Its OK to repost art: the case for art-reposting.

[garystu]

Reposting is platform-agnostic sharing. If you're ok with people smashing that Share/Reblog button, you must be OK with people reposting your art, because they are the same thing.

Share/Reblog buttons are a platform-approved systematization of a folk practice. If you only allow people to share your work through the systematized means, you're helping web silos maintain themselves. Gross. Don't do that.

Releasing art needs to mean letting it go to a certain extent. I'm sorry, but the "if you don't want it reposted, don't post it online in the first place" crowd are completely right.

Reposting is also preservation. In a brute-force way, like piracy. Genuinely, the more copies of a work exist, the more likely it is for One copy to survive into the future. Reposting is creating more copies. It's preservation.

Spoiler

You may have noticed an elephant in the room missing: Credit. I generally think crediting is good and you should do it. I also recognize bibliography is work, and don't begrudge people who don't.

BTW: people sign their work to remove the work of crediting for future reposters. Signing your work is so people can repost without needing to credit you - the credit is baked into the art!

Have you seen art like this?

Why do you sign your work if you don't allow reposting, and you put the big "donut repost" on the art as well! Whats the point, to add as many ugly watermarks as possible? Christ almighty. I block every artist who does this tedious shit, I fucking hate it.

[close]

[Dreamwings]

At it's basis it is the same, but I think the reason that most artists are against it is because when other people repost it, then the number doesn't go up on their end but will for the other person. If the account is big enough then the number will go up thrice as high as for the other person as it would for them and if the account didn't credit them they get none of said repost's power. For a lot of people who are or are trying to make social media/internet artist a job, the number going up for them and them alone means life or death.

I agree with your thoughts though. There are so many pictures from the 2000s that I only was able to find from reposts and imageboards like Derpibooru, Danbooru, Zerochan, etc (which btw, the imageboards I feel do image reposting the best as getting the highest quality copy, sorting everything, and making sure the source is found is priority). There was one piece from an artist I found from a WINAMP SKIN that I would not have seen otherwise as all of their stuff was exclusively posted to a niche art website in the 1990s that is completely unarchived by the Wayback Machine. Even though they put their real name on the art and was given a link, there is absolutely nothing of it left (or even any records of the person for that matter). The only work that survived was that Winamp skin and that was, even then, only by chance. That Winamp skin was made by someone who wasn't the artist (though they did ask for permission before making it according to them). Artists like Eric Schwartz had their work traded on floppies in the 90s and despite there having been hundreds of other artists at the time making furry animations for the Amiga, his are the only ones that survived into the future because they were shared around so much and because there were so many copies of it (that and he generally stuck around for a while in the 2000s and 2010s so if someone looked up the name they would be able to find him or something relating to him to go from there but still).

That being said, I don't know if it is necessarily a one-size-fits-all thing. Like I said at the beginning, people who make internet artist their job need the number on their stuff alone, hence why they enforce the art to not be reposted. For those, it surviving on would be less of a priority to the immediate income that would come from it. We could probably argue how valid that is and being a social media influencer is till the cows come home, but the point I am trying to get at is for some people, reposting would be detrimental not just to ego but to their livelyhoods. Regardless of thoughts on capitalism and defining yourself by the numbers big corpos enforce, it is something that affects people's income and I feel like those thoughts shouldn't entirely be discarded.

My personal stance for my own stuff is I don't mind too much so long as my signature/watermark isn't being cropped out or credit isn't being taken. Said watermark has my name, and I have so many accounts and have had them for long enough under the same name that people can find the source fairly easily I think. I'd probably be pretty pissed off if their number went higher than my number of course since I barely get anything when I post it, but I try not to care about all of that stuff and as long as it can be seen where it comes from, then people who do care and want to see more can go on a journey to find me from there. But I have DMCA struck people who try to take credit for my things in the past (have only had to do it twice but still).

[larvapuppy]

On some level I think artists know that what happens to their art after they post it online is out of their hands... I don't think that means we get to completely throw etiquette out of the window, though. In a perfect world we would all be respecting each other's boundaries and rights. The reason artists use "ugly" watermarks is because their art is clearly personal to them, it's something they deeply care about, and they want some level of control and consent to be involved if/when it's reproduced. Or at least some accountability/credit. Treating art like a commodity that only exists to be consumed by the masses erases the artist's intent.

