As many of you know, we had been having problems because of reposters lately. The “anti-reposting” movement had already achieved a lot by sending awareness but there were a lot of people who still didn’t know what was happening or why it was an issue. Let me explain everything clearly so you all can understand.
Just as the name says it, it means posting something again. For example, when someone posts their fanfiction and you copy paste it on your own account and change a few names in it, you are reposting that fanfiction. Same goes for arts,edits,posts,etc.
I can explain it with an example. Imagine an artist having an account on tumblr and sharing their art with all of you. You all can see the art and show your supports by liking/rebloging or sending messages to the artists, there is NO need for anyone to post those arts in this website again. Then someone does repost one of their arts, people will start supporting the new reposted post instead of the original post and this support reaches to someone that had done NOTHING for the art except for posting it while the artists loses a lot of supports. Can you see why this is wrong now?
Even if you are trying to post it elsewhere, you still need to take a permission because some artists want their stuffs to stay in their own pages and to know what’s happening to their art. They have a right to want that because they made those pictures and there would be no picture without them.
Also, some people who are on pixiv are at danger of losing EVERYTHING they have because of the publishers and because of the doujinshis they make. Being sued or getting into trouble because of reposters is common for them because they are only allowed to post their stuffs in a controlled place with limited followers like in their own accounts in pixiv.
Some Japanese artists like 10 rankai had that problem. She had to ask everyone multiple times to stop reposting her art and change/delete her accounts for this issue many times but the reposters never stopped. (You can read this post for further explanations about this.)
When reposting a fanart/fanfiction isn’t wrong?
1) take permission for posting it from the writer/artist.
2) Crediting the artist/writer properly.
3)post it on a site other than the ones they had already done it (Unless you are trying to translate the piece of course, in that case after taking permission and crediting them you can feel free to post it in the same site😊)
Who says fanarts are legally for artists? When they post it on net then it’s OURS and everyone can post it again.
This claim is as silly as saying “Just because artist ‘x’ published their song then it’s ours and we can sell them or upload their songs on internet.” They are posting those in their OWN pages just to show you all their works, they aren’t giving up on the ownership of their artwork and they are still the ones who made those fanarts. You had done nothing for the art except for seeing those on internet so what gives you the right to think you own them???
And btw, if they didn’t have the ownership of those arts then a lot of reposters wouldn’t have to shot their pages over being ‘fairly’ reported for stolen art.
Also feel free to check copy-right policies in facebook, tumblr and youtube for further explanations about copy-rights.
“They should be grateful anyway. We’re just helping them to get famous.”
Have you ever thought that maybe some of them don’t even want to be more famous than they already are? Also, how do you want to make them famous while you hardly even put a credit on their pieces???
They draw fanarts, the characters are not theirs so you can’t tell us to stop reposting .
Drawing fanarts is usually OKAY because those are mostly for FREE and helps the shows to get more known and brings more money to creators of series that way. In a fandom like Naruto creating fanfictions/fanarts are NOT against the rules because the creator “Masashi kishimoto” had NEVER stated that he doesn’t want people to use his characters in fanarts/fanfictions. He actually made a conquest once to see who can draw his characters in a more creative way. Also NONE of our artists claim they own any of the characters so your argument is not valid. You can check this link for further information about what is okay and what is not okay when it comes to making fanarts.
They don’t own characters but they own the fanarts/fanfictions (hence, pictures and plot of stories) unlike reporters who don’t own anything. fanarts/fanfictions are okay in this fandom, the creators don’t even get aggressive over those characters being turned into selling dolls or fanarts of official arts. That is exactly why your “Those are fanarts/fanfictions so we can do what ever we want” argument doesn’t make sense in this fandom.
I’m crediting so who cares about permission?
You are posting something that you have NO right to post. Artists do care about permissions, ALL of them do. Some of them just genuinely don’t want people to repost them and some others are okay with it as long as you notify them.
