilege but we just don't realize it.

I don't think the opinion that art is a common good like air or language is popular at all. There are strong copyright standards enforced more or less all over the world, art is a commodity that can be sold and produced as a profession, and licensing is a large business.

Plus, I don't come from a "tech people" background; I also produce and publish art. I just license it freely.

Often programmers who enjoy open source and think code should be free and editable by all and wish to do the same with art forget that programmers enjoy one of the higher paychecks available while most artists struggle to make ends meet. Of course a programmer don't mind someone taking a piece of their code since they know they will have more job to do tomorrow but this is not true for artists. If you work as a tech person on a company you are used to having your code edited and mangled by others, its part of the business and the reason we work in teams but artists work mostly alone as freelancers.

But that is not what free software and open source mean for programmers, either. Free software is very very rarely produced in a corporate setting where they "get paid anyway"; free software is produced by volunteers who share their own solutions to common problems and work in a team on software in their free time. Think VLC, Audacity, formerly Firefox, GNU and Linux as a whole. They were all produced without any profit motive or compensation at all. Plus, free software does not preclude payment; for example, you can make the source freely available but the compiled package paid; or you can work on donations, offer support and so on. Similar models exist for traditional art, too.

The difference actually is not that artists are poor and programmers somehow get paid for writing free software. The difference is that programmers in free software attempt to solve a problem they face themselves and then publish a solution for everyone else to use out of the goodness of their own heart without any payment in return, simply for recognition, pride or solidarity. Art can be the same thing: creating art to enrich the world with, well, more art, for recognition or simply to try it out for fun.

Both programming and art can be done for free and for the common good, not only as a commodity. Highly-paid programmers do not program open source usually, just as professional wage labor artists like concept artists do not publish their art themselves.

True, but when someone steals art from XYZ person it's not me, you, picasso, dali, davinci and all other artists who are harmed, it's XYZ alone. It's XYZ who lost one potencial costumer, its XYZ who spent hours studying and creating for it to be stolen in a second.

Most of the time seeing "stolen" or uncredited art is not an act of choosing between buying it or pirating it, you would otherwise just not have bought or seen it at all. Barely anyone is willing to pay for art in the first place, and the people who are, are not going to be dissuaded by non-credited work here and there. No customer was lost; there just wouldn't have been a customer or consumer otherwise. Plenty of studies have been made about video game piracy as a tangent, where it does not hurt the sales at all but instead even might support it because people "try before they buy". And me using a little character gif for my website that someone else made is, honestly, not going to result in a lost sale for the character gif artist, if they even sell at all.

Even a programmer who doesn't like sharing their code will probably not make a big fuss about being stolen because they know they will have another costumer tomorrow or so, which is not the case for artists and if you browse any art commission community you will see this.

I don't know where you got that from, but intellectual property theft in the form of using code without a license is generally considered a big outrage. Programmers do not like their licenses broken either. Plus, I don't see the difference between a programmer's "customers" and an artist's "customers"; both get commissioned and both sometimes scrape by without a lot of sales or a steady income.

The only reason we think its okay to take art and use it is because art as a corporate industry is weak and not unionized.

But the artists we are talking about are freelancers, who would they unionize against? ... and larger art sectors as in those with a steady salary are not the ones we are talking about either. I don't make the point that artists do not deserve to be paid - I make the point that art as a whole is something that should not be able to be property of any single person.

Here's a fun experiment: make a video using a very popular song, wait and see youtube remove it on a second. Now try and make a video with a popular piece of art, lets say RJ Palmer for example. Watch and see youtube do absolutely nothing about it. Why? Because music is a huge industry were millions and millions of dollars flow and they can and will sue you for copyright infringement while art is "just art", "just a silly picture someone drew out of love".
Even funnier experiment: make a website to download free brand music and see what happens.

This is definitely a point, yeah, and quite hypocritical of the big copyright enforcers like YouTube. Although you can argue that by reusing music in a video format you are providing the same kind of entertainment with your video as with the music itself while using an art asset is pretty removed from a video as a medium so that it might qualify for some as a "lesser deal".

This mindset enables big companies and people who can actually pay to do the same, using somebody else's art with the excuse of promotion is dangerous, its one of the most used excuses to get artists to work for free, because "you will get more free views".