I assumed that the general consensus was that people with manners will only repost art with permission from the artist, but maybe not? Are we really entitled to make infinite copies of someone's art and spread them wherever we want? Is being able to go back and view art we liked forever into the future(preservation) a good enough end to justify the means?

It is sad when art or graphics get lost, but we don't seem to be as concerned about losing the art of beginner artists or art that is considered less desirable. If preservation was really our concern we would be infinitely reposting all art. The real reason certain art gets stolen and reposted is because the reposters know that it will gain them internet attention (and sometimes even money, depending if the platform allows monetization).

That being said, I'm not completely against reposting art. Plenty of artists are fine with their art being reposted! I just think that we should think a bit more about the artists' wishes and intent for their pieces. Art that was clearly intended to be used as web graphics/decor, for example, seems more okay to repost/reuse on our own sites. Fanartists tend to find reposts more acceptable, oftentimes as long as they get credit. I think it's pretty sad when a piece of art is floating around with no more ties to its original creator.

Here is an art piece that I like & that I think is relevant to the topic of the commodification of art online.

[Bede]

The reason artists use "ugly" watermarks is because their art is clearly personal to them, it's something they deeply care about, and they want some level of control and consent to be involved if/when it's reproduced. Or at least some accountability/credit. Treating art like a commodity that only exists to be consumed by the masses erases the artist's intent.
I assumed that the general consensus was that people with manners will only repost art with permission from the artist, but maybe not? Are we really entitled to make infinite copies of someone's art and spread them wherever we want?

EXACTLY THIS! Why is preservation of art more important than the artist's wishes? Why is it that, as soon as art is out in the open, it's immediately ripped from the hands of its creators, as if the creators' wishes don't matter? Listen, I'm all for death of the author when it comes to interpreting fiction! But when it comes to what is done with the art (not how it's interpreted), it's bear minimum decency to respect the wishes of the creator.

"It's the internet! It'll happen eventually!" That is said in the same way that, if I go outside without bugspray, I can expect to be bitten by bugs. But why are you equating yourself and your fellow man to bugs? Something mindless, a force of nature that cannot be stopped? If everybody who saw a piece of art simply used their brains to choose not to repost it, it would not be reposted. You are not robots. You are able to think and respect etiquette.

Also, you don't need to repost artwork to other sites for it to be archived. The "Save Image As..." button exists for a reason. You can save it to your personal computer, and have it forever. I personally save artwork I like to my personal hard drive, with the credit in the name. (Example, if I found something on BlueSky by the user @doingart.bsky.social, I'll name the file "bluesky - doingart.bsky.social".)

This post genuinely sort of made me feel demotivated to continue with my art. Is this really how people view us? To the point that they bitterly and angrily stop supporting us if we put "ugly watermarks" on our work? Do you think the people doing that want to obscure their artwork?

People want to "consume" our "content". Consume, consume, consume our work... but the moment we have any requests for how what we made is treated, we're regarded with complete disgust. It's depressing. It's sincerely depressing.

Do better

Edit: For the record, I'm saying all of this as someone who explicitly allows reposting (with credit) in my blanket permissions. It's not about reposting, really -- it's about respect. And saying that artists posting their work online should just be passively fine with people doing whatever they want with it (same argument used by AI bros) and never make any requests to be seen as a human with desires; they should Churn Out Art Mindlessly like good Art Machines; is brimming with absolute disrespect.

[Dreamwings]

And saying that artists posting their work online should just be passively fine with people doing whatever they want with it (same argument used by AI bros, by the way, so you're in good company, OP) and never make any requests to be seen as a human with desires; they should Churn Out Art Mindlessly like good Art Machines; is brimming with absolute disrespect.

With all due respect, (because I do think the main point you're making is valid to the discussion) they never said that and you're assuming the worst of their intentions. From my interpretation, in fact, to garystu this is good for artists, because they are only looking at the discussion and topic of art reposting from the perspective of an anarchistic preservationist. Yes they too speak in absolutes, yes they're pretty brash with said beliefs (as evident by blocking those who they see as disagreeing), but they did post this on a forum to have a discussion (otherwise if they didn't they would just post it on their own website or somewhere else with an echo-chamber).
I'm not trying to tone police or anything, nor am I trying to come across like I'm all high and mighty or whatever for saying. I just feel that it was a bit uncalled for if we're going to have this sort of discussion to start saying the other side said something they didn't.

