Topic: Artist keeps Deleting their Works

I hate the fact that, many artist i like wants to move on, by DELETING their own Artworks.

Example, VoskhodArt. I never realised that they deleted their work, until now. I don't think this is something that artist should do. It is selfish that they deleted their work.

Another one, Zer0Rebel4. I know a lot about this but, i just really want to see their works

--

The real question i made is, is it POSSIBLE to download the Takedown Content, even the status saying status:Deleted?

No, im not going to reupload their work, this is very personal because i knew they need some Privacy and i respect that.

and for those who saying "just use Gallery-DL if you dont want to missed", i know. i tried to learn it, but im also don't have enough time because of this stupid College homework so i need more time.

--

Yes, i am the same guy who made the topic about Why Rule34 and E621 so important, because i view art as a Artifact, same goes with Video Games and thanks to StopKillingGames, it motivates me to archive as many as possible i can.

Recently, I looked at my liked list and prepared for the worst by searching for status:deleted. This is when I found out that Zer0Rebel4 disappeared. I hope they're well, but goddamn do I want to see Jackson and Rita again.

Also, back in 2021, Luraiokun set up an art archive for people to download before everything was deleted. But they're back now, so that's cool.

trepan0603 said:
I hate the fact that, many artist i like wants to move on, by DELETING their own Artworks.

Example, VoskhodArt. I never realised that they deleted their work, until now. I don't think this is something that artist should do. It is selfish that they deleted their work.

Another one, Zer0Rebel4. I know a lot about this but, i just really want to see their works

--

The real question i made is, is it POSSIBLE to download the Takedown Content, even the status saying status:Deleted?

No, im not going to reupload their work, this is very personal because i knew they need some Privacy and i respect that.

and for those who saying "just use Gallery-DL if you dont want to missed", i know. i tried to learn it, but im also don't have enough time because of this stupid College homework so i need more time.

--

Yes, i am the same guy who made the topic about Why Rule34 and E621 so important, because i view art as a Artifact, same goes with Video Games and thanks to StopKillingGames, it motivates me to archive as many as possible i can.

Honestly, and meaning no offense, I think it's more selfish to think you should be able to keep an artist's work when they want to remove it.
They made it and it's their property. They are kind enough to share it with the furry community, but that also means they have a right to say 'I don't want my art shared anymore'.

If people could download deleted content that artists wanted removed:
1. It would pretty much negate the purpose of a takedown request. Why take it down if people can still download it?
2. It would be telling the artist 'I don't care what you, the person who put hours into making the art I consume for free, wish.'

I'm NOT saying that is your mindset. But that is pretty much the message the artist would hear.
In short: Artists put their hard work on here for free. And that means they can ask to have it taken down and expect it to be removed. Not removed, except for an ability for anyone to download it.

To add: If anyone developed a browser add-on or program that let users download status:deleted art; I'd 100% support e6 developing a way to block it.
Artists should have a reasonable expectation that their wishes be honored when they upload their art here. To do otherwise would be unconscionable.

dzeergy said:
Recently, I looked at my liked list and prepared for the worst by searching for status:deleted. This is when I found out that Zer0Rebel4 disappeared. I hope they're well, but goddamn do I want to see Jackson and Rita again.

Also, back in 2021, Luraiokun set up an art archive for people to download before everything was deleted. But they're back now, so that's cool.

That's sounds a good news, but it is still remains problem. Games like Destiny 2, where Bungie did a Content Vaulting that cause the Red War campaign and other gone but not gone.

It is the artist who gave birth to the picture, and it is that artist who can put it out of its misery.

And no, I don't think there's way to get takedown content as a regular user other than asking other archivists who are downloading galleries to their private archive.

fuzzy_kobold said:
Honestly, and meaning no offense, I think it's more selfish to think you should be able to keep an artist's work when they want to remove it.
They made it and it's their property. They are kind enough to share it with the furry community, but that also means they have a right to say 'I don't want my art shared anymore'.

