The Rules - Crediting Artists and Creators
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2021 9:08 pm
So, after almost 5 years, Echoes will have it’s first major rules update. It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve honestly taken too long to resolve this, so I apologize to all parties involved.
This update is going to regard how Echoes will handle displaying art going forward. We were just sort of comfortable with how things had been done on the Green Ronin forums that we never really considered the implications of just posting other people’s art on here. I initially had my own misconceptions about things like Fair Use, artist/creator rights, but having done some reading I think I have a better grasp of the situation.
As I now understand it, things like trademark and copyright exist to protect a creator’s ownership over their intellectual property, and to prevent any confusion as to said ownership. Ironically, the more popular and well known something is, the more things like “fair use” apply to it, and the easier it is to get away with using art related to it. Everyone knows who Superman, Batman and Spider-Man are. No one can reasonably pass those characters off as their own, especially given the respective pocket books of the companies that own them. As such, large companies like Warner Bros and Disney don’t mind when people post images of their characters on sites, since they tend to view it as free advertising. Note that this only applies to people who are not making a profit off of said character, as the Mouse is VERY quick to shut down people profiting off of their IP’s.
This is one reason, for instance, why Kevin Siembieda and Palladium have no real power to shut down people who post up adaptations of their Rifts stuff. Palladium is a large enough company with a history of publishing that no one is going to assume the fans translating Rifts stuff to less crappy systems is anything but a fan thing. No one is claiming ownership over their IP, no one is profiting off of their IP, and that kind of translation actually falls under fair use.
For smaller creators however, there is a very real need to establish ownership over their creations, since failure to do so can be seen as legally giving up the rights to said creation. Take our own bsdigitalq. If someone starts posting up images of his Thunderwoman character without his permission, then he has to try and establish ownership to maintain his copyright of the character. Until Thunderwoman becomes well known enough that ownership isn’t in question, He is legally required to ask people hosting images of her to cite him as her owner.
Likewise, artists do have a say in how their art is displayed, and do have the right to ask you to not display their art, provided it isn’t something that was commissioned by a larger company or is of a character owned by another company. If an artist draws a picture of Superman, while they do own the labor of their work, they do not own the art itself since they don’t own the characters. It’s a bit of fan art that they don’t technically own but can still request be taken down, and their wishes definitely should be taken into account.
As such I am going to outline the following guidelines for both posters and artist/creators. Please follow the links to the appropriate post, or just scroll down. If you have any questions, please contact me via PM.
- Poster Guidelines
- Artist / Creator Guidelines
This update is going to regard how Echoes will handle displaying art going forward. We were just sort of comfortable with how things had been done on the Green Ronin forums that we never really considered the implications of just posting other people’s art on here. I initially had my own misconceptions about things like Fair Use, artist/creator rights, but having done some reading I think I have a better grasp of the situation.
As I now understand it, things like trademark and copyright exist to protect a creator’s ownership over their intellectual property, and to prevent any confusion as to said ownership. Ironically, the more popular and well known something is, the more things like “fair use” apply to it, and the easier it is to get away with using art related to it. Everyone knows who Superman, Batman and Spider-Man are. No one can reasonably pass those characters off as their own, especially given the respective pocket books of the companies that own them. As such, large companies like Warner Bros and Disney don’t mind when people post images of their characters on sites, since they tend to view it as free advertising. Note that this only applies to people who are not making a profit off of said character, as the Mouse is VERY quick to shut down people profiting off of their IP’s.
This is one reason, for instance, why Kevin Siembieda and Palladium have no real power to shut down people who post up adaptations of their Rifts stuff. Palladium is a large enough company with a history of publishing that no one is going to assume the fans translating Rifts stuff to less crappy systems is anything but a fan thing. No one is claiming ownership over their IP, no one is profiting off of their IP, and that kind of translation actually falls under fair use.
For smaller creators however, there is a very real need to establish ownership over their creations, since failure to do so can be seen as legally giving up the rights to said creation. Take our own bsdigitalq. If someone starts posting up images of his Thunderwoman character without his permission, then he has to try and establish ownership to maintain his copyright of the character. Until Thunderwoman becomes well known enough that ownership isn’t in question, He is legally required to ask people hosting images of her to cite him as her owner.
Likewise, artists do have a say in how their art is displayed, and do have the right to ask you to not display their art, provided it isn’t something that was commissioned by a larger company or is of a character owned by another company. If an artist draws a picture of Superman, while they do own the labor of their work, they do not own the art itself since they don’t own the characters. It’s a bit of fan art that they don’t technically own but can still request be taken down, and their wishes definitely should be taken into account.
As such I am going to outline the following guidelines for both posters and artist/creators. Please follow the links to the appropriate post, or just scroll down. If you have any questions, please contact me via PM.
- Poster Guidelines
- Artist / Creator Guidelines