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realitysquared

Daniel
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So, I know the "My DeviantArt Story" thing was supposed to be done on our actual birthday but on that particular day when I sat down at my computer I had a ton of stuff which needed my attention and my personal journal CSS happened to be broken and I had no time to fix it up to display properly (It serves me right for letting months pass by between journal entries) but I wanted to participate and I decided I would just do it "later" and then somehow it's now August 21st and it's finally "later".

My Story actually starts way back in 1999. I came home from a long day at work at my retail job to discover that some of my friends had upgraded their personal home computers and had collaborated among themselves to put together a desktop set for me from the equipment which they were replacing so suddenly I had my very first computer.

Being an artist one of them gave me their old copy of Adobe Photoshop 5 which they weren't using any more and gave me a quick rundown of how to use it and then we hopped online where they showed me my first wallpaper and skins community; customize.org (It's still around it's just nothing like it used to be).

As a traditional artist I was pretty good, as a digital artist working with a mouse and unfamiliar software I was terrible but that didn't stop me; I eventually branched out into other wallpaper and skins communities- Deskmod, Skinz, and a couple of others (All you old timers who were around in the late Nineties probably remember them).

The sites would do "link exchanges" so I caught a link from one site to here and I wound up joining DeviantArt in September of 2000.

Early deviantart by kdso

It was new, it was small and it was close knit and it was far more active than the other artists communities I was involved with but most importantly it didn't restrict you to just doing wallpaper resolutions or skinning- it accepted a wide range of works in a wide range of resolutions and sizes.

As a digital artist back in 2000 I can't even tell you how big of a deal that last part was because while you trip all over art communities and image hosting sites now, back then if you weren't doing wallpaper resolutions then you weren't submitting online.

Gradually the fact that submissions weren't restricted to specific formats and the higher level of activity here made the other online communities I was a part of pale in comparison so I eventually drifted away from them and made DeviantArt my sole home.

I made some connections here which got me interested in printing my works so I delved extensively into copyright law so i could better understand and protect my work once things got that far and for a time I was even involved at an administrative level at another print oriented website so my knowledge there came in handy at knowing what could or could not be approved at a quality control level.

At the time, around 2001 I think, DeviantArt was starting to move towards offering prints as well so I brought my knowledge and my personal advice into the forums here to help out other deviants with their questions and concerns. My efforts and high level of involvement there earned me Senior status and a Deviousness award (Yes it says I earned Deviousness in 1969 on my profile page but that's the result of a server error years and years ago and there's actually a bunch of awards which probably say the same date if you know where to look for them).

Shortly after that I was brought on as a volunteer and things really started to develop around DeviantArt then.

Deviantart contest Design by jml2art

The galleries offered to the community started to expand rapidly, trying to offer every type of artist or genre a possible home and while the galleries expanded so did the community itself.

Around 2002 to 2003 online artist communities got hit badly with many of them closing or being sold (and as a result abruptly changing in ways their community didn't like) so our little, closely knit community suddenly expanded by leaps and bounds as all sorts of artists sought a new home or abandoned their old online community in favor of one which was more palatable.

Things got really crazy around here for awhile afterwards but we saw all sorts of new artists, new inspirations and new genres and fandoms appear in a crazy hodgepodge.

My art got better with the addition of my first Wacom tablet which served me well for over a half a decade and which helped translate my skill with a pencil into the digital space and I branched out into all sorts of stuff from fractals to 3D modeling based on really cool and awesome stuff which found right here in our galleries (not all these experiments wound up in my gallery since some were really, really hideous).

My own personal role at DeviantArt expanded as our policies needed to address all of these new peoples and the content that they submitted. I headed a team of other volunteers who were responsible for moderating both site content and community behavior. that team would go through a lot of changes and development to eventually be the Copyright & Etiquette Administration or CEA that currently serves that role today as a part of the Community Operations team.

Along the way I went from being a volunteer to being an outside contractor to a full time employee with the company. I also shifted from being the CEA team leader to my current role as project manager responsible for making sure that the team has proper support and advice.

It's been a long, long time as I count myself as one of the longest continuously active members of the DeviantArt community and while I could fill this journal with countless anecdotes and stories and hilarious (in hindsight) moments ("Guatemala Day" anyone?), I think I will end here with one of my favorite depictions of our quirky, weird and wonderful community.

Welcome to DeviantART World by MacDoninri

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There appears to be a fair amount of misunderstanding on the subject of stock resources so what I would like to do today is attempt to clarify several issues which are of importance to the artists who generously provide stock resources to the public for use and hopefully dispel the confusion and misinformation which is beginning to circulate.

The first issue at hand is in regards to your personal stock terms

Your Personal Stock Terms

Officially deviantART maintains only one "automatic" restriction and that is "No Commercial Use" and that particular restriction can easily be overridden by the actual stock provider.