That is not what I meant though. I meant that the spaces that we build here (with partly uncredited assets) are also spaces for artists to live in, promote their work, socialize, learn and make friends. Without these spaces, plenty of artists like you and me would not have this kind of room for socializing, it would simply not exist, and I dare say none of us would be much richer in commissions.

I agree that using a silly picture in a personal retroweb website is pretty harmless but it sets a dangerous precedent, where do you draw the line? Artists are already exploited by so many, AI company admitted to using art without permission to train their datasets. There are plenty of cases where musicians and even video game companies did the same, and no we are not talking small indie people, we are talking big companies (but I don't think indies have an excuse as well).

I just do not think that art is something that belongs to the artist. Art is a social phenomenon that exists in and permeates society as a construct of the whole community, not a singular person. Where is the difference in a neural network learning patterns from existing art in hours, and a person learning patterns from existing art over a lifetime? If you argue like that, then every living artist stole all of art history. Everyone who has ever used elves or orcs owes royalties to Tolkien, and likewise Tolkien owes to the canon of folklore and mystery throughout human history. Goethe did not own the character of Faustus, and the Divine Comedy could not have been written without the generations before.

I think art should not be a commodity, full stop. Art, like language, should float all around us, and an artist is one who adds to the common canon we all share.

Whats the difference between the "programmer mindset" argument and this?

None, except that Elon Musk here is out to provoke people and not make a healthy or actual argument.

On a perfect world everything would be free from the corporate hands but this is not our reality so when you use art disregarding the artist opinion you are helping put down an already pretty exploited portion of society. This may not be the intention but its harvesting the benefits of an exploitation created by the capitalistic society.

A world where we commodify every single aspect of human interaction is not a world I would like to live in, and just because capitalism led to this bad state of affairs does not mean we have to intensify it for some lost righteous cause. No artist is losing out on lucrative commissions because someone used their textures to build a yesterweb site.

Edit: I also think it's pretty egoistic when an artist says "please dont use my art because it hurts my business" and the best argument people can come up to not follow this very simple instruction is basically " I don't think this hurts you enough " or " I don't think you are hurt at all. "

If they desire to make basic human social behavior and needs into strictly controlled and enforced commodities for their own wallets, they have not been particularly well meaning people in the first place. If I wanted to, I could sell all of my "services" to people: pay for spending time with me as a friend, pay to use my solution to this tech problem, pay to be in a relationship with me, pay to propagate my inside jokes (I thought very hard about them!), pay to let me watch your plants over the holidays, pay to use slang I made up, and so on and so on. But I have empathy, so I don't make any of these into a job.

The bottom line is: making art should not be a "job", art should be a hobby, a pastime, a fundamental part of human existence. Art being a product for sale and lockdown is a distortion of what it should be.

[Necrosia]

I don't think the opinion that art is a common good like air or language is popular at all.

It is very popular, it's the most common argument used by people defending the use of any and all sort of art on the internet to generate datasets for IA. You can search more about it regarding the recent scandals of DeviantArt and Artstation allowing AI-generated art on their platforms.

Plus, I don't come from a "tech people" background; I also produce and publish art. I just license it freely.

Sorry, my bad, but so do I. Which of these is your actual day job tho?

The difference actually is not that artists are poor and programmers somehow get paid for writing free software. The difference is that programmers in free software attempt to solve a problem they face themselves and then publish a solution for everyone else to use out of the goodness of their own heart without any payment in return, simply for recognition, pride or solidarity. Art can be the same thing: creating art to enrich the world with, well, more art, for recognition or simply to try it out for fun.

You missed the fact that the only reason programmers are able to work on free software it's because they do have a job that actually pay the bills, try to do charity work when you don't know when the next paycheck is coming.

Most of the time seeing "stolen" or uncredited art is not an act of choosing between buying it or pirating it, you would otherwise just not have bought or seen it at all. Barely anyone is willing to pay for art in the first place, and the people who are, are not going to be dissuaded by non-credited work here and there. No customer was lost; there just wouldn't have been a customer or consumer otherwise. Plenty of studies have been made about video game piracy as a tangent, where it does not hurt the sales at all but instead even might support it because people "try before they buy". And me using a little character gif for my website that someone else made is, honestly, not going to result in a lost sale for the character gif artist, if they even sell at all.

