Lately a lot of pictures have been stolen from my art galleries for Chun-Li (*cough*gamegen*cough*) and Millenia (*cough*cgshrines*cough*). When I find a page that has stolen pictures from my site, I ask the webmaster to either remove them or give me and my site credit for them, but it’s been happening so much lately that I have to say something.
I don’t blame the webmasters for taking these pictures (usually). I blame the people who like to visit both my site and the one they’re stealing pics for and don’t think twice about what they’re doing. A lot of pictures on my page aren’t exclusive to Kikouken.com so it’s usually not a big deal, but some of them are and I guess it’s time I made that a little clearer. However, even in the cases where I right out say “I scanned this” or “someone else scanned/drew this to give to me” that doesn’t stop people from taking my stuff.
Since pictures are basically either fan art or official art, the only issue concerning proper netiquette is getting permission from and crediting the fan artist (or cosplayer) whenever humanly possible. A big reason that I put an artist's e-mail and home page with each of their pics is not just to give credit where it's due, but to allow others who want to use them on their sites an opportunity to get their permission.
In the case of official artwork, since the majority of it is widespread anyway (since it’s whole purpose is promoting their respective games). But with little things like scans from art books or doujinshis, that’s a whole different story. That art is rare. The person who scanned it spent their own money to buy a book that they’re going to practically destroy trying to get scan it. It’s these kinds of thefts that get my blood boiling.
I and my fellow fans put a lot of work into bringing you these pictures, and it aggrivates me to no end when someone up and helps themsevles to taking my own hard work and exploiting it for their page. I’m going to start putting a more direct approach to telling people what is and isn’t exclusive to Kikouken.com, and if that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to make a troubling decision: Do I tag my exclusive pics with Kikouken.com watermarks, or do I keep the pictures clean and inconsideration of others and trust my visitors not to steal them for other sites? It’s a dilemma I may soon have to face.
I really don’t want to have to resort to using watermarks because I want the Chun-Li art to be brought to the fans in the purest form possible, untainted by grissly reminders of unconsiderate people who would unfairly benefit off the work of other people. But at this point if my sticky-fingered visitors continue to push me I may just have to make a decision, and I’ll tell you right now that I’m strongly considering the watermark idea.
Galleries