Believe me, artists do care about their art being reposted a lot and by reposting on your own you ARE disrespecting them. Let me share some of the things artists said since this movement started (or even before it) about this matter:
*If writing “DO NOT REPOST MY WORKS” cannot change those motherfuckers’ mind, I may have to delete all my works ( @h-ikariart, link)
* I WON’T BE PUBLISHING A THING ANYMORE. You wanted that way.( @solochely, Link.
* The point is, that it comes a moment when I see my art reposted I can’t be nice. I’m very strict about it cause I’ve tried many times approaching them, and all I got was being ignored, banned, insulted, and mocked at. ( @solochely, Link)
* artists just draw something with their labor. And you can’t share it without any permission, even though it’s a fanart! Cuz it means that you say “this fanart/drawing belongs to me” or something. ( @cubur, Link)
* Then I woke up to the reality, no one cares about us, we are just a machine to produce that pictures that people love and share without credit the one who made all the work to receive the compliment for themselves. ( @usuratialmant, Link)
* if we talk about our rights over that fanart,that same people will try to make you the bad guy/girl for even trying to claim your own work, yeah, the same you have worked hours over a sketchbook/PC. ( @rebelliondou, Link)
* I am grateful that I am not one of the victims of reposting (at least that I know of) because otherwise I will seriously reconsider leaving Tumblr. Okay, doing free art is exhausting. It takes a lot of time to think of ideas and million times more to actually get the drawing to the way it was envisioned.( @kiraiki , Link
*I wouldn’t like it at all. Why I like sharing my art with others and seeing their reactions to it, I’m scared of showing anymore art than I already have what with all the reposting. I like knowing where my art is and I want it to be kept under my eye. I’d feel like someone was trying to ignore the work I put into the art by not sourcing or asking me for permission. ( @prince-puri , Link)
*I don’t want my art to be reposted anywhere or from anyone without my permission. So I’m definitely NOT okay with it! And to be honest. When it comes to a website where I have a Account myself, I don’t want my art to be reposted there at ( @schaychan, Link)
Even it’s with sourcing, I dont like to see my art anywhere outside of my own profile. I mean I get reposting stuff from twitter since those artists dont have tumblr. But why repost an artist if that artist already have a tumblr????? it isnt necessary. ( @liloloveyou024, Link)
the sinking feeling of you, being a new content contributor, of posting something you’ve worked on for hours, then checking back the following morning to find only single digit notes, or faves, or comments.THEN add to that the feeling when you’re just browsing through the tag, trying to see where you went wrong, then you come across your own art REPOSTED WITHOUT CREDIT with 500+ notes (imagine. imagine half of those with retags and comments and key smashing and shameless fannishness). imagine seeing that when you are feeling down about yourself. all these people celebrating your art but you’re not part of it. ( @surfacage, Link)
You see? It really does hurt them when people ignore them and act like they have any rights on posting those. I rather not to share what the rest of our artists said in our private chats but trust me, these are enough.
“Why are artists so mad about their artwork being reposted and get so aggressive about it? We are all a part of the same fandom and ship the same otp but why do we get so much hate?”
Artists don’t send hate. They get aggressive when people don’t follow their wishes about their art. If they don’t want you to repost then leave them alone and ask someone else. It’s their art so it’s none of our business why they don’t want to give permission, it’s not like we HAVE to post those arts.
I’m sorry if you got hate, specially if you didn’t know what you were doing was wrong (this movement does NOT support hate) but some people actually sent hate and disrespected the artists and fans first. For example the owner of this a fb age and a tweeter account, Isabel. She posted a lot of reposted arts on purpose, never credited any artists on purpose, insulted and bullied artists on purpose, tried to shut the fb pages that gave credit (just because they gave credit) on purpose and acted like she had more rights on arts than the rest of the artists. The drama and the hateful messages she sent to everyone were mind blowing and really hurtful and for that reason people protested and tried to close their fb page/tweeter. can you really blame them for that?