You clearly don't understand what i meant, like think about 10 years or 50 years later, what happened to our Artifact. it is the same problem with the silent movie where, almost hundred if not thousands of silent film unfortunately being lost by time.

absolutebanger said:
And no, I don't think there's way to get takedown content as a regular user other than asking other archivists who are downloading galleries to their private archive.

oh, now we were talking. You made a good point of that.

Yeah it can be frustrating or sad but like. If you want something forever, save it. You never know who's going to quit art, or get hired by disney, or what websites are going to suddenly ban porn or shut down.

regsmutt said:
Yeah it can be frustrating or sad but like. If you want something forever, save it. You never know who's going to quit art, or get hired by disney, or what websites are going to suddenly ban porn or shut down.

yeah, like i mentioned earlier, because of this stupid College homework, i need more time.

trepan0603 said:
yeah, like i mentioned earlier, because of this stupid College homework, i need more time.

There would be way too many downsides to not being able to delete posts here, as per Fuzzy Kobold's comment. Your only choice here is to download them prior to being deleted. Sorry there's not a better solution.

You can thank weirdo harassers for the Zer0Rebel4 nuke and a few others. Sticking around becomes a little more difficult when you got neo-nazis contacting your family and work over drawings on the internet.

easytogooglename said:
You can thank weirdo harassers for the Zer0Rebel4 nuke and a few others. Sticking around becomes a little more difficult when you got neo-nazis contacting your family and work over drawings on the internet.

Well, i got feelings where when the time is conducive, they're will bring back that deleted content when it safe to exist.

again tho, this is a big issues when the very existing content is on the endangered position, it is still an issues like what i mentioned Destiny 2 game.

trepan0603 said:
You clearly don't understand what i meant, like think about 10 years or 50 years later, what happened to our Artifact. it is the same problem with the silent movie where, almost hundred if not thousands of silent film unfortunately being lost by time.

I get the value of preserving art, especially queer and furry art during a time when censorship against us is rising quickly. It's a part of our culture, it connects us with others like ourselves across the world, and losing allows bad actors to rewrite history and pretend we never existed. There is a reason fascists burn books, and a reason most of them started with queer ones. I have archived the galleries of many artists whose work is important to me, and i'll always encourage people to do the same.

But at the same time: If an artist is so afraid of being seen as a furry or as gay or whatever else that they'd nuke years of their own work to avoid that, then we are better off without their art as part of our culture anyway. I've only gotten less sympathetic to it over time. If they care so little about their own work, why should we care to host and archive it for them?

It is harsh, but a critical part of archiving is curation. It's why this site has a set of standards for submissions. Preserving literally every single thing ever made simply means the flaws and insecurity of the past generations will weigh on the neck of the future. Sometimes it's best to let the trash take itself out. If our community truly was damaged by an artist self-immolating, then other creators will eventually take up a pen and fill the hole they left behind.

topic #62218

listlesssky said:
I get the value of preserving art, especially queer and furry art during a time when censorship against us is rising quickly. It's a part of our culture, it connects us with others like ourselves across the world, and losing allows bad actors to rewrite history and pretend we never existed. There is a reason fascists burn books, and a reason most of them started with queer ones. I have archived the galleries of many artists whose work is important to me, and i'll always encourage people to do the same.

i get that what you mean, and i know the world is now choosing darkness (fascist) over the enlightenment (peace and love), because the one being is afraid of losing their grip over the progressive that is grown bigger and bigger over the time. Yeah fascist suck ass, but don't give up to achieve Renaissance for better world. This is almost similar to how people in The Dark Age have found The Enlightenment that cause The Renaissance Age happened, i guess the history repeated itself.

listlesssky said:
But at the same time: If an artist is so afraid of being seen as a furry or as gay or whatever else that they'd nuke years of their own work to avoid that, then we are better off without their art as part of our culture anyway. I've only gotten less sympathetic to it over time. If they care so little about their own work, why should we care to host and archive it for them?

