Fan Art to me is just an excuse or a convenient rationalization for wrong doing. Look at it this way. I may be a fan of Ford Mustang cars. I see one on the street and think to myself, I like that so I will take it and use it. Quite rightfully , later on , I get arrested for car theft. In court I state in my defense that under fair use and as a fan of Ford Mustangs I took the vehicle so therefore I have done no wrong! How far do you think ANYONE will get using that for a defense in a law court? The same applies here. If work is not our own, if we do not have permission to use it then it should not be allowed to be uploaded. If no credit is given to the original author we are as good as claiming it for ourselves. If we want people to respect our copyrights then we need to learn to respect others. I have the greatest of respect for Snowman, however ,I feel waiting for an owner to make a complaint is somewhat of a cop out on responsibility when we know the art to not be that of the uploader. It would also seem that one rule was set for Apocalypse and another applies here. I question the consistency and legality. A good site to visit is NZFACT.ORG.New Zealand Federation of Artists Against Copyright Theft. Weta Studio's, Universal Pictures, Sony, and a large number of organisations and artists are members of this growing organization. Copyright law on an International basis is explained extremely simply and clearly. I am sure Alperium is a nice guy. He could be nicer. That is all I am suggesting.

Again I have a problems.
About my SpiderMAN series: I think this is not RIP literally, because I have not copied a picture from Sony or Marvel.
I used my model and my rendering, I have copied style only, otherwise these works not
have sense, because it's really fan art.

Mountainhawk I have more spiderman bootskins than Al does and I'm sure if there was a bigger offender of fan art use, it would be me and not Alperium. This site allows for the use of fan art and if site moderators felt that these items should be removed, they have the ability to remove them and I wouldn't object. I submitted a Captain America wb skin last month, it's considered fan art - if it wasn't, it would have been rejected and no one would be allowed to download it. Fan Art takes into account fair use of said images as long as said far art isn't being published for the purpose of making a profit and the last time I checked, all of the skins on this site aside from the master/premium skins are free - we don't profit from any of the skins we've uploaded to the site. It's the same thing if someone freehand sketches a copyrighted image - the copyright still exists and the sketch would be considered a derivative work without permission from the copyright holder - do you think Sony or Marvel is going to chase after & sue everyone who draws an image of Spiderman even though it's technically a copyright infringement? Certainly not because it's considered fan art, even though copyright law says you need permission to actually do this. Could they if they wanted? Technically they might be able to but they're not going to. The copyright owners recognize that this type of non-profit activity is harmless to them and in fact promotes interest & awareness in said characters and probably gets more people purchasing the copyrighted material/imagery that is for sale legally which improves their bottom line. Yes I myself along with many others have submitted bootskins/logons/other skins using copyrighted material (images) without getting explicit permission from Sony/Marvel/DC (Microsoft, etc.) but fan art is OK because the owners of the copyrights say that it's OK; otherwise everyone who's ever scribbled a picture of a superhero, posted a pic on a website, printed a picture from a website (superman, spiderman, etc.) is guilty of this infringement.

Where you get into problems is when you start taking these images and publish them large scale and sell them at a profit (or attempt to make a profit: you may be a lousy business man and not make a cent but if it was your intention to make money doing this, they can still get you for this) - this is the line of work of the copyright owner at which point when you are discovered you will be told in no uncertain terms to stop what you are doing and if you don't they'll sue your but in court & win.

The internet makes this problem even more complicated because you're making use of a medium that can technically reach every corner of the globe.

However in the case of my 16 color bootskins and 256 color logons of which I charge a grand total of nothing, I would say this falls into the category of fair use. I don't make any profit from this, the only thing I gain is the satisfaction of making a bootskin that looks decent in 16 shades of it's glory or a logon that greets me when I bootup my pc or the picture of a comic book superhero when I hit my start button.

I'm nearing the end of my verbose post which I'll wrap up this way....