To build upon this, I second the point though that garystu is making similar arguments to pro-AI folk in a sense, whether they intended to or not. I didn't say anything because I thought it was a bit out of left field and y'know, not what was being argued about but since it's been brought up I might as well. A few months ago, this tumblr post ended up in my feed. If you don't want to go read it, the general gist is the person making the post is arguing that if you appreciate archival work like the internet archive, you should be fine with AI training on your work. To disagree is a contradiction. Either you should be allowed to violate copyright and therefore AI training should be fine or not. And if you say there is a gray area then it is hypocrisy and that copyright does not speak in granular case-by-case basis because they are all the same. That criminalizing AI training and reposting would mean criminalizing even saving the images to your own machine. Now of course, needless to say I feel like there is definitely more of a gray area between those two. AI training creates new products out of existing ones, just downloading something does not. And there is a fundamental difference between a machine creating something programmatically (no matter how close it is to the neural pathways of a human) and that of a person. Something which copyright law currently also accounts for. However the thing is the argument made here for reposting and the argument made for this are similar (particularly the first reblog to the original post of the thread which also addresses the posts made by the last two here for whether it should be artists wishes > preservation).

I don't think that was their intention of course, and I know that people can have the same arguments as another side they disagree with or equally dislike similar things. But it's just something to bring up I guess if we're getting into that now.

Here is an art piece that I like & that I think is relevant to the topic of the commodification of art online.

Thank you for sharing this link by the way. And I guess also relevant to the topic, there is no signiture or watermark on this so if it was reposted away from the source I never would have known where it was from, seen more of the artist's work, vibed with it, and then been able to follow them from there. Which is also relevant to the art because the whole point of the art is it gets stripped when it is reposted.
Annoyingly, and also relevant to that picture, I wanted to share a post in return about the artist behind the red painting with the knight kneeling with a sword in front of a giant (something which is also very often reposted in memes without credit) but now I can't find that post anymore and I completely forgot the name outside of their first name being "Diana". 🥲

[kzuich]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with you OP. A lot of people don't wanna hear it but that's the way it goes when you choose to share something with the public. Not just online, but I think in other capacities, too.

As an artist, I think the discomfort for me would come from someone impersonating me, not so much that they were reposting my art. I wonder how true that is for a lot of artists. It's not even about my so-called "style", which people get so hung up on, but myself as a person. But most platforms have rules about that, and frankly I doubt people care that much about me to pretend to be me, lol! 

I also don't do art for money, so I care a lot less than I think someone whose income relies on it would.

[Bede]

With all due respect, (because I do think the main point you're making is valid to the discussion) they never said that and you're assuming the worst of their intentions. From my interpretation, in fact, to garystu this is good for artists, because they are only looking at the discussion and topic of art reposting from the perspective of an anarchistic preservationist. Yes they too speak in absolutes, yes they're pretty brash with said beliefs (as evident by blocking those who they see as disagreeing), but they did post this on a forum to have a discussion (otherwise if they didn't they would just post it on their own website or somewhere else with an echo-chamber).

That's fair. I wasn't trying to say they said that -- I was trying to go to the upmost extreme version of their argument on purpose. You know, show where the line of thinking of "what the artist wants us to do with their art doesn't really matter, they lost privilege over that when they posted their art online" goes. Because it's separating art from the artist, in the way of, "Your art comes before your desires as the artist." So the logical extreme of that is, "Pump out more art, because you, as a human, don't matter." If that makes sense.

To build upon this, I second the point though that garystu is making similar arguments to pro-AI folk in a sense, whether they intended to or not. I didn't say anything because I thought it was a bit out of left field and y'know, not what was being argued about but since it's been brought up I might as well. A few months ago, this tumblr post ended up in my feed. If you don't want to go read it, the general gist is the person making the post is arguing that if you appreciate archival work like the internet archive, you should be fine with AI training on your work. To disagree is a contradiction. Either you should be allowed to violate copyright and therefore AI training should be fine or not. And if you say there is a gray area then it is hypocrisy and that copyright does not speak in granular case-by-case basis because they are all the same. That criminalizing AI training and reposting would mean criminalizing even saving the images to your own machine. Now of course, needless to say I feel like there is definitely more of a gray area between those two. AI training creates new products out of existing ones, just downloading something does not. And there is a fundamental difference between a machine creating something programmatically (no matter how close it is to the neural pathways of a human) and that of a person. Something which copyright law currently also accounts for. However the thing is the argument made here for reposting and the argument made for this are similar (particularly the first reblog to the original post of the thread which also addresses the posts made by the last two here for whether it should be artists wishes > preservation).

