Currently the fuss over the Terms of Service is Clause 16 and the only reason that this clause is causing a problem is because the people concerned with it stop reading there or read it in isolation without looking at all parts of the Terms.

But first things first- here's clause 16;

-----

Clause 16

16. Copyright in Your Content

deviantART does not claim ownership rights in Your Content. For the sole purpose of enabling us to make your Content available through the Service, you grant to deviantART a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, distribute, re-format, store, prepare derivative works based on, and publicly display and perform Your Content. Please note that when you upload Content, you allow third parties to copy, distribute and display your Content.

-----

Now the concern is over that last bolded line. That line is there to make certain that people are aware that others may download, view, display and use their art for personal uses. A good example of a ‘Personal Use’ is my own personal screensaver which rotates through a wide selection of awesome artworks I've downloaded from deviantART expressly as part of my screensaver and for inspiration for my own original projects. When I’m not actively working my computer monitor becomes a changing digital canvas displaying artwork in my living room.

The problem is that people are interpreting it to mean that anybody is allowed to take your art and do whatever they want with it, and if you read only that one clause or stopped reading there that's certainly how it appears.

BUT....

If you actually read the full Terms you'll see that this isn't the case- you really cannot read just one portion of an agreement, contract or terms statement because many clauses can be affected or modified by other clauses. It is always vitally important to read the entire document.

For those who are looking at Clause 16 in isolation I would like to introduce you to Clause 19. This clause as written contains a lot of ‘distracting material’ because it tries to pack all the possibilities into a small space. For clarity I will remove all but the portions which directly relate to the subject of this article;

-----

Clause 19

19. Conduct
..... You must have the legal right to copy, distribute and display all parts of any content that you ..... download and otherwise copy, distribute and display. Content provided to you by others, ..... (is) are protected by copyright and should not be uploaded, downloaded, or otherwise copied, distributed or displayed without the consent of the copyright owner or as otherwise permitted by law.

.....continues

-----

Clearly you can see that the Terms of Service, when read in its entirety and not selectively quoted from, is not a 'free-for-all' contract for thieves and brigands. That’s not to say there are not those out there who will insist on reading selectively from the Terms and twisting the true intent but this official news article can now be used as an educational weapon against those who attempt to do so.




Read the the Terms of Service in full here

Over the past week, we've seen a number of wide ranging attempts within our community to detail various misinterpretations of Copyright Law in particular in relation to tracing.  In order to provide clarification in this area, this article presents to you an easy break down of the guidelines which we have had in place for over 2 years, and our policies specific to this particular method of creating art.


First of all, let's take a moment to go over our core values.

C O M M U N I T Y


We believe that our community is our most important resource and we strive to act in ways that nurture and encourage its growth, development and ultimately its ongoing success. We err on the side of the artist.


R E S P E C T


We treat each other with respect, as we believe that every staff member, volunteer, and member is a contributing factor to deviantART's success. We acknowledge that even those that challenge our patience offer important lessons we can learn from and strive to do so.


E X C E L L E N C E


We share a passion for excellence, quality and creativity in everything we do and strive to instill these values in our community.


A R T I S T S


We are artists and we reserve time for creative expression. We recognize the importance of nurturing our inner artist, as not only beneficial to ourselves, but also integral to our connection with the community.


T R U S T


We build trust among ourselves and within the community by being true to our word. We speak honestly and with integrity and hold ourselves personally accountable to deliver on commitments we've made.


E M P O W E R


We believe in a commitment to continuous learning and improvement, and maintaining open, positive communication that encourages and fosters creative genius.


With these values in mind, we can now begin to look at the key areas which appear to cause confusion, and provide you with a final guideline to assist you in understanding our view regarding tracing and the ways in which we enforce any associated policy.

WHO SAYS TRACING ISN'T ART!?

That's something many people believe. Many people believe that photography isn't art either, or that photomanipulation is cheating. Some people say rolling on a canvas nude whilst covered with paint results in art. Some disagree. The debate "What is art?" is something which will go on forever, and will be answered differently by every individual to which the question is posed. There are some people who believe that photographing a dog as it starves to death is art, and back in the 1960's Piero Manzoni provided us with "Merda d'Artista" - - he sealed his excrement (that's poop for you newbs) in a bunch of cans, which he signed, mounted and then sold as art. We are aware that some people reading this article right now believe that tracing is not an art -- and that's ok, we respect your right to have your own opinion, and this does not prevent you from participating in our community

At deviantART we believe that tracing has a place in our community. We consider it to be a valid learning tool and a technique which has been used long before we had any such applications such as Illustrator or Photoshop. Tracing is how Michelangelo's assistants transferred his "cartoons" onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chappell.  We believe that it is the right of any individual to express themselves within our policies and to share their creativity with the community, interact with other deviants and grow as an artist.