If you don't like it that I or anyone else on this site uses a comic book superhero as the subject of our skin that we upload to this site, there is a simple method of dealing with this problem:
1. don't download the skin the we've uploaded to the site
2. have the site reject all skins (new & existing) that include fan art in all of it's forms
3. also have the site reject skins that contain copyrights/trademarks in the form of names as well, I'm guilty of using the word "vista" alot, a few xp's every now & then as well and heck I've used that vista globe logo & text alot, better turf all of those skins as well - don't worry about getting Marvel or Sony mad, I would be afraid to get Microsoft angry: those guys have alot of money

Mountainhawk my only request to you would be to stop busting Al's or anybody else's chops over fan art and how we shouldn't use it, I'm a fan and I make use of said art in my skins and never request a cent for anything I've uploaded. If I were to ever (fat chance I'm sure) make a dollar doing this work I would want it to be on the merit of my own work and not someone elses so we can be crystal clear on that issue. When I'm asked by the site moderators to stop submitting work that makes use of fan art I shall do so.

... Maybe I'll start working on linux themed/style skins... wonder if I would offend anyone with those, maybe I should speak with Linus Torvalds first though.   

Wow. I think I finally get it.

If the fan art is offered as a wall and is turned into a boot, for example...the author who transformed the wall is simply offering it in another format. And here, from what I can see, for free. No profit. So...the originator is not necessarily losing any 'money' since the original work is not offered in the new format. This would be 'fair use'. (Jafo can tell you if I finally got it right.)

What is missing, often, is 'credit' to the original author. I think that is very important.

Taking a wall and reposting it in the same format with no credit would be an outright rip.

Policing every RUSH boot or Spidey logon may not be easy. Then you have the 'mistakes', like I have made, on items that actually had permission..or in Alperiums case, not really a rip of another's wall .

You're definitely right Po' and that is something that I didn't include in my post above; crediting the original author. In my own personal case I should definitely be mentioning that images were obtained from DC Comics or Marvel comics website (for my spiderman bootskins for example) and used strictly for fan art purposes only - I'm slacking and will definitely start including that info again in the skin description.

You're right though, I would consider taking someone else's wall and posting it as your own is an outright rip.

Policing any of the numerous skin submissions to this site is a herculean task to say the least, I don't envy the job of the moderator who has to look through the thousands of skin submissions that this site receives monthly, annually, etc. - I'm sure it's a thankless job and a chore for tired eyes after a while.

I am guilty of uploading a $hit load of skins all at once, flooding the site isn't smart and it's harder for the mod's to keep up with all the work. In hindsight I should be smarter and more sympathetic to the people that have to approve the skin submissions. I will work on being much smarter about batch uploading my new stuff to the site and maybe I should slow down too; I'm definitely hooked on the site but sometimes I am guilty of being outrageous with the amount of stuff I upload. My apologies to any & all admins/mods who may be reading this post.

Pretty much.

It's quaint...but I'm an Aussie...and until G Bush and our PM [Banzai Bush] got together with a Free-Trade agreement we [Aussies] had a different set of copyright laws to those of the US.

Ours had NO allowance/dispensation relating to 'fair use' and/or 'fan art'. It was infact illegal to tape your LP or copy your CD music elsewhere, etc.

Totally. No 'ifs' no 'buts'.

Now, we are the same as the US, but in either case Wincustomize.com is an American site and thus is controlled by US Laws [or we are obliged to, though being a privately owned site the ultimate determination remains that of the owner/s].

So...

Fair use and Fan Art are legitimate inclusions within our copyright management/handling.

In response to MountainHawk and his Ford Mustang all I can suggest is that you read up on US Copyright Law and you may see where your analogy is fundamentally flawed...

i think they would rather see you keep up your uploading and maybe add another mod to the mix rather than drop uploads to keep the pressure down..i may be wrong tho..




I'll suggest to all that packaging "variants" would be beneficial.. like size or color variants of the same skin....putting all the variants of a specific skin in to one file would cut down on the # of things to be modded...I see quite a few things in widget's ,Wall's,.etc that could have been packaged as 1 upload...it gets silly seeing 12 different colored variants of the same thing uploaded as seperate skins...

not pointing any fingers.. just a thought..