This post is very interesting, and is actually a thinker for me. I've always had issues with people who aim to stop AI via copyright law. I consider copyright law largely outdated, and harmful to small artists while aiding the super-rich corps. I suppose that's largely where my differences in opinion lie. If it's a small artist whose work you're archiving without their permission, that's more of an offense than archiving the work of an extremely popular mangaka, for example.

I think this argument is thought-provoking, but also, I feel like it kind of falls on its face when you remember that you can request to be excluded from the internet archive. So you can, in fact, opt out of being archived.

[Grimlock]

while repostings help in online art preservation Is undoubtable, i feel like ignoring both the fact that this is people's livelihoods, the landscape of the internet and how people behave on it, and the simple fact that not everyone will want their art to outlive them. Especially when sometimes art with those "ugly watermarks" are commissions and in order to open commissions you HAVE to have art examples which may include commissions which is going to be a lot more messy to apply a "if it's publicly posted in any manner you can repost it" rule than just regular art

even if a repost has the credit, not everyone is going to click that link. people don't even links for articles and take the headline at face value. a repost with credit will usually give more attention to the original, but the fact that on some platforms you can get money from reposting art you didn't make kind of makes it dubious.

also it is incredibly easy for someone to impersonate artists like this, especially in primarily English speaking spaces, because malicious actors will impersonate a foreign artist and repost their works. And people won't know unless the original artist notices and can notify people about it! the current landscape of the internet simply does not cultivate a space where reposting can be 100% good.

people genuinely do not respect artists enough at the moment for this to really work, there are so many horror stories of people's personal oc art and stories being taken and used for DnD campaigns.

[Capybara]

Reposting is platform-agnostic sharing. If you're ok with people smashing that Share/Reblog button, you must be OK with people reposting your art, because they are the same thing.

IMO, no, not quite. Reblogging is sharing an image on the same site, but reposting is often just posting it where the artist has no idea. It can break containment that way. If an artist doesn't want something reposted to another site, that's something I think should be respected. I understand that what you post will be out of your hands... I personally don't want certain art of mine reposted, but I know it will be. But that's more of a resignment than encouragement.

I think there are grey areas to this though. Like it's fine to repost or publicly archive dated art over a decade old, or if a certain artist hasn't been online in 5+ years. And I completely support image boorus that sort and tag things (Derpibooru, etc.) as long as they have a DNP option, FYI.

[larvapuppy]

To add to what I said in my previous reply and based on thoughts I've had while reading some of the replies that have appeared since...

I am not a libertarian or an individualist, so I am naturally skeptical of those who don't care about where the works they interact with come from. It seems quite immature and entitled to say that mindlessly reposting art without considering the artist's feelings on the matter is okay. To imply that it's fine just because this is the status quo on the internet - "other people are doing it, so it's okay" - is faulty reasoning.

I want to live in a world where we respect one another and are mindful about the impact of the way we engage with things. Sometimes that means taking a little bit of extra time to consider an artist's stance on reposts of their work. Thinking about where our things come from applies to other areas of our lives as well. Do we want to thoughtlessly purchase mass-produced goods that were produced under poor working conditions, just because they are cheaper and more readily available?

It's funny that generative AI was mentioned, because I know that some artists have stopped posting online altogether for fear of their works being used in image generation datasets. This is the end result of treating others with disrespect- they will no longer be so ready to share themselves with the world. In fact, copyright isn't the issue. Copyright wasn't put in place to protect individuals. It's a matter of basic respect for the people who create the things you enjoy. Those things wouldn't exist without their makers, so why does the maker's agency fly out the window the second they post their art online? (I know that OP wasn't talking about AI, and I don't think aggressively comparing them to AI bros is helpful, but I draw the comparison because both AI image generators and reposters are disrespectful in similar ways.)

Right-click + Save As is your friend. Directly linking to artists' works rather than reposting without credit is your BEST friend. We can cultivate a culture of sharing and archiving what matters to us while staying aware of others' rights and dignity (I don't mean rights in a legal or copyright sense, I mean the rights we give to each other in our interpersonal relationships). It's a balance, not quick or convenient, but it's important, and totally possible with a bit of care and thought. 

[Bede]

To add to what I said in my previous reply and based on thoughts I've had while reading some of the replies that have appeared since...

