creative commons license for scans of sketches and cels

[ginga123]

what is your opinion about the topic for a noncommerical use license (no one can make $ off of it) of scans of sketches and cels? pros or cons? should we start taking those steps in the digital era we live in?

[Rekka Alexiel]

Oooh, I've always been pretty protective of my scans. Granted, I do not own the rights to the characters or anything from the design side, but if it's a scan that I made of a cel that I own and someone else uses it without my permission or takes out my watermarks with the intent on using it publicly--whether for profit or not--it seriously ticks me off.

For the most part, I will generally say give someone the permission to use whatever I've created if they simply give me the courtesy first to ask. So many people of today's generation seem to think that whatever they can Google is theirs to take and do whatever they want with it.

I think perhaps we--as owners of a one-of-a-kind piece of art--have more grounds to stop people from using scans and such like this... but as one who also is part of a one-man scanlation team... I often come across people using my scans, watermarked and all, without giving me a heads up or anything. At the end of the day, I really don't care, but I don't understand how hard it is to simply state a source. I was always taught that if I used something that I did not personally create it needs to be cited. Do people even get taught this these days? At least, when I was in school, we were also taught how to cite Internet sites, so I don't know what the deal is. Then again, people are probably just too damn lazy to do it. Whatever you can right click is yours to do as you please. orz

[sensei]

I think the more pressing issue is that studios could hypothetically move against curators who scan and post images of which they own the copyright. A similar situation held when I was part of a team editing the letters of an American literary figure. Even though the person was long dead and all his published works now in the public domain, publishing the letters, as they were previously unpublished manuscripts, were still restricted by copyright law. To do so legally, we had to get approval of the owner of the manuscript AND also the representative of the writer's living heirs.

I don't know if the exact same laws apply to scans of sketches and cels, but to be perfectly legal, one should have the permission of a representative of the studio or animating team that produced the anime.

However, I believe that most of us are protected by the Fair Use principle, in that we are not reproducing a large section of the work, nor are we doing so for profit, but rather for educational purposes. But our using such images under this principle then, in my mind, raises a question of whether we can legally license such scans if we did not in fact create the artwork.

[cutiebunny]

I've never had anyone ask if they could use my scans, but instead have been asked if I could make specific scans of a cel or sketch for them. The last time I received such a request was a couple years ago, when someone asked if they could get the scan of the sketch to make a fancel for what I assume may have possibly been resale. I politely declined. I don't mind if someone makes a fancel of something I own provided they're not trying to dupe a potential customer into thinking it's the real production cel, but I do mind if someone decides to take my scan or ask that I scan an item specifically for them so they can use it for fancel purposes. I also mind if my images are placed on other sites where another person claims ownership of my items. I remember coming across such a site, e-mailing them asking to take down my images and even offering to provide them with screenshots instead, and was more or less told to go F myself.

I think what bothers me most is that, once you put the image out there, you have no control over what others do with it. While most people have good intentions (and some may even credit you and redirect viewers to your gallery), there are many people that are going to use your image for less than stellar purposes. It bothers me when I see counterfeit sketches on YJ whose originals belong to fellow collectors but I feel even worse when I see fake autographs posted in RS galleries. Then, I feel, that I've failed as a curator because, time and time again, I've advised against buying sketches from "big names" on YJ and yet a fake Dragonball sketch popped up on RS this week, with the same stock pose and stamp that every other counterfeit has. There really is a wealth of knowledge, not only on RS/Beta but other dedicated sites in other languages, worldwide, and yet another collector fell victim to a counterfeiter because they did not ask. While I understand there's a worry that you may be tipping off a possible competitor, I'd rather risk losing out on the auction than realize I've just spent a couple hundred dollars on something that's a fake.

[Nene]

I came across something on one of those t-shirt design websites the other day. The person clearly used one of my cels as a base for the image. I'm not sure how those things work, I think it was on Redbubble. They edited the original scan slightly but I can still see they used my cel as the template. I've spotted a few others that look similar to cels I've seen scanned in galleries, too.

I'm not against people wanting to use the images creatively since we technically don't own the rights to the actual image. But presumably people are making some money from these t-shirt design sites? Not sure how to feel about that. You could argue they've edited the image enough to make it their own or you could argue that making money off an image that essentially belongs to the production company is a bit iffy.