It is harsh, but a critical part of archiving is curation. It's why this site has a set of standards for submissions. Preserving literally every single thing ever made simply means the flaws and insecurity of the past generations will weigh on the neck of the future. Sometimes it's best to let the trash take itself out. If our community truly was damaged by an artist self-immolating, then other creators will eventually take up a pen and fill the hole they left behind.

Well, that sucks ass but make sense that we as a human/furry, cannot carry heavy burden because of our own limitation but still, others will archived it and maybe other day, they will released it to the surface so people future generation will see it and understand it. That's the main point of preservation. But when the artist is no longer with us (or sorry to say, Deceased), it is better to preserve and keep it forever, Like for example Powfooo, their work was so cute that so many people asking for more but all of sudden, they no longer active. People questioning "where's Powfooo?", and that work are still remain exist, because we archived it so people will see their works.

I have seen so many people become fascist because of their own selfishness, insecurities, and unneccesary resentment, due to lack of transparancies of their own government and rejection/denial of change or Enlightenment. if you have been faced by the Far Right, i think you're right to keep our works hidden by the fascist, the same thing happened to the people hiding their books in order to avoid the nazi german burns all books.

I know it's sucks that we living in Far Right era and US/Israel-Iran War World War 3, but again it's is important to fight for our rights to exist. i even sympathize with trans people because of how beautiful they are. My point is do not let ourselves being drown by The Darkness (Fascist) so we can open our voice to exist.

Don't be pessimistic, because pessimistic and nihilism is a perfect weapon for The Darkness (Fascist) to win, because when we underestimates ourselves, we forgot that we created a "militia" that cause The Enlightenment happened. It is always a Backfires for The Darkness (Fascist) that they ended up call for mercy (don't show mercy to The Fascist).

There's a one video that truly depicted how the fascist was born.
This is a Antiwar Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZUaYdxTwhc

trepan0603 said:
<rant about fascism>

Absolutely wild tangent to go into when you can't download the things you want.
That being said, you should probably not bring those kind of topics up since they are completely irrelevant to the discussion.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Absolutely wild tangent to go into when you can't download the things you want.
That being said, you should probably not bring those kind of topics up since they are completely irrelevant to the discussion.

oh my bad, now i getting of topic now, thanks for your correctness.

Now, if the artist comeback and bring back that content, what you gonna do?

Also, what kind of tools that allows people to preserve it?

Give me answer.

i feel lost.

trepan0603 said:
Now, if the artist comeback and bring back that content, what you gonna do?

If the artist comes back and asks for their older art to be restored, then we'll restore it. At that time, I imagine you'd look to save it so you won't risk losing it again, but that's up to you.

clawstripe said:
If the artist comes back and asks for their older art to be restored, then we'll restore it. At that time, I imagine you'd look to save it so you won't risk losing it again, but that's up to you.

and what kind of tool allowed to restored it?

trepan0603 said:
Also, what kind of tools that allows people to preserve it?

Right click, Save Image As

regsmutt said:
Right click, Save Image As

Yeah, i get the joke. But im talking about the majority of content.

trepan0603 said:
and for those who saying "just use Gallery-DL if you dont want to missed", i know. i tried to learn it, but im also don't have enough time because of this stupid College homework so i need more time.

Do you already have it installed? If so, just run this:

gallery-dl -D <path_to_folder> -f /O "<e621_url>"

Example:

gallery-dl -D lonbluewolf -f /O "https://e621.net/posts?tags=lonbluewolf"

If "-D <path_to_folder>" isn't used, the media gets downloaded to the folder you're currently in. "-f /O" isn't needed either, but it makes gallery-dl save using the original filename, which is <md5_hash>.<ext> in e621's case.