You are comparing common art made my regular artists to corporate-funded content, which is unfair. I am all for pirating things from big companies since they have their share of surplus value added to the product but the same cannot be said about indie games, for example. 

But the artists we are talking about are freelancers, who would they unionize against? ... and larger art sectors as in those with a steady salary are not the ones we are talking about either.

The reason they are freelancers is exactly because the industry refuses to see them as worthy of stable jobs. I recommend browsing communities where artists who live with an artists paycheck go and post about it to see the actual state of the industry. You seem extremely out of touch with what most artists think of the current conditions and please, I beg of you, I dislike twitter as much as the next person but the opinions here are from accredited industry workers who work on big things such as marvel movies and triple A games.

https://twitter.com/kortizart/status/1597360819368792065
https://twitter.com/LukePlunkett/status/1602858803635986438
https://www.gofundme.com/f/protecting-artists-from-ai-technologies
https://twitter.com/jkierbel/status/1631538117915156480

I just do not think that art is something that belongs to the artist. Art is a social phenomenon that exists in and permeates society as a construct of the whole community, not a singular person.

Why?

Where is the difference in a neural network learning patterns from existing art in hours, and a person learning patterns from existing art over a lifetime? If you argue like that, then every living artist stole all of art history. Everyone who has ever used elves or orcs owes royalties to Tolkien, and likewise Tolkien owes to the canon of folklore and mystery throughout human history. Goethe did not own the character of Faustus, and the Divine Comedy could not have been written without the generations before.

Please read aforementioned links to understand better.

I think art should not be a commodity, full stop. Art, like language, should float all around us, and an artist is one who adds to the common canon we all share.

What a noble cause, I think most artists prefer to be payed though.

The bottom line is: making art should not be a "job", art should be a hobby, a pastime, a fundamental part of human existence. Art being a product for sale and lockdown is a distortion of what it should be.

You do realize that the only reason you can say art is not a job is because you, who also claims to be an artist, do have some other form of income in your life, right? A privilege.

You place art on a higher moral ground with no valid excuse to do so other than "its part of human nature", therefore judging and considering unworthy those who try to get payed by the effort they put into it simply because they do not meet your exoteric moral standards.

Programming is but a complex outcome of math and logic, when ancient sumerians made the first historical evidence of written maths they were simply writing out what nature made. Therefore I don't think programming should be a day-job since its a fundamental part of life.

[Memory]

Agree, /home/user. The artists' misery is unfortuneatly how the "market" in general works. And if it's not possible anymore to make a business, or because the market is overcrowded, then it's probably easier to look elsewhere, doing something else for a living. Harsh reality. Look, if you can use a computer already,  become an IT admin, they are searched all over the place...

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Just let me add my two cents to this conversation about art and retribution and money without making it confrontational.

I understand art as something that's beyond commodity, something created by the world for the world, something more than just something to be bought and sold. Making and seeing art I like makes me happy in a way nothing else can. Art can convey messages, feelings, or simply, beauty, and it's overall good for the soul.

I also understand that artists are mortal, human, and subject to taxes like every mortal human. And that we'd like to get retribution for what we make in the form of groceries, paid bills, or perhaps even a treat.

I think one point we should consider is the intention behind the "acquisition" of art. A company who needs a cartoon man for a quick advertisement does not care much about who the cartoon man is or what he means - it just wants him as a way to convey ideas directed towards advertising a product. Any cartoon man in the world would do, and they couldn't care less if he was drawn by Dalí himself. Companies like to go for the quick and easy. That's why stock art exists (which is the boring (to me  ) but legal way), and that's why stealing art and AI-generated art exists. Of course the company cares the cartoon man looks good, but it mostly cares about having a cost effective and quick way to have a cartoon man to use on its advertisement.

Someone who commissions art doesn't think like this. A commissioner admires an artist, respects them (because we all know tales about bad commissioners who don't pay!) and wants the artist to draw them something they choose, and thus pays the artist for their time, their skill, and the ability to say what they make. Money is materialistic, sure, but it's also a way to convey gratitude? It's the most "universal" way to make sure the artist gets something they need or want. It's be lovely if swapping skills ("you draw me this and i make you that") or objects ("you draw me this for this object you want and I no longer need") was a more used form of transaction, but as for now, money is the most general method.