YOU GUYS ARE BREAKING THE LAW!

DeviantART has a clearly stated copyright policy. We provide an easily accessed mechanism on deviantART for the copyright owner to request that we correct any alleged infringements of copyright interests.  Still, deviantART also respects and promotes artistic expression in its very many forms.  

Certain genres of art are more derivative than others.  Collage, for example, is typically done entirely with "found" images gleaned from a variety of sources but mostly copyrighted.  There are only so many ways to photograph a rose and only so many ways to draw the Taj Mahal.  A copyright will only attach to the very specifics of the image in those circumstances and not at all to the subject matter.

The law of copyright, written to protect the work of artists, also has overt protections for artists when they use, borrow or incorporate the copyrighted works of others.  Some of these protections are called fair use.  Fair use is necessarily fuzzy because it balances the conflict between the protection of copyrighted works and the use of copyrighted works.  Fair use permits Jeff Koons, to make and sell much of his sculpture which is largely derivative of cultural icons, many of which are copyrighted in their original states.  Fair use permitted Andy Warhol to do silkscreen works incorporating famous, copyrighted photographs.
   

Fair use can apply when there is a reason to copy in order to make a new artistic statement. The analysis of whether a given use is a "fair use" is the most complex and nuanced in copyright law.  Among the factors it considers is whether the use is commercial or non-commercial.  Many uses of works on deviantART are entirely non-commercial. We do not permit the sale of FanArt within our Print Store because we want to avoid involvement in a commercial exploitation of a copyrighted character.

In simple terms, "Fair use" is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, defined by how much of the original is used, how and why the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original artwork is affected by the new work.

Although the rights given to a copyright owner are extensive and include the exclusive right to permit others to make copies of the work, copyright owners are not required to use those rights and are also not required to police or attempt to stop infringements of the copyright by others.  The copyright itself survives and the copyright owner can engage in selective policing without essentially any reduction in the level of protection they can later claim if they need to.  This is unlike trademarks and patent laws.  When you consider that a copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 50 or 70 years after his or her death, it is impossible to imagine a copyright owner of a popular work suing everybody who might be involved in infringement.  There is, in fact, a rational expectation that only meaningful infringements, ones that result in a significant economic harm, will be pursued by copyright owners.  For example, there is a concept called "de minimis" infringement applied by Courts to deny relief to a copyright owner essentially on the "no harm, no foul" premise.

There are many circumstances where copyright owners freely and openly encourage and support the use of their works by others.  Stock images are frequently dedicated for open use in non-commercial applications.  Fan art is also one of these situations.

With this in mind, we welcome artists who prefer to use tracing as a method of expression to participate in our community, providing they meet with the simple guidelines detailed below.

OUR POLICY IN PLAIN ENGLISH

We allow for the submission of completed traced works within the FanArt Galleries providing it is a tracing -- not just a copy -- and you bring your own, original elements into the completed deviation.  

If you chose to trace a stock image, either from our extensive deviantART resource gallery or from a legitimate external stock source such as sxc.hu or i-stock.com, this can be submitted into the vector or vexel gallery (depending on the method which you use) and we encourage you to supply the appropriate references.

Some deviants and others provide allowance for their artwork to be used within Creative Commons Licensing, which they indicate within the deviation description. Artists who are misled and confused into believing that our tracing policy permits anyone to take any image on deviantART and simply trace it without permission should be assured that we will always remove this when requested by the artist of the original image, and you should use the appropriate reporting tools to bring it to our attention, so we can remove it.

We  encourage artists to take personal responsibility to  ensure that you check the above points before submitting any traced works, in order to avoid disappointment or distress should your work require removal for its failure to comply with any of the above.

It should also be noted, that despite the principles of fair use discussed earlier, we do not allow the use of third-party copyrighted images within the digital art and photomanipulation galleries because of the exposuire they present to deviantART as an administrative burden.

If you are ever in doubt of where you stand regarding the above, please contact us via the +help. We can help you with any questions you may have as to whether or not your submission will be appropriate and within policy.

