More accurately said, my dire distress over what people often call public domain, that isn't !
I'm a pixel artist and use a great many
images in my work.
Believe me, I hunt high and low for
works I can legally use.
Which brings me up against repeatedly,
the common mis-use of the words
public domain. I see on the web over
and over .. so called
" public domain " images that are NOT
in the public domain.
For Example : I saw one the other day
where the gent did all the proper forms
" I so and so release these works into
the public domain ya da ya da "...
then proceeded to tell everybody what
they could DO with the work in question.
This shows a clear misunderstanding
of the term. Public domain means
you can do with it whatever you want
to do with it. Period.
Any real restrictions means it's NOT
public domain.
By releasing it to the public domain
you no longer hold any rights on the work at all.
A lot of my spacey looking work contains
real images of space,
most of them from NASA. Most
any government based work is in the public domain by default.
Our tax dollars paid for whatever imagery
they took, therefore it's ours !
With some exceptions.
Most anything that is over 75 years old is public domain.
Or published before a given date, Which
means most classical works.
I use a great many marble works and
such like for that reason.
Now there are many public domain
works of recent origin
that have been released to the public
on purpose, for which I am very grateful
I have done so with some works myself.
Little things that I created that are
my gifts to the world at large
and will do so again, as payment in
kind for the gifts other artists have made for me
Now lot of my stuff is link ware, like
my web sets...
All of them are made from images I
created or I am sure,
as much as it's possible to be sure,
are in the public domain.
Most of the backgrounds in my background
section are/were public domain
released by their holders long ago.
Most of the bars I use are student works,
released to the public domain. It's
why you see them everywhere.
I took that one step further in a lot
of cases and improved on the originals.
But most of them are still PD. I do
not attempt to hold on to them.
Unless I make something customized with them, in which case it becomes mine.
My art on the other hand is another
matter, which brings me back to the point.
Any image manipulation artist runs
a gauntlet at all times
with what is and is not, in the public
domain.
And I see flagrant violations of that
daily..
which I find rather irritating, because
I know that the images used
belong to another artist. Most of the
time I can even tell you what their names are !
As whomever has taken them have not even made an attempt
to change them but use them
just as the original artist made them.
As an artist, I of course, study the
works of other artist's, as any good art student does.
Because of this, I once was accused
of ripping off a well known artists work
because one of my works resembles one
very well known, according to them.
I told the writer thank you that you
think it's that good,
but I would not even consider ripping
off my favorite artists work..
but I will try like hell to emulate
them :) and apparently I succeeded fairly well.
As a web designer,
this gets even worse...
As I tear the web apart looking for
this little bit or that
that will make the site sing. That
I can legitimately offer my client to use.
It's not easy, mainly because
just plugging in the words " public
domain " whatever image name,
is fraught with potholes of sites who
do not understand , or worse don't care,
who have gathered a massive collection
of stuff that they have no idea where they came from
and park the words " public domain
" on them.
I have told more than a few of such
sites, that such and such a work belongs to so and so,
As I recognize the work of other artists.
And most of them tell me
go jump in the lake. As those collections
bring them massive amounts of traffic
and they are not about to give that
up.
Most such places are loaded with ads,
which, one presumes, make them money.
In fact it's a dead give away if they have
a massive " collection " of supposed
" public domain " images and have ad after ad
on every page and it's the only content
they have. Run.... most likely what you will find
there may or may not be PD no matter
what they say.
I'm no saint , I have made mistakes
of my own on this...all such works derived from such sources.
.... have since been destroyed ...
save one....
Before I learned how this works with
image collection sites..
I inadvertently used a work by another
artist, that I found on such a site,
which by sheer chance I came across
the real one later.
Which is what made me question any
works I had made based on such images
and led to their eventual demise.
The image I had found, had it's copyright
information removed as I found out.
Which given that most of us park it
on a lower corner somewhere is not hard, you just crop the image.
I cheat, mine are buried in the image
itself as well ... tiny little words that don't detract from the image
but I know where they are... :) Anyway
I contacted them right away and told
them what happened and gratefully they liked what I had
done with it and gave me leave to continue
to use it. I got lucky. From that moment on,
I have become the biggest bloodhound
you ever saw with regard to, CAN I use this.. REALLY..!
It's why my disclaimer looks like this As a CYOA in case , despite my care, I'm wrong
Disclaimer
To
my Knowledge all the parts and bits that I have used to make my little
pictures
are
public domain ..or my own creation ... if I am mistaken in this and have
used something unknowingly
that
you KNOW is your creation Please let me know and I will dismantle the work
...
Unless
you like what I have done with it.. in which case I will be happy to credit
your part in its design..
That image by the way has never and
will never be put up for sale.
As works go it's not one of my best
really being a very EARLY work.
But since I Know the background I used
is anothers work, It stays as what it is
a header art.. it's on this
page if your interested with full credits given the backgrounds creator.
She and I are good friends now and have been for years :)
Such backgrounds I can make for myself
now, As I have the programing to do so, but
almost all such works need more than
the 3D programing will do. Post work as it's called.
Which is where other images come in.
I know where all mine come from now,
from collections of mostly
outdated goodies, hunted up over long
hours, that are clearly marked with all the proper forms as PD,
it's why I lot of them look so retro,
they are :) It's also why you tend to see a great many
similar images used over and over.
Very often it's a re make of the same image. I work very hard
at making sure I don't step on the
toes of anothers work, if for no other reason than I certainly wouldn't
want someone to do it to mine. Once
was enough to teach me, not to just trust another's word on it
without certain assurances. And even
then I'm leery.
Any image you see with a real human
face/form
Is either my own in many cases, not
being vain but no one can argue using Myself as material
or PD images that are dated accordingly
and even then I modify them
so as to protect the privacy of any
heirs. Any human form becomes a canvas I mold and modify
to where it resembles no person living
or dead. Unless it's me. It's why most of them are so tiny...
or modified to the point of becoming
a form on which I paint, bearing little resemblance
to their original form but are just
a guide line for me where all the parts go.
It reminds me sometimes of how we used
to play with paper dolls as a Kid :)
So this little missive is my plea to
the web world at large to please.. please learn what the words
public domain mean and use them accordingly
when putting up image collections.
As I for one, and I know I speak for
many more, do NOT want to have some owner of an image
come back to haunt us later years down
the road.. that such and such an image belongs to them
and was misrepresented as public domain
by someone who didn't understand what the term means.
We all work very hard to avoid this.
I'm asking the web community at large to take as much care
in presenting images, as we, the artists
try to do in creating them.
To see my art work