As far as official policy is concerned each stock resource provider is free to attach any Terms of Use, restrictions or requirements that they see fit and our moderation staff will do the best we can to help you enforce your rules when you need that sort of assistance.

We only ask a few things from you in return;

  • Place your terms of use right on the deviation page so someone can't miss them.
  • Make your terms of use simple, straightforward, clearly written and understandable.
  • Don't use terms which are vague or open to interpretation.
  • Try to politely solve problems with artists not following your terms yourself before seeking staff help.

In the event that you believe someone has failed to follow your personal terms of use for a resource used in a deviation submitted to deviantART and you have attempted to get that artist to correct the problem and given them a reasonable amount of time in which to make the correction.

If someone has ignored your personal stock terms of use and they do not respond to your requests for correction within a reasonable time frame you may contact our staff at the deviantART Customer Service Center for assistance. Providing that your terms of use are fair and reasonable our staff will do their best to assist you.

Does Violation of Your Personal Stock Terms Equal Copyright Infringement?

The short answer to this one is "NO"; a violation of any of your personal rules for use does not necessarily create a situation involving copyright infringement.

A violation of your terms is certainly a problem and you CAN get assistance for it but please do not report it as copyright infringement and do not use the DMCA copyright infringement web form in an attempt to have the violating work removed as infringement. 

To properly seek assistance with violations of your stock rules file a general "Policy Inquiry" customer service ticket found under the Copyright & Etiquette Administration section of the contact menu (this is a section which collects general tickets of all subjects so there may be a bit of a wait due to volume) and simply title your inquiry something clear (and not copyright related).

In your ticket you should take a few moments to briefly explain which terms of use were violated and if possible show us or explain to us where you tried to get this person to correct their error and we'll review. As long as the terms of use are clear and straight forward, like a requirement for crediting or linking back, we can assist you with them- and to be perfectly transparent there are some terms of use, like a general requirement for notification, which we can't assist with because we cannot verify all possible means of contacting you for that notification.




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As many of you know, archive file types represent a means to collect together a number of computer files and package them together for the purpose of backup, to transport them to some other location, or simply to compress them so that they take up less space. Many of you here in the deviantART community who offer stock resources, applications, themes and other desktop customization options are all very familiar with them and use them extensively, whether your file type of choice be .zip, .rar, or any one of another dozen options.

Depending on how regularly you submit and what sort of file type you use when you do so you may or may not have noticed a change- that change being that submissions with file types ending with .exe are no longer being accepted during the the submission process and if you've attempted to submit an archive file which was password protected you've noticed that those protected files are also being rejected during submission (although 'normal' archive files without a password are accepted just as always).

Both of these changes are relatively recent and both are related to a brief mention in the Site Update posted on May 31st. The mention was brief at the time and lacked detail, which was a deliberate choice due to the circumstances, mentioning only that, "We have made some changes to the allowed file types in categories where members generally upload downloadable files, such as skins and themes categories."

The lack of the customary detail in this particular portion of the site update was due to the fact that it referred directly to profiles being used to deliberately submit .exe files or .exe files contained in archive files which would be presented as a theme or desktop customization but which in fact were malware; files which would install viruses, worms or other malicious software which could damage or disrupt the operation of your computer.

The submission of these infected file types had been occurring for a period of months and we had been attempting to address the problem using various methods and means while watching how the individuals responded to our efforts. Ultimately in May of this year, after watching the individuals responsible adapt their tactics and continue to place infected files on the site, it became obvious that we could no longer avoid the one defense which we had been trying to avoid- namely disallowing any file type ending in .exe as well as a few other related file extensions.

The act of disallowing .exe files did successfully what none of our efforts was able to do; it blocked the vast majority of the infected files which had been steadily flowing into the customization galleries. We are certainly aware that disallowing new submissions of .exe files has inconvenienced artists who are trying to offer legitimate desktop customization resources and we are just as upset about this as the artists affected but under the circumstances we were left with no other effective choice and we encourage those artists affected to do their best to work around or within this new restriction.

Another unintended casualty in this particular battle has been stock resource providers. For years some stock resource providers are submitted their resources in archive files protected by password which they made available for sale or under specific conditions under which they would give you the password for access. Unfortunately archives which are protected under password cannot be checked to see what sort of files are inside and that means that not only can our systems not check for the restricted file types it also cannot subject the password protected archive to any virus scanning.

Because the password protection blocks our efforts to check the archive for malware we were forced to disallow the submission of any archive file type which was under password protection. We understand that this is a great inconvenience and this disrupts a system that many artists have had in place for years and this truly does represent a situation where the few have caused a disruption for the many but it was something which could not be avoided as we moved forward with protecting all members from these sorts of infected deviations.