Well, well nice discussion.
I have reuploaded ALL Spider-MAN series with credit to
(Original: ©2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. MARVEL, and all Marvel characters including the Spider-Man, Sandman and Venom characters ™ & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://spiderman3.sonypictures.com/)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you guys for protection.

also remember fan art is limited to pop culture idolism (IE a corporate or entity in the pop culture lime light)...taking a private partys stuff and porting to another format is not included in fair use... there is a difference between being a fan/supporting a foot ball club by making fan art and ripping a skinner/graphical artists works even if the credit is there.....the latter is not covered by fair use.....


and if i remember correctly. if the Company or entity of whose images are used or simulated to make fan art requests and or is known publicly to not allow fan art .. any fan art comprised of those parties images and logos and/or copys-simulations of those images will be rejected at WC...


typically many corporate entitys keep a tight reign on their logos and the use of them.... nascar for instance you must be licenced to use or simulate, for public display any image that displays their logos and or personel.

jafo.. correct me if im wrong....

Credit was given.
I don't RIP the Marvel.
I use my OWN models and my OWN rendering including their styles.
I don't understand where is RIP?
I copied their style, because it's FAN ART.

i was not accusing you nor suggesting...


i was simply adding to the topic as a whole....as a reminder...

my appologies if you took it as a slight toward you....
it was not meant that way..

Al you are in the clear so don't worry about it - no one is accusing you of anything and I went as far in my original post to say that I was a bigger use of fan art then you are - I'll make that clear a 2nd time. If mountainhawk had a beef with you, he should have also included all of the users including myself at the top of his list of people who use fan art. I don't want you to receive any more heat on this - I like your stuff, keep on doing what you're doing, it's good work.

HG was further clarifying the fan art discussion and I think it was worth the extra detail he added. I think it might even be worth a mention on the guidelines page adding all of the relevant points concerning fan art that we've discussed here on that page. This isn't a request but just something to keep in mind if that page is up for revision anytime in the future.

I'm glad to say that this discussion on the use of fan art was mature & civilized and I'm happy that we all participated in it and were able to express our views & opinions on this subject and receive clarification on alot of relevant points.   

OK, guys.
Unclerob: Thank You for Support.

one more sugestion.. not pointing toward anybody.. but something ive seen on other sites....


OFFICIAL. means this item was officially recognized by the entity it was designed to represent/emulate..

any claims of being an OFFICIAL skin should include a copy of the licence authorization from that entity.

ive seen to many times on other sites where some guy posted works as an "official skin" of a corporation or entity, when they were in fact not...

these false representations reflect badly on the skinner, the entity he has pretended to represent, and the community in which he posts his work. not to mention detracts from the works of those skinners who ARE actually contracted by corporations to design a skin to represent them....

there is a difference between fan art and an official contracted skin authorized by a corporation and or entity designed to represent them...


this is MHO....

i am glad this dicussion went well and all were open and objective..

My appologies to any who may take my post/sugestions as toward them.. im just trying to clairify my thinking as well as maybe offer some sugestions/ideas to others...

Well done.
I think we can close this discussion.

Well,
Open again.
Why this wall: https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=32143&libid=8
was rejected (with new reuploading) if I add credit to MARVEL.
Earlier it was possible (without credit to MARVEL) and now (with credit) it is impossible.
Why?
=================================================================
(Dear Alperium,
Thank you for your recent upload of your Spider-MAN 3 for WallPapers
Unfortunately your upload has not met our guidelines and has been rejected.
However we do look forward to your future submissions.)
=================================================================
But BootSkin based on this wallpaper was uploaded good: https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=8782&libid=32

Al, this is a better discussion to have privately with the moderators.  PM or email.

Well.

I think i disagree with unclerobs statement



What if you designed something - something that you sell to make $$$.
Now- someone else comes along - copies it - then starts giving it away free -
you will start to lose money - and eventually go out of business.


What is copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.

What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section "What Works Are Protected."


http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#what

My Wall was RIPped:
RIP
Original