“But everyone else does it and it always had been that way. Some people will always repost so why can’t we do the same?”
Let me answer you by asking you another question. Imagine a big dark whole in front of you that everyone are jumping down of it. you know your death is guaranteed if you jump but everyone else are doing it, will you still jump? Just because some others do something it doesn’t mean what they are doing is right or you have to do the same. Maybe others are doing it because they aren’t aware what they are doing is wrong, so if you are aware of that, why would you do the same? The action is not right no matter who does it.
“But I don’t understand Japanese. How can I get credit from them? I can’t even find the source of half of the pictures I want to post”
Use Google translate or ask them with basic words in English. You can repost those ONLY when they said they are okay with it. If they said no or didn’t reply, do NOT repost any of their artworks.
As for finding source, you should either search for the signatory on pics or do this.
Search for the correct source:
Look, I just found the artist ( @sixfootdeep )
It only took me five minutes to find them :)
“So what’s the solution?”
The solutions are a bit hard to achieve and we need all of you to help us on that but together we can easily do it.
To artists: Try to mention on your posts/blogs about reposting. Also don’t forget to put signatures on your arts. Try doing it in a way people can’t cut or hide it by emoji’s or signs.
To reposters: Always remember to get permission and credit artists properly.
To everyone else: PLEASE, DON’T SUPPORT REPOSTERS WHO REPOST WITHOUT CREDIT OR PERMISSION. Every like, reblog, share, retweet, follower for reposters are a big support. They never stop doing what they are doing because a lot of them are thirsty for your support. Stop rebloging from them, stop following or giving the any support. Most of fb pages that repost without permissions in here or in fb have more than 3-7K followers, do u have any idea how many support that is? Some even have more and they gain those supports only for disrespecting artists and doing nothing for making the art they repost, this is really unfair for artists.
When you see a reposter that doesn’t credit/take permission, talk to them in a respectful manner about why the thing they are doing is wrong first. If they didn’t listen, don’t hesitate to report them and tell everyone here to do the same. The key for stopping those kind of reposters isn’t usually convincing them, it is sending awareness to their followers and taking away their support. They won’t ever stop until they lose most of their supports.
Also when you want to reblog something, always try to do it from artists. Artists usually draw with same style so their arts are recognizable. Also thy usually tag their stuffs with “My art” or their url so you’ll know it’s their own art.
When you reblog from a reposter make sure they take permissions and credit artists properly.
Don’t reblog from people like this:
Post like this are ALWAYS reposts from people who aren’t the artist. Also posts with a single (x) linked or the posts that only has the name of the artwork instead of the statements like “Posted with permission” are not trust worthy. Always try to reblog from those who state they take permission.
Don’t forget, sites like ‘we heart it’ or ‘ zerochan’ are places where all pictures are reposted so NEVER trust those sites as a real source.
I made a list all reposting sites I could come up with in this link. Feel free to report them all and stop supporting them :) You can also find a huge list of artists along with some other that people made in here, thanks to @shherie for making it. (Check the notes, you’ll find even more artists, you can even add more artists to it)
Last but not lease, don’t ever stop sending awareness. Every once in a while new people join the fandom, people who don’t know things like reposting without credit/permission is wrong. By talking or rebloging posts like this every once in a while you can tell them how or why they shouldn’t do/support actions like that.
Why would I bother? No one gives a fuck.
Remember artists like Blue tomato or emi/10 raikai? You know why artists as big or amazing as them suddenly just disappeared? Do have any idea how many artists left for the same reason? Did you know that this movement only started because more artists were planning to leave? Can you say the same thing when the rest of our artists leave because of this? 80% of them already left mate, don’t scare away the rest of them. We can’t have a fandom without artists, that’s why we all have to give a fuck, unless we want an artless fandom of course.
Thank you all for ready this huge ass post. Feel free to ask me if any of you have any other questions 😉