While we are currently rejecting the submission of .exe and password protected archive files we will not be automatically removing any of these files which were submitted previously. While individual files which have an issue or a problem could be removed by our staff there is no reason to report any existing deviation simply because it is an executable or simply because it is password protected.

I'd like to reassure all artists that as we move forward and as we continue to maximize security and the safety of downloadable files that we always try our best to make certain our efforts cause as little impact to you, the artist, as possible.




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The term "cyberbullying" was first coined and defined by Canadian educator and anti-bullying activist Bill Belsey, as "the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others."

While the actions which make up cyberbullying can vary depending on who you are talking with or what website you are on at the time, as far as we here at deviantART are concerned the act of cyberbullying involves a range of behavior from hostile and aggressive communications, to threats, sexual remarks, hate speech, ganging up on victims by making them the subject of ridicule or humiliation.

The practice of cyberbullying is also not limited to children, when perpetrated by adults toward adults these same behaviors are sometimes referred to as cyberstalking or cyberharassment but regardless of what name you attach to it, cyberbullying has grown into an increasing problem since the behavior was first identified and sadly we have observed that the deviantART community has begun to be used as a platform for these undesired behaviors.

While the type of abusive behaviors which make up the majority of cyberbullying cases have always been prohibited by the deviantART terms of service as well as the deviantART etiquette policy what we have seen over the last couple of years are attempts at what could be called "cyberbullying-by-proxy".

What we call cyberbullying-by-proxy is a situation where rather than directly confront a victim, a bully instead uses a deviation, journal, Group or blog in an attempt to publicly humiliate their intended target or to otherwise direct negative attention towards their victim with the intention of causing other people to do their bullying and tormenting for them.

Deviations which are used in cyberbully-by-proxy attempts typically target their victims in one of several ways, the primary manner involving the taking and publishing of screenshots. These screenshots can display private notes, deviations, or public commentary such as comments or journals and often contain demeaning statements in the descriptions, mocking annotations directly on the screenshot or sometimes both. Many of these screenshots are the result of deliberate efforts of the bully to "bait" an overreaction or dramatic (and therefore amusing) response from their intended target just for the purpose of taking the screenshot for later public humiliation; in some cases even going to far as to screenshot and make efforts to mock those who block them before the baiting gets the desired response.

Regardless of how the screenshot has been obtained, edited or otherwise treated the obvious purpose of the deviation is to mock, taunt, insult or humiliate the victim publicly and this purpose is often enhanced by sharing the deviation through Groups, blogs or journals specifically designed for this purpose.

Previously, in an effort to be as accommodating as possible, we attempted to work with the community in regards to screenshot style submissions for a long time, knowing that while they could show some genuinely funny situations these types of deviations could be used to promote the humiliation and harassment of other members. In our efforts to find a middle ground we did allow screenshots for a time to be submitted providing that they were publicly censored however this simply bred an environment where the censored information was provided in private to anyone who asked and this did little to deter what is actually a problem.

As over time these types of submissions have become more and more focused on the harassment and mocking of other individuals, both here on deviantART as well as on other websites, we have been forced to review our previous lenient approach to how we handle them and as a result of that review we will no longer be tolerating the submission these types of screenshot deviations.

Because of this change we urge all members who may have these submissions in their deviantART gallery to remove them voluntarily rather than to have them removed by our staff and have that removal associated with your profile records.

While our current focus at addressing cyberbullying is currently directed at deviations we are not ignoring journals, blogs, or Groups which may be designed for the same purpose. Currently we will be evaluating these on a case-by-case basis as we continue to review and assess our current policies towards bullying and harassment.


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The Galleries here at deviantART.com receive, on average, around a hundred thousand submissions every day- any way you look at it that is a lot of creative works coming in every minute of every day. Among this outpouring of creativity which we call Deviations there are, inevitably, works which could be potential problems and when members of the community find deviations which could be troublesome for one reason or another it is only natural to want to bring them to the attention of the staff here at deviantART.

Because of the various ways that a deviation might be a problem we'll focus on only one specific issue in this blog, that issue being the subject of copyright infringement.

Now we've already tried to explain the ins and outs of copyright in our copyright policy so if you haven't read that particular page yet I'd encourage you to do so now (you agree to obey the rules and restrictions laid out there every time you submit a deviation).

Now the term copyright infringement is often referred to by the (somewhat inaccurate) slang term of "art theft" within the deviantART community and elsewhere but for the purpose of this blog we will not be using the slang term at all and will rely solely on the more accurate term "copyright infringement" or "infringement".

Some examples on how a deviation can be considered copyright infringement would include things such as placing something made by another artist into your deviantART gallery without their knowledge or permission, modifying or editing a work made by someone else and placing it in your gallery or precisely copying a work originally created by someone else. There can be other situations but those three represent the most common reasons that someone will believe that their copyright has been infringed upon.