If you're interested in saving Pixiv ugoiras and have ffmpeg installed, you can use "--ugoira <format>" before the url to download it as: webm, mp4, gif, vp8, vp9, vp9-lossless, copy, and zip.

gallery-dl -D <path_to_folder> -f /O --ugoira <format> "<pixiv_url>"

Example:

gallery-dl -D C:\Users\myuser\blopkid -f /O --ugoira webm "https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/127461262"

I don't use Windows, but I'm assuming you are and that it works the same there. If I've made a mistake, someone please feel free to correct me.

gallery-dl also works with rule34.xxx, which I'm only bringing up because they haven't taken their art down from there yet.

Edit: Just realized rule34.xxx requires the use of an API key. If you intend to use gallery-dl to get their posts after reading this, I can tell you how.

Also just removed the link since I realized I might not be allowed to link to a a booru containing art taken down from e621, though pointing you there might also not be allowed.

Oh, and depending on the website, you may want to use "--sleep <seconds>" to wait a certain number of seconds between each download. "<seconds>" can use numbers with decimal points. Too many downloads in a short amount of time may get you rate limited or even blocked.

trepan0603 said:
and what kind of tool allowed to restored it?

I mean that e621 will make the posts visible again. Although we say we're deleting them, in reality, we're just hiding them from everyone's view (except for staff as we have to be able to see when someone tries to reupload previously deleted posts). When an artist decides they want to reverse a Takedown they made, we can just unhide them so everyone can view them again.

Posts that actually are deleted, in other words, fully destroyed and thus unrestorable, are very rare. We don't like destroying posts as that could cause potential issues with the server as there's basically now holes in the site's data. So, we reserve destruction only for illegal or truly problematic posts.

hsauq said:
Do you already have it installed? If so, just run this:

I don't use Windows, but I'm assuming you are and that it works the same there. If I've made a mistake, someone please feel free to correct me.

Im unfortunately uses Windows 11 (which is the worst windows ever made by Microslop).

clawstripe said:
I mean that e621 will make the posts visible again. Although we say we're deleting them, in reality, we're just hiding them from everyone's view (except for staff as we have to be able to see when someone tries to reupload previously deleted posts). When an artist decides they want to reverse a Takedown they made, we can just unhide them so everyone can view them again.

Posts that actually are deleted, in other words, fully destroyed and thus unrestorable, are very rare. We don't like destroying posts as that could cause potential issues with the server as there's basically now holes in the site's data. So, we reserve destruction only for illegal or truly problematic posts.

Oh thank god, this is why i love this site. You gave me a enlightenment for this kind of preservation issues. So, what's the illegal post is about?

And also, is Rule34 also did same thing to E621?

trepan0603 said:
Oh thank god, this is why i love this site. You gave me a enlightenment for this kind of preservation issues. So, what's the illegal post is about?

Typically, posts that are destroyed include pictures with real life genitalia, both human and animal (typically as real life pornography) and pictures of real life gore. Basically, really disagreeable and contentious stuff. Perhaps not necessary always illegal, who wants to see that sort of stuff?

And also, is Rule34 also did same thing to E621?

Beats me. The only association they have with us is that they frequently scrape e621, which we can't exactly block without wrecking legitimate Users' ability to use it.

clawstripe said:
Typically, posts that are destroyed include pictures with real life genitalia, both human and animal (typically as real life pornography) and pictures of real life gore. Basically, really disagreeable and contentious stuff. Perhaps not necessary always illegal, who wants to see that sort of stuff?

I don't know, maybe for deranged and unhinged person who has lost their humanity.

clawstripe said:
Beats me. The only association they have with us is that they frequently scrape e621, which we can't exactly block without wrecking legitimate Users' ability to use it.

yeah, but they are a Human/Furry version of E621 but more focus on Porn and more disorganized than E621, which i focused on SFW and NSFW.

trepan0603 said:
I don't know, maybe for deranged and unhinged person who has lost their humanity.