I am not a libertarian or an individualist, so I am naturally skeptical of those who don't care about where the works they interact with come from. It seems quite immature and entitled to say that mindlessly reposting art without considering the artist's feelings on the matter is okay. To imply that it's fine just because this is the status quo on the internet - "other people are doing it, so it's okay" - is faulty reasoning.

I want to live in a world where we respect one another and are mindful about the impact of the way we engage with things. Sometimes that means taking a little bit of extra time to consider an artist's stance on reposts of their work. Thinking about where our things come from applies to other areas of our lives as well. Do we want to thoughtlessly purchase mass-produced goods that were produced under poor working conditions, just because they are cheaper and more readily available?

It's funny that generative AI was mentioned, because I know that some artists have stopped posting online altogether for fear of their works being used in image generation datasets. This is the end result of treating others with disrespect- they will no longer be so ready to share themselves with the world. In fact, copyright isn't the issue. Copyright wasn't put in place to protect individuals. It's a matter of basic respect for the people who create the things you enjoy. Those things wouldn't exist without their makers, so why does the maker's agency fly out the window the second they post their art online? (I know that OP wasn't talking about AI, and I don't think aggressively comparing them to AI bros is helpful, but I draw the comparison because both AI image generators and reposters are disrespectful in similar ways.)

Right-click + Save As is your friend. Directly linking to artists' works rather than reposting without credit is your BEST friend. We can cultivate a culture of sharing and archiving what matters to us while staying aware of others' rights and dignity (I don't mean rights in a legal or copyright sense, I mean the rights we give to each other in our interpersonal relationships). It's a balance, not quick or convenient, but it's important, and totally possible with a bit of care and thought. 

Again, extremely well-put.

A lot of people tend to defer to legal rights with these sorts of conversations, but we have to remember what is legal =/= what is moral. Like I said, I have a lot of issues with copyright law as it exists. When I talk about how to treat art and artists online, I'm not talking about copyright or anything like that -- I'm talking about interpersonal relationships, like @larvapuppy said. Human-to-human respect. Which is how I think conversations like this should go, personally. It's more productive to discuss that, rather than the nuances of intellectual property law (and, frankly, more interesting, haha!).

[clownlesbian]

I work in archives, so i kinda wanted to contribute to this discussion bc I think a lot of what you are talking about is related to archives and the preservation of art. I think the reason why so many artists get upset about reposts and even avoid posting their art online is because of autonomy. i know other ppl mentioned this but in the world of archives archival autonomy means a few different things and varies from person to person and collection to collection. in some instances, ppl donate their things and want everything censored or they want to restrict how ppl can use it (ie, cant take photos, cant quote, ect ect.) as annoying as these things can be sometimes and as much as they do prevent the preservation of materials, im sorry to say but letting ppl do what they want with the things they create is the only thing we can do.
as an artist, maybe i would want my work out there no matter what, uncredited or not. but thats not the case for many ppl and thats fair.
it is a sense of empowerment to make things inaccessible and it's totally valid for people to want that for their work. I have to turn ppl down every day at the archives who want to take pictures or want copies of things bc it simply isnt allowed by the person who donated.
thats kind of the beauty of creating things for a lot of ppl i think, like the temporality of it. a you had to be there type of thing.
not only that but for a lot of marginalized ppl, archival autonomy means severely limiting who can see materials bc they are personal, or they deal with tough topics.
i think its hard bc you have to let go of the desire to keep everything. thats kinda the first thing you learn in archives, the idea that you can save everything is just unrealistic. and as much as it hurts i think its worth learning how to enjoy art you like while you have it and accept that it might disappear. i think thats particularly hard for ppl like us that love old things and love to hold onto stuff that has a sentimental value, but at its core i just think artists dont owe you anything. they are allowed to make choices on what they want to do with their art. of course you can make your case to as many artists as you want about how reposting can keep their art alive, but i think you have to accept that many will not feel as if that is satisfactory for them.

[clownlesbian]

while repostings help in online art preservation Is undoubtable, i feel like ignoring both the fact that this is people's livelihoods, the landscape of the internet and how people behave on it, and the simple fact that not everyone will want their art to outlive them.

I think that point about not everyone wanting their art to outlive them is super important and very easily overlooked. as i said in my post i work in archives and its SO common that ppl dont want their materials to outlive them and i just dont believe just bc its on the internet, we shouldnt try out best to respect ppls wishes for their materials just like you would do for anyone who passes away or moves on.