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.

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