Obviously, but we don't need them on the site anyway.

yeah, but they are a Human/Furry version of E621 but more focus on Porn and more disorganized than E621, which i focused on SFW and NSFW.

True, but they have different owners, different staff, different policies, and different goals. Unlike e621, they have less interest in respecting artists' wishes. Basically a different site entirely. We have no more idea of what's going on behind the scenes there than they do on what's going on behind ours, nor do we really care to know.

clawstripe said:
True, but they have different owners, different staff, different policies, and different goals. Unlike e621, they have less interest in respecting artists' wishes. Basically a different site entirely. We have no more idea of what's going on behind the scenes there than they do on what's going on behind ours, nor do we really care to know.

Yeah, no wonder why it is disorganized and more focus on just display the art. Overall, aside from different owners, it is still a good library despite of it's flaws.

clawstripe said:
The only association they have with us is that they frequently scrape e621, which we can't exactly block without wrecking legitimate Users' ability to use it.

I agree with that. I've seen my uploads appearing on Rule 34 not by me. Always saying "uploaded by: Bot"

Preservation is always important. Not just artwork, videos, or video games, but also mods for games and 3D models for SFM, GMod, and Blender too.

snipertf2fan said:
Preservation is always important. Not just artwork, videos, or video games, but also mods for games and 3D models for SFM, GMod, and Blender too.

i agree with that, i even downloaded almost all the mods, 3d models i desired for.

A lot of people focus on the fact that it's their work and not how good or bad their reasons for deleting it are. Art is culture. Culture should be preserved.

Many artists end up deleting their work because either:

1. They're being harassed or otherwise attacked over their work,
2. They feel shame for what they created, or
3. They're "going pro" and a potential employer wants the porn gone.

I believe all of these reasons are exceptionally bad, not necessarily because of how the artists end up handling them, but because artists shouldn't have to be subjected to shame or attacks over their work, nor should they have to suppress themselves for others' perceived (usually nonexistent) benefit. Many artists who gallery nuke wouldn't have ever deleted their work without external pressure. And while I understand that many artists may not have the resources to fight back, it's not OK for us to just stand back and accept it as a common part of being a NSFW artist. It sends harassers and other prudes that target artists positive reinforcement that their antics work and that they'll keep getting away with it, and stuck-up professional studios that mandate they delete NSFW art the message that they get to bully artists for what they do in their personal time (which isn't OK either). By pushing back against it and giving those assholes consequences, less artists are likely to gallery nuke as they wouldn't have felt the need to.

mklxiv said:
Many artists end up deleting their work because either:

1. They're being harassed or otherwise attacked over their work,
2. They feel shame for what they created, or
3. They're "going pro" and a potential employer wants the porn gone.

I believe all of these reasons are exceptionally bad, not necessarily because of how the artists end up handling them, but because artists shouldn't have to be subjected to shame or attacks over their work, nor should they have to suppress themselves for others' perceived (usually nonexistent) benefit. Many artists who gallery nuke wouldn't have ever deleted their work without external pressure. And while I understand that many artists may not have the resources to fight back, it's not OK for us to just stand back and accept it as a common part of being a NSFW artist. It sends harassers and other prudes that target artists positive reinforcement that their antics work and that they'll keep getting away with it, and stuck-up professional studios that mandate they delete NSFW art the message that they get to bully artists for what they do in their personal time (which isn't OK either). By pushing back against it and giving those assholes consequences, less artists are likely to gallery nuke as they wouldn't have felt the need to.

You're right, you made a point about the problem of being artist who wants to make something what they desired for, and i get this point.

You mentioned something relevance about the artist that i loved.
For example...

Zer0Rebel4 > They're being harassed or otherwise attacked over their work,
VoskhodArt > They're "going pro" and a potential employer wants the porn gone.
itsymitsy > They're being harassed or otherwise attacked over their work, (maybe)

It's sucks really, but im still hope that in the next years (maybe 2030...), they will bring back their content if the time is conducive.