Of course, there's art that's meant to be given without expecting something in return. And it's a good practice, in general, to be able to trace back to an art's original maker. Many artists love recognition, and many art appreciators would like to know what else did the artist make.

Do you know the term "steal like an artist"? It means to take inspiration from other artists, to make your own, but not directly copy or steal their art. I do understand those who are developing their art copying things from the artists they like - it's like training wheels on a bike, in a way. You're eventually expected to differentiate from your inspirations, in some way or other. Creativity is as infinite as the collective of humankind is, and I think it's a very noble approach to get inspired, but also strive to create something of your own. Not "new" - nothing is original, you know. Yours.

I do believe we would benefit from a different approach to art in society. Not just as a product to be bought and sold. Art as a way to soothe everybody's souls, because everybody can make art, and any art can mean something to someone no matter how unprofessional or ugly it is. Differientating the many uses people can give to art, and how it can be reinterpreted (the cartoon man from the ad exists solely to sell a product, but what if i want to put that cartoon man in a story that has nothing to do with the product?) and used fairly (you know what they say, "steal like an artist"). Learning how to find, appreciate and support other artists, exchanging our skills and learning together... and yeah, that also includes supporting them in a monetary way. All in all, I believe an artist has to have a say on what is done about their art.

I think I've got something else related to all of this "art, money and the collective pool of art of humanity" topic: the written experience of the creator of the End Poem from Minecraft, and what happened to him and his poem when Minecraft got bought by Microsoft and Notch went... well, went the way of people who let money go to their head. He recognizes both the need to give back to the universe and the need for financial compensation, so I think this is a very interesting read.

[Melooon]

I think it's important to keep a discussion like this non-personal; I'm not interested in moderating a "they started it first" debate, so if that continues this will be unlisted 

I would add that we've sorta already had this discussion on the AI Art topic so it might be worth reading that if you've been following: https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=850.0

However, on a personal note, I'd also like to chime in - it sounds like @Necrosia and @/home/user/ are discussing different things:

/home/ - you seem to be coming at this more from the academic/conceptual perspective of art - this type of art is all about art as a form of exploration of the human condition; in its pure form it's very separate from the day to day workings of physical art - its also closer to the area that I work in, most of my sites are a form of conceptual art involving digital life.

Necro - you seem to be coming from this with more of a craft perspective - you're looking at art as a craft, which makes it much closer to a typical profession; in craft, a distinct object is created and that object is the focus of the value.

Those two things are mutually dependent, but also quite separate. All art is a mix of both, but it's not fair to debate one over the other because it very much comes down to the artist/audience and what they are trying to achieve. Although, @Corrupted Unicorn  makes a great point that looking at the intent of use is a good way to find a practical middle ground.

I'd also like to make it very clear that as a programmer and an artist (who runs this forum which is dedicated to programming/web design as art); I cannot separate the two, they are the same in my mind; so the same divide of conceptual programming versus the craft of programming applies.

[Necrosia]

I agree with what both of you said @Corrupted Unicorn and @Melooon

My point is that artist is a job like any other regardless of the intent of the art being made. The Gates of Hell, a famous and iconic sculpture by Auguste Rodin was made for a commission, all disney movies to which people atribute great emotional value and happy feelings were made with the pretense of generating profit so clearly the line between Made for Money X Made to Cause a Reaction is not as black as white at it may seem.

I am all for using media owned by big corporations but if a simple artist is asking you to please credit their work is it not simple courtesy to credit it? Is it not simple courtesy to respect the wishes of those who created it? I could excuse such behaviours on the past when the internet was wild and machine translation was a only a dream but today we have reverse search, we can translate sites of japanese/chinese/any language you dont know to read their instances regarding the use of their art.

All I ask of people is to at least do an honest effort to try and credit the art they are using on their harmless websites, if the artist is against the use but you still wanna use it then just do it but still credit, as someone said before on this thread the artist will probably never find out.

I just don’t think that saying that art exists to enlighten and explore the human condition a valid excuse to disregard the honest request of those who made the art because this mindset can be applied to mostly anything.