BUT MY FRIEND'S UNCLE'S DAD'S GRANDAD'S COUSIN 5 TIMES REMOVED CALLED BOB SAYS YOU'RE STILL BREAKING THE LAW!

Did Bob help write deviantART Policy? If you can answer YES,  I'll give you $100 to spend in our store.

If not - then you should refer them back to read this article.

SCRAP IT!

Some of you believe that traced work should go to the scrapbook within your gallery. In exploring this idea, it became clear that many of you came to this conclusion based on incorrect notion that somehow calling something a scrap magically lifts it out of copyright and policy considerations. It doesn't particularly do that.

At deviantART we felt that it was more appropriate to provide education to the community on this matter in order to break down some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding tracing. We feel that by providing this information, that we can begin to break down some of the negative attitude which is thrown against certain members of the community who prefer to include traced elements within their work. After all, we are an inclusive - not exclusive, art community.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

We'd like to thank you all for participating in what was at times a somewhat heated discussion surrounding this topic. It's important to us at deviantART that you are aware of not only your rights as an artist, but that you are encouraged to take responsibility for your own integrity, ultimately allowing you to become an empowered individual who can confidently express yourself. In the near future, we will bring you more articles like this, which provide you with a simplistic guide to what is at times a very complex field of legalese, and look forward to your ever enthusiastic participation in developing what appears to be a much needed knowledge base on such matters.

And very last, we do have a lawyer and he says I need to point out that this article only contains a very broad general discussion of some copyright principles and it is not actual legal advice that you should rely on elsewhere.

Tracing, Copying and Other Issues Involving Duplication of Existing Works

The Copyright & Etiquette Administration here at deviantART is often presented with challenges, one of the most basic and important of which involves helping artists enforce their rights over their own original work. While this may seem to be a very clear and easy to understand directive it is complicated almost daily by the simple fact that artists copy one another.

It is inescapable that when you gather millions of artists together into a central location which is filled to the brim with their individual ideas and creativity several things are going to happen; separate artists will submit similar things without ever having heard of the other, artists will inspire other artists who will then make similar looking works, and some artists will blatantly copy other artists.

The last situation is one which causes many in the community some concern.

Deliberate copying can take many forms; direct tracing, painting over, “referencing”, redrawing, using similar scenes in photography, making a similar skin, using the same stock resources to produce a similar work.

Regardless of how it’s done copying is looked down upon by many here on deviantART as unoriginal, a cheap shortcut, as “cheating”, as a form of theft, and when it involves a fandom it tends to be viewed as a cheap and guaranteed way to get popular with little actual effort.

While all of this is true to a certain extent it is also true that the various forms of copying are a completely valid learning tool which is practiced primarily by beginning artists and, quite frankly, those artists who lack the experience and training to compose completely original scenes and themes from scratch.

It is the task of CEA to balance these two concerns without condemning or defending one side or the other.

We understand that some segments of the community will always condemn the behavior while others who practice it will refuse to give it up and while the middle ground which we seek to hold will most likely not make everyone happy we believe that it is the best position available which will allow us to assist artists in enforcing their creative rights while not having to turn away those who are not able to meet some arbitrary test of originality.

To this end current deviantART policy attempts to strike a balance between tolerating a certain level of duplication while making certain that the rights of original artists are supported.

The current policy is as follows;

Reproduction of Existing Works by Any Method
Situations listed under the heading of Not Tolerated will override the situations listed under Usually Tolerated

• Not Tolerated

• Reproduction is misrepresented as being something other than a copy of an existing work.
• The reproduction exactly duplicates an original work and the owner of the original work files a complaint.
• The reproduction targets a stock resource and violates one or more of the Terms and Conditions for use.
• The reproduction actually contains elements of the original (i.e. photo showing through paintover).

• Usually Tolerated

• The reproduction has been posted into a Fan Art Gallery.
• The reproduction has been posted into the Scrapbook area.
• The reproduction targets an element of pop culture (i.e. Anime screenshots or official video game content).
• The reproduction properly credits the original.

• Normally Tolerated

• The reproduction obviously copies an existing work but possesses noticeable and substantial differences.
• The reproduction obviously copies an existing work but is noticeably deficient in quality.
• The reproduction and the original bare only vague or broad resemblances to each other (i.e. poses, etc).

It is important to note that the only two areas where copied works are deemed acceptable are the Scrapbook and the various Fan Art galleries. The deviantART staff reserves the right to relocate any copied works which are found residing elsewhere without prior notice.

UPDATES FROM $realitysquared : Spamming and Scams.

This week I’d like to point out a troublesome onsite trend which has affected many people and which we are working diligently to end.

As many users have noticed a large number of accounts have been created lately which either comment on user pages, deviations or send notes to hundreds or even thousands of deviants seemingly at random.

The contents of these comments and notes read approximately as follows:

OMG! you're a GENIUS! Why don't you join the poetry contest from [link] ? Free to enter, 100k prizes. You MUST win it!</i>

The [link] is typically a “tinyurl” which disguises the true destination of the hyperlink.

If you receive a comment or a note which contains this phrase please do not click the link as they have proven to be malicious destinations (viruses), outright scams or simply annoying advertisements.

Please file a helpdesk report if you receive a comment or note containing that pasted phrase, but only if less than 24 hours has passed since you received it. These accounts are typically banned quickly so please don’t report if you notice the magical ! has appeared in front of the name. Also please do not be surprised if we do not give you a personal response to your report, we receive a large enough volume where only the first few will be personally handled while the later ones will simply be marked ‘Resolved’ without comment.

These instances are highly annoying for everyone and we are now taking more extreme measures to handling them and keeping these trolls off of deviantART.

Artist Relations-$Moonbeam13-Director

Today, after lolly and myself spent hours working through the mayhem newly coined 'disasterpiece theatre',  I created a chatroom called #FantasticallyFractal  to open a forum for the fractal artists to work with us to find a solution to the issue at hand.

To that end, we have come up with the following which we see as a good beginning to nurturing an art genre I not only have great respect for, but have currently hanging on my walls.

First, the policy of policing art theft and the issue with parameters

As of right now the stance on art theft in fractal is the same as any other art genre.  We judge the theft on the end result (the image).  The likelihood of someone generating the same image without stealing parameters is worse than being struck by lightning in my opinion and as such an image should not at all look similar.  This holds true for cut images as well, if we can spot the similarity, chances are something was swiped and unless there's permission for that 'borrowing' of parameters (which I'll get to in a sec), that image is coming down. `DWALKER1047 is investigating the copyright of parameters with the US copyright office and we are waiting to hear what the result of that is so we can assess our position again, but for now we think this certainly helps in maintaining the integrity of the artists here.

Second, the concept of sharing parameters

Fractal art is largely a self-taught, tightly knit group and to tell you that sharing parameters makes it your fault is not only erroneous but hurtful to the community and as such we've created a new gallery to house your fractal resources.  So now you can submit parameters and other fractal resources to Tutorials & Resources -> Fractal Resources This is the place to post your parameters and any other Fractal related resources you wish to share. Posting here allows usage by other deviants as applied to stock images. If you do not list your usage rules in the deviation comments, standard dA stock policy will apply in which the deviant who uses any part of the resource must link back in the comments or face having the final image removed.

Third, a place to be heard

After the onslaught that transpired it is without a doubt something lolly and I would like to avoid in the future.  If you have concerns about your galleries please note or email me at moonbeam13@deviantart.com , if you have concerns about policy related issues or think you're not being heard, note or email lolly at lolly@deviantart.com   We had no idea what had been brewing all this time and quite frankly we should have.  We vow to listen and be available but we need you to meet us halfway and talk.  I am also having a forum created in the gallery forums for fractal art so you can have a home to discuss and share.  I will let you know once it's in place.

and now to my partner in crime.........

Community Development-lolly-Director

First Off, Apologies

In the last 24 hours, some of the members of the fractal community may have seen the incident that led to a lot of confusion and resulted with things being said that made it appear that the administration here doesn't feel that Fractal Art is in fact art, that we do not care to protect it, nor take it seriously.
None of this feeling was ever at all intentional and on behalf of the entire administration involved in this I would like to once again apologize. Saying anything that could remotely even begin to lead someone to think something like this is inexcusable and all parties involved have been spoken to on this matter and all have issued apologies of their own.
I promise you, that not only within this community, but all of the artistic communities, nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be said that could be construed as demeaning to you and what you do as anything less than art and of artistic value.

And to make sure we do things right, myself and $Moonbeam13 currently have a very open line of communication going with this community and are working directly with them to better not only our policy in regards to fractal work but just our own personal understanding of the faces behind it.

Fractal Art is Art

During this whole discussion, or as I referred to it in my journal, episode of Disasterpiece Theater, one thing kept coming up from members of the fractal community, and that is that many people feel that Fractal Art is not art at all and is simply button pushing.
Well, would you say photography is simply button pushing, or hey, photo manipulation is simply taking someone else's stuff and pasting it together, or go further and painting is just mushing a brush around till something happens. Vector is just connect the dots and so on. You discount one form of art and you discredit all of them. It is never ever the tools behind the work. It is only the artist behind the tool and what they do with those tools no matter what form of art it is.

Take a look at these images and glance through the galleries of these artists and tell me this is not art.






If after all this you somehow feel this is not art, well, then we feel bad for you and hope that one day you will open your mind up a little.

Last July we here at CEA posted a clarification concerning how we officially define “ pornography ”. This was necessary because of the large amount of misunderstanding concerning the issue and the equally large number of invalid or incorrect reports concerning content that people erroneously though fit the definition. This week we attempt to clarify “Art Theft” reports.

The Moderation reporting system which was launched nearly two years ago, which replaced the older outdated system, contains two categories which allow the reporting of “Art Theft”.

“Art Theft” is a wonderfully vague term which can be used to address a huge number of situations and that term was chosen over the term “Copyright Policy Violation” or “Copyright Infringement” because it was simpler and more easily connected to by the vast majority of our community here and we wished to have labels which were simple and easily understood on the new moderation system after seeing the difficulty that some had understanding the more accurate technical terms used on the older system.

The choice of “Art Theft” as a label and the easy accessibility of the new system quickly led to an explosion of reports which quickly exceeded the ability of the staff to resolve them as quickly as they were made and this led very quickly to a backlog developing which lasts to this day.

Unlike many other websites we here at deviantART entertain reports from just about anyone who has a concern that a work is being used without permission rather than restricting reports to only the owners of the work and their authorized representatives. The Moderation system category of “Art Theft (General)”, or (CV) as they are abbreviated by staff,  is offered by deviantART voluntarily as such an option; accepting complaints from just anyone is not required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This freedom that we give to our community enables artists to watch out for the interests and rights of other artists, which is a good thing which we wish to encourage, but at the same time it multiples the weekly workload by a factor of ten by generating thousands of extra reports, which is a bad thing which produces backlog and long delays.

Early this year, in January, we modified the system to include a separate category “Theft of MY Work”, or (MY) reports as they are abbreviated by staff, which was intended to be used exclusively by copyright owners so that these reports could be readily sifted from the thousands of others and given immediate attention.

The “Theft of MY Work” (MY) category was designed to be used by owners who have deviantART accounts and the category is closely compliant to the formal requirements outlined in the DMCA for copyright infringement complaints which you can find on our <a href=”[link]>Copyright Policy page. Because of the fact that owners exclusively use the (MY) category these reports are given the most immediate attention and are handled before any other type of moderation report.

Since the launch of (MY) reports, “Art Theft (General)” (CV) reports are given a lower priority and may experience much longer wait times before they are reviewed. This lower priority is not due, as some may claim, to a tolerance for “art theft” but rather because (CV) reports are rife with various problems, most of which are due to the fact that these reports are not filed by the actual copyright owner.

Unfortunately many of the “General” reports experience an extreme lack of ‘due diligence’ by the people filing the report; whereas several years ago reports being filed would clearly show that the reporting person knew exactly who the original artist was and could make an argument which showed why the deviant and the original artist were not the same person the typical “General” report being filed today amounts to little more than guesswork and suspicion.

In the past links to ‘evidence’ would take the staff to personal websites where there would be enough information to determine whether a deviantART account and personal website were used by the same person, sometimes the personal website would even have a statement denouncing the deviantART account as being an impostor or at the very least we’d have a personal email address which could be used to ask questions before the staff came to any decision.

Too many reports filed now contain links to Photobucket, Imageshack, or some other anonymous image hosting website or links to TinEye showing everywhere the same image appears. These types of links do nothing for showing ownership and cannot be helpful in determining unauthorized use; they only show that the image is popular enough for people to have taken it and redistributed it throughout the Internet.

Too many times staff has discovered that a “General” report is accusing an deviant of stealing from themselves, the “evidence” being a personal website or account in another community or even an old deviantART account used by the same artist. Too many deviantART members maintain multiple accounts and frequent multiple websites to be able to make any automatic assumptions.

The deviantART community has expanded exponentially over the years and we’ve attracted more and more professional artists so the existing culture of which bases “Art Theft” reports on suspicion and guesswork simply cannot be entertained in the manner it may have once been.

We have accounts operated by artists from video game design studios, published comic artists, people involved in the movie industry, and a wealth of other professional people and the staff finds that it is simply not enough for a report to simply accuse wrongdoing any longer because more and more of these reports are being found to accuse artists of stealing from themselves, or stealing from the public domain or not having permission when in fact they do have permission.

The CEA staff has a duty and responsibility to ensure that if we delete something that the deletion be completely justified and the reasoning clear and without doubt and unfortunately most general reports which we have been seeing are not able to satisfy all the requirements.

Some of you who report large numbers of deviations using the “General” category may have noticed that there have been an increase in reports being marked “Invalid” or that the reports “Need Information” which the staff found to be lacking or you may even have been told that while there “might be cause for concern” as an “interested third party” the staff will not act on your report and would prefer that the owner of the work file a complaint rather than you.

Many in the community have tried to explain these staff responses as laziness, stupidity, or even as “allowing art theft”. We’ve also seen people claiming that having a premium membership means that the staff won’t touch your account and a host of other inflammatory or insulting explanations which accuse the staff of not doing the job assigned to them or not caring. The Volunteer Gallery Moderators have also often been the targets of insulting commentary, something which they certainly do not deserve as they are completely uninvolved in the handling of any report.

All of the reasons and explanations which you routinely see in these complaints are incorrect.

General reports will always be marked invalid far more often than reports filed by the actual copyright owner. If your general report is marked as invalid or needing more information it is because your report as an uninvolved third party simply did not demonstrate that a deletion was necessary either because you didn’t satisfactorily prove that the deviant wasn’t the owner of the work or because you couldn’t satisfactorily prove that they didn’t have permission of use.

Taking no action on your general report is not intended to be an insult to you or a dismissal of your concerns, it is a simple statement that your report didn’t contain enough information for the staff to make a responsible decision which could be defended and justified. Every deletion made by staff must be defended and unfortunately statements such as, “Somebody found it posted on Photobucket”, or “Somebody said it was stolen from somebody else”, simply do not justify the deletion of a work.

These stricter standards do mean that some unauthorized submissions will remain posted for a longer period of time but we find it preferable to wait rather than risk a large number of erroneous deletions based upon suspicions and inadequate information.

While some of the community may choose to label this stance as “endorsing art theft” it is not, it is a policy which endorses responsible and justifiable decisions by the staff.

We will continue to accept and review third party reports but since the copyright owner is not directly involved we will continue to hold them to a high standard of evidence and explanation so that the staff involved will be able to make responsible and accurate decisions regarding what, if any, action is required.

If you find what you believe to be unauthorized use of someone’s work, and you know who the author is then your best course of action will always be to notify them and allow them to file the complaint themselves but if you feel the need to become involved and file a report yourself as a concerned third party then you should make the attempt to provide the staff with every bit of factual information you can concerning who you believe to be the actual author and where you believe the work originally came from and please try to understand that if the information you can provide does not amount to much that the staff will take the responsible route of not taking any action until we have sufficient information to act.

The official definition of " pornography " has been modified at several points over the lifetime of deviantART in an attempt to bring greater clarity in the wording used however portions of the community have demonstrated a tendency to be confused on the exact definition and continue to report things which fit their own personal viewpoints; today we attempt to clarify things.

Overview
The official policy for deviantART prohibits the submission of pornographic works. While the community as a whole, with few exceptions, agrees that this policy is required there are many who demonstrate a marked misunderstanding of exactly what is and is not defined as " pornographic " under the current policy. This misunderstanding often leads to many reports being marked as invalid due to the deviation not being officially considered to be pornography and dissatisfaction tends to lead to some community members attempting to explain the outcome by maligning the staff or speculating that deviantART policies are not actually enforced or not enforced consistently.

We will be attempting to dispel these myths today by explaining exactly how official policy can differ from individual opinion.

Over the years we've attempted to bring clarity by modifying the official definition of " pornography " to use wording which is more specific about what is not allowed, but unfortunately some have demonstrated a tendency to expand upon those definitions to encompass situations and themes which fit their own personal viewpoints.

At one point in time the definition of pornographic content was more restrictive but beginning in 2006 deviantART policy was gradually modified and relaxed so that a wider amount of erotic artwork and sexual themes could be accepted into the galleries. While some of you may disagree with this official stance of acceptance, policy will continue to be accepting of erotica which remains within certain defined boundaries.

Policy and Definition vs. Community Viewpoint
Official policy and definition differ from community viewpoint in several key areas and these differences are responsible for the disproportionately large number of invalid reports; up to fifty percent (50%) of reports involving pornographic content are marked as being invalid each week.

The primary difference between official policy and your own personal viewpoint or standards is the fact that as a member of the community you are personally able to subjectively judge the intent of the photographer or artist or guess at how they intended the work to be viewed.

Official policy does not, and cannot be allowed this luxury.

While the community is free to attempt to divine intent and attempt to second guess the reasoning behind a particular work policy cannot be allowed to do this and must limit itself to the judgment of the actual content visible in the work itself. This primary difference of community members viewing a work subjectively and policy judging the same work objectively is an issue which will most likely never be resolved regardless of any educational effort which we staff members may embark upon because everyone is entitled to their own opinion and obviously most will not share the same stance embodied in official policy and we cannot expect everyone to change their views to match it.

This means that if you report works for having "No Artistic Intent", you should expect that the report will be marked invalid by staff because "intent" is not part of the judgment process and in the absence of any other circumstance this is not a reason for removing a work. You are personally entitled to view a work however you wish, including holding the viewpoint that a nude is pointless and without any redeeming artistry at all but official policy does not consider this to be a reason for removal.

There are several other areas where official policy differs radically enough from a personal viewpoint to cause some dissatisfaction if one is not aware of the criteria being used.

Many have noticed that reporting a work for the reasoning of "masturbation" will tend to see a large number of reports marked "invalid" by staff. The main reason for this is that official policy judges "masturbation" based upon what is specifically visible and how the various elements in the scene appear to interact. What is not considered is what might be suggested. This allows for erotic and sexually themed works to display hands and other objects coming into contact with the genital region in certain ways and under circumstances and still be allowable under policy. We have found that the average community viewpoint maintains that anything which comes into contact with the genital region in any manner at all should be ruled automatically as masturbation regardless of what may or may not be clearly visible.

This difference means that only those works which clearly show an act of masturbation will be removed while works which use camera angle, shadow, props and other circumstances to suggest something sexual will not be removed unless the staff can find some visible element which suggests that masturbation is actually occurring.

We realize that many in the community may be upset with this completely objective judging of what is plainly visible in the work but as I have already stated, policy will not venture into the realm of assigning "intent" to an image.

On the subject of images depicting "sexual intercourse" a similar difference occurs. While official policy prohibits any depictions of actual sexual intercourse it does allow for models, same sex or opposite sex, to be posed in various ways which include bodily contact which may in fact be sexually suggestive to a certain degree. As a member of the community you are free to dislike such posing and bodily contact or personally classify it as sexual intercourse regardless of the presentation or circumstances but official policy will remain primarily focused on depictions of actual sexual penetration and other cases of clear sexual contact. Again, we realize that many may be dissatisfied by this official stance but unless a work contains a visible indication that sexual penetration is occurring or the work is judged to be too graphic in its level of sexual suggestiveness it will most likely not be removed by the staff.

Another subject which seems to cause a large amount of confusion is the depiction of "erections".  The average report of an "erection" tends to involve any penis which is not in a clearly flat and flaccid state and any depiction of a penis which is of larger than average size regardless of whether any sign of arousal is present. Official policy reviews images for a certain level of arousal, which takes into account the actual tissue structure of the penis, while recognizing that the human penis comes in many shapes and sizes and that they may "hang" at certain angles dependent upon size and the strength of the suspensory ligaments.
While this might sound somewhat technical these standards ensure a consistent application of the rules which is not as certain using the subjectivity exercised on a personal level.

The last subject which seems to have the greatest amount of confusion by community members involves the prohibition against images displaying "Vaginal or Anal Spreading". Members of the community commonly misinterpret this restriction to include any case where the model's legs are spread apart and any case where the vagina or anus is visible. Official policy is only concerned with whether the labia or anus has been physically pulled open using the hands or some form of instrument or object; the simple spreading of the legs, the act of bending over, or showing of the vagina or anus is not sufficient by themselves to meet this definition and is the cause of most invalid reporting.

Summary
Given the subject matter and the vastly different personal viewpoints which could be held by the millions of people who make up the deviantART community it is impossible to craft a policy which would possibly address every possible definition of " pornography " but we of the deviantART staff have worked and