There are basically four avenues by which alleged copyright infringement can be brought to the attention of the deviantART staff; two are "informal" methods which are fairly forgiving in terms of what is required while the third and fourth are more "formal" methods which follows a strict protocol and we'll briefly explain all of these methods of contact below.

To start with the formal methods of contact, these are done either by contacting deviantART customer service (the help desk found at help ), which can be done if you have a deviantART account, or by emailing us directly at violations@deviantart.com. Using either of these methods will require that the complaint follow all of the legal requirements laid out under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as we mention in the deviantART copyright policy. Don't worry if you aren't certain what you need to write, someone will be able to assist you if you don';t know what to do or if you haven't provided everything which is required.

Because both of these formal methods of contact have to meet specific requirements under the law they can only be used by actual copyright owners or someone who is authorized to represent them. This means that "third party" reports won't be accepted either through email or through the deviantART help desk and anyone who is not an owner or who is not representing an owner will be redirected to the informal moderation system which we will talk about below.

The two informal methods of contact use our onsite moderation system and are started the same way- by clicking a link on the actual deviation page. The link in question is Report Deviation and it can be found on every deviation page. This link has moved around the deviation page over the years as various changes to deviantART have occurred and as of this writing it can be found below the deviation itself, in the right-hand column just underneath the Statistics section where you can find the total number of comments, favorites, views and downloads. The link is in blue and has an exclamation point symbol  next to it to help it stand out a bit.

Clicking this link will bring up a menu where you can select several options but the ones we are mainly concerned about in this particular blog are "My Work Used" and "Permissions Issues". While both of these categories can be used to report alleged infringements they are distinct in who should be using which one to bring deviations to the attention of our staff.

The category titled "My Work Used" is intended to be used by actual copyright owners to file an informal report with our staff. Reports filed through moderation here are not quite the same as writing a claim of infringement which complies with the more strict protocols set out under the law so under some circumstances our staff may redirect an owner to file a more formal notice (which we'll explain more below). These reports go into a special queue in the moderation system where they will be given a higher priority by our staff and waiting times for review should be relatively short. Because this particular report type is intended to be used by actual owners it is important to mention that if you are not an owner and you file a report using this section you will be redirected and your report may be closed without any further action being taken- this is done in order to keep this section of the moderation system focused solely on the more informal reports filed by copyright owners.

By contrast the selection of "Permissions Issues" will allow anyone to report a deviation as being potentially infringing but there is a trade off in that these reports are a much lower priority and depending on the circumstances and information provided it is less likely that they will prompt any direct action from the staff in any but the most clear and obvious situations.

Now, this brings up the subject of the differences between a claim of infringement filed by an owner and one filed by anybody else and why our staff treats these reports differently - we do understand that many in the community feel that third party reports should be handled without question and many have claimed in the past that we do not do this because we are "lazy" or that we "support art theft" or "don't care" but the actual reasons are rooted in the need to respond to these sorts of situations in the most responsible fashion possible.

The average third party infringement claim can have many things about it which can cause our staff concern; many can be vague or based upon assumptions or rumor and we've even seen a few which are plainly wrong for one reason or another.

We have millions of artists here and many of our members maintain, or have used, more than one deviantART account. Many members have accounts on many other art related websites or forums or personal websites and cross-post the same works on these other websites, not to mention that many deviantART members have works published in books, magazines and other print sources. In addition the works found on deviantART can be taken by a small number of the millions of daily visitors and posted elsewhere (with or without permission) and this creates a situation where we cannot simply assume that since you were able to find a particular work elsewhere that the work found on deviantART isn't supposed to be here.

There are also commissions, "art trades", collaborations, partnerships, work-for-hire transactions and hundreds or private deals and arrangements every day just on deviantART alone. Add to this the fact that there are tens of thousands of legitimate stock images, "bases" and other resources free for the taking and free to use in a new work and then mix in tens of thousands of works covered by Creative Commons, those which have otherwise been offered to the public for use by the owner, and those created by owners which don't care if their work is spread around and we have a situation where just because someone has used or posted something owned by another person doesn't necessarily mean that it was unauthorized.

In short, the reason that we place an emphasis and preference on claims filed by owners over claims filed by just anybody is that, without the actual involvement of the copyright owner you really cannot say for certain if a particular use was without permission or if the owner even cares at all about the use.

This means that the best course of action when you find what you suspect to be an infringement is for you to actually contact the owner- something which can be stunningly easy considering that a large percentage of third party reports given to us involve owners who are already a part of the deviantART community. Contacting them and letting them file a more formal complaint with our staff is vastly preferred to a report which amounts to suspicion and accusation alone.

We will continue to accept and review both owner-filed and third party reports and I hope this article has helped make it clear where each type of complaint should be filed and why they are handled with different priorities and why they receive different levels of action by our staff.


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