Steal this.
With Facebook’s recent terms of service debacle, more artists than ever are afraid to join the social networking revolution. And it’s silly. Even if you post your images on your own site where you dictate the terms to yourself and you own—or, most likely, rent—the server on which your work resides, you’re still entering into an implied contract with the world.
“Open source” as defined by Wikipedia (itself a fine example of the same!):
Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product’s source (goods and knowledge). ... The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development. The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as open-source software, however open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as Biotechnology.
The part that’s missing from Wikipedia’s definition is art. Images as well as sound bytes and snippets of text have been being sampled and remixed since the beginning of time, and, while the Internet is only making that easier and intellectual property lawyers are trying to make it harder, everything you make is still open source. A nice way to think of it is that we are all of us always inspiring each other!
The only real way to protect your work from being ripped off on the Internet is to avoid putting any of it up. Everything online is steal-able and will be stolen. Even if you put it in a flash gallery, you’re not safe. A simple screen shot and some editing turns anything displayed on your computer into your standard right-click-able jpeg. (Case in point below: I did just that to obtain this image of a fellow artist’s blog!)
The problem with cutting out the Internet as a tool for exposure is that you’ll need to be able to control everyone, not just yourself! Last fall, I had work up in a group show and, somehow in my Internet wanderings, I discovered that a fellow artist had photographed a few of the pieces in the flesh and put his not-so-crisp images of them on his blog without even mentioning my name!
What’s an artist to do? Trying to control all online reproductions of your work would quickly deteriorate into only allowing studio showings of it—and only that with an intimidating door man confiscating all cameras and recording devices on entry!
Would I like it if every person who used my work credited me? Yes! But I’m not under any illusions that they will.
My solution: make all of my work good enough and so intrinsically mine that anyone who sees even a rotten reproduction of it will know who created it. I focus on what I can control.
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CATEGORIES: - Business of art - On free culture -
(4) Comments / Commentaires: Steal this.
Hi Gwen,
Sorry but I had no idea what you were refering too!
I see your point here!
I think you should have just contacted me about this image and it would have been removed.
I am a personal non for profit blog reporting on happenings in Portland.
I took this picture through a glass door because the Gallery was closed. I couldn’t see who the artist was but that was not that important because my intend was to promote the show and that people would go and see for them selves.
I think you are over reacting in this case but I understand your concern and I am all for copy right protection.
Most of the galleries I go to encourage me to post about their shows. My suggestion is that spaces and artists who don’t want that should post a sign stating so.
So I apologies if I have upset you . It was not my intention.
sincerely
Richard Schemmerer
No! Please read the post. I’m not upset with you: I can’t control what you or anyone does and that’s the point. Yes, I would have loved you to put my name with the work, but I can’t make you do anything.
And when I said I was “the scandal about to break,” I was referring to this, not to anything having to do with your blog.
Interesting commentary here, Gwenn…..I would hope that anyone who is posting someone else’s work WOULD credit them - seems a no brainer to me. I do hope Mr. Schemmerer has a spell check function for his blog.
Making your work distinctive so that the viewing audience says “Seemel!” when they see your portraits is a wonderful idea and it seems to me you’re well on your way!
Student of the Arts...
Check out creative commons.
http://creativecommons.org
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