Well, this is why you buy a 5 TB HDD and hoard religiously anything you like the moment you stumble upon it. Nothing on the Internet is forever, if the artist won't delete their stuff because they want to move on, the whole site might just go down (like it happened with CGHub). I have art, music, assets, mods and other stuff that's unavailable to get anymore, and not even half of it is gone just because the author wished so.

A 5TB HDD?

Oh no no. You need at least 3 copies of any data, in 2 different locations, 1 of which is offsite.

Trust me. If this means you need to store less stuff, so be it. Hard drives fail all the time often with no warning.

You do not want to ever be in the situation where one dies and you must debate whether to:

• send a hard drive full of furry porn to a HDD repair shop who will definitely go through its contents (to validate the repair succeeded) and might freak out
• try and fix it yourself
• accept that it's lost forever

Also, regularly test your backups...

Always save your faves even if it's uploaded it here, you'll never know when your fav artist will DNP their stuff for any reason.

listlesssky said:
A 5TB HDD?

Oh no no. You need at least 3 copies of any data, in 2 different locations, 1 of which is offsite.

Trust me. If this means you need to store less stuff, so be it. Hard drives fail all the time often with no warning.

You do not want to ever be in the situation where one dies and you must debate whether to:

• send a hard drive full of furry porn to a HDD repair shop who will definitely go through its contents (to validate the repair succeeded) and might freak out
• try and fix it yourself
• accept that it's lost forever

Also, regularly test your backups...

The 3-2-1 rule is for like, enterprise setups and production servers, where data loss costs thousands and the price tag is worth it
(it's also 3 copies, 2 mediums, 1 off site)

With SSD prices as they are now, a 5TB HDD will function just fine for the (hopefully) few years until prices come back down to manageable levels, it took me some 3 years to kill the HDD that came in one of my old laptops, that thing was cheap and practically on fire

Also if your repair shop is going to freak out over the contents of your drive, then they're clearly new and have never had a single customer, people pay for recovery of nsfw content all the time
Shit happens, go to a different city if you don't want the possibility of rumors or something

trepan0603 said:
Now, if the artist comeback and bring back that content, what you gonna do?

Also, what kind of tools that allows people to preserve it?

Give me answer.

i feel lost.

https://re621.app has a hotkey feature that allows assigning "download" to an image, making downloading images very easy and painless. It also has a function to download en masse I'm pretty sure, like a whole tag or artist's gallery, but I can't say much about it because I don't use that functionality.
As for storage, I have my storage drives and those get mirrored to a large HDD that I use exclusively as a backup. Good compromise of having some protection but not breaking the bank. The HDD was like $100 for 8TB (in 2023) and I just use FreeFileSync, which is free as you might guess by the name

I'm of the quite controversial opinion that once something is posted to the internet, there is NO TAKING IT BACK. There is only a change of where the work is kept - i.e. galleries or in someone's hard drive. I actively work to subvert artists trying to delete their work, in fact - death of the artist is in full effect.

trepan0603 said:
The real question i made is, is it POSSIBLE to download the Takedown Content, even the status saying status:Deleted?

Yes. In fact, I know a guy for that. But we do not, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, condone re-uploading it or anything of the sort.

But, yes. It is, indeed, possible.

paradox_enjoyer said:

trepan0603 said:
The real question i made is, is it POSSIBLE to download the Takedown Content, even the status saying status:Deleted?

Yes. In fact, I know a guy for that. But we do not, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, condone re-uploading it or anything of the sort.

But, yes. It is, indeed, possible.

Note that it is only possible by staff, and they aren't going to hand out the content of a deleted post to a random user, it's really only done for artists/character owners/etc that didn't have the art anywhere else

Your best bet as a normal user is to look at the sources or the internet archive, saucenao and the like might also have compressed thumbnails if you can find some way to get it without having the original

They made it and it's their property. They are kind enough to share it with the furry community, but that also means they have a right to say 'I don't want my art shared anymore'.

While I understand this point, I have a hard time putting the artist's wishes before media preservation. Like... Imagine Toby Fox waking up one day and saying "Fuck it! I'm deleting Undertale". I don't want to get philosophical, but Undertale has touched a lot of people. At that point, you have to ask whether or not that content belongs exclusively to the creator anymore. And I don't mean that in the "copyright" sense (although I consider the concept of privatizing ideas quite selfish).

kiratsu said:
While I understand this point, I have a hard time putting the artist's wishes before media preservation. Like... Imagine Toby Fox waking up one day and saying "Fuck it! I'm deleting Undertale". I don't want to get philosophical, but Undertale has touched a lot of people. At that point, you have to ask whether or not that content belongs exclusively to the creator anymore. And I don't mean that in the "copyright" sense (although I consider the concept of privatizing ideas quite selfish).

That's a very poor comparison. Video games are tremendous projects that require a combination of disciplines in order to be made. They are essentially made to be consumed due to the amount of time and effort that goes into them. Even if you're not selling yours (which many devs like Toby do), you want other people to play.

Art is the opposite. It's made for personal reasons (if not by the artist, then by the commissioner) and sharing them publicly is completely optional on their part.

donovan_dmc said:
Your best bet as a normal user is to look at the sources or the internet archive, saucenao and the like might also have compressed thumbnails if you can find some way to get it without having the original

Alternatively, anybody who has a backup archive of e621 is also an option.

popoto said:
That's a very poor comparison. Video games are tremendous projects that require a combination of disciplines in order to be made. They are essentially made to be consumed due to the amount of time and effort that goes into them. Even if you're not selling yours (which many devs like Toby do), you want other people to play.

Art is the opposite. It's made for personal reasons (if not by the artist, then by the commissioner) and sharing them publicly is completely optional on their part.

Video games are art. Plenty of games are made for personal reasons, and a lot of artwork is made for others to enjoy. These aren't mutually exclusive either, someone can make games/art for personal reasons and also want others to enjoy them. They both contribute to society, and are made from the personal experiences of the creator (from interaction with society).

The reason copyright is set up the way it is, ostensibly, is because the default state of everything people in a society make contributes to and is then forever part of that society. The art produced by a society is an important aspect of it. To attempt to encourage the creation of more work than they otherwise may be able to, creators are given a time-limited exclusivity on copying to be able to profit or otherwise benefit from the work and create more. After that exclusivity period is up, it's assumed you'll have largely gotten what you could from the work, so it reverts to the public domain while you've long left to go on to other projects and repeat the cycle. Of course, the way copyright has been bastardized by corporations (both in the way they've helped shape laws, and wielded them against the public) makes it seem like copyright is more about controlling access in perpetuity, rather than temporary control on copying for a time-limited benefit.

kiratsu said:
At that point, you have to ask whether or not that content belongs exclusively to the creator anymore. And I don't mean that in the "copyright" sense (although I consider the concept of privatizing ideas quite selfish).

Even if you don't want to consider in the copyright sense you quite literally have to, distributing copyrighted works outside of allowed means is quite literally illegal in the US, regardless of how many people love a game or art piece

As it stands currently copyright lasts until death plus an additional 70 years, and while I am definitely not a lawyer, but assuming a permissive license isn't involved there is likely a legal way to claw back distribution in any means, especially with games since most purchases are just a temporary license that can be revoked at any moment

Obviously nobody is going to pursue a small group sharing files amongsy eachother but if you go and toss copyrighted and distribution prohibited works into the public, assuming the creators care and have enough money, that won't go well

watsit said:
Of course, the way copyright has been bastardized by corporations (both in the way they've helped shape laws, and wielded them against the public) makes it seem like copyright is more about controlling access in perpetuity, rather than temporary control on copying for a time-limited benefit.

The fact that someone could make a game in their 20s today and somebody could still be holding the copyright in 2156 (assuming living to 80) is fucking insane

popoto said:
That's a very poor comparison. Video games are tremendous projects that require a combination of disciplines in order to be made. They are essentially made to be consumed due to the amount of time and effort that goes into them. Even if you're not selling yours (which many devs like Toby do), you want other people to play.

Art is the opposite. It's made for personal reasons (if not by the artist, then by the commissioner) and sharing them publicly is completely optional on their part.

Not exactly. Video games (like any other form of art) can be created with very different purposes. Some projects may take just a few hours to complete and be presented privately as a way to make money, while others take months or even years to complete, only to be shared publicly at no charge at all.

My point is that art (whether that's video games, illustrations, animations, songs, etc.) shapes people's lives, so making said art unavailable after you exposed it to the public (even if you're the original creator) is hard to defend.

donovan_dmc said:
Even if you don't want to consider in the copyright sense you quite literally have to, distributing copyrighted works outside of allowed means is quite literally illegal in the US, regardless of how many people love a game or art piece

As it stands currently copyright lasts until death plus an additional 70 years, and while I am definitely not a lawyer, but assuming a permissive license isn't involved there is likely a legal way to claw back distribution in any means, especially with games since most purchases are just a temporary license that can be revoked at any moment

Obviously nobody is going to pursue a small group sharing files amongsy eachother but if you go and toss copyrighted and distribution prohibited works into the public, assuming the creators care and have enough money, that won't go well

I was talking about "ownership" in the metaphorical sense. I understand that e621 (just like any other platform) is required to comply with laws regarding copyright.

watsit said:
Video games are art. Plenty of games are made for personal reasons, and a lot of artwork is made for others to enjoy. These aren't mutually exclusive either, someone can make games/art for personal reasons and also want others to enjoy them. They both contribute to society, and are made from the personal experiences of the creator (from interaction with society).

The reason copyright is set up the way it is, ostensibly, is because the default state of everything people in a society make contributes to and is then forever part of that society. The art produced by a society is an important aspect of it. To attempt to encourage the creation of more work than they otherwise may be able to, creators are given a time-limited exclusivity on copying to be able to profit or otherwise benefit from the work and create more. After that exclusivity period is up, it's assumed you'll have largely gotten what you could from the work, so it reverts to the public domain while you've long left to go on to other projects and repeat the cycle. Of course, the way copyright has been bastardized by corporations (both in the way they've helped shape laws, and wielded them against the public) makes it seem like copyright is more about controlling access in perpetuity, rather than temporary control on copying for a time-limited benefit.

Truth Super Nova. The powers that be will bend the knee to the corporate overlords who give them money to make things worse for everyone else, getting legal change done is basically impossible unless you also have an army of lobbyists. This has been a problem since the Statute of Anne where publishers and artists were pit up against each other to fight for their own interest, and the cycle continues today- except with much less favor to what artists want over publishers, and we can see that bastardization in the form of scope of things you're not allowed to do (especially things that cause no objective harm) and ridiculous term lengths.

A lot of artists don't realize that modern copyright laws weren't made for their protection, but the protection of publishers and their ability to screw artists out of their work, so they blindly enforce their copyrights to the maximum extent often without tangible benefit.

popoto said:
Art is the opposite. It's made for personal reasons (if not by the artist, then by the commissioner) and sharing them publicly is completely optional on their part.

If you don't want it shared, saved, documented, and thoroughly impossible to remove from the internet...don't post it. Legality aside, you lose the rights to control over something the moment it's uploaded and seen.

That's just how it is on the internet. That's just the way of things, and frankly, I think that's how it should be.

That said Im not gonna rail against E621's policies. What they choose to host is important, and what they kick off of the site is even more so. As seen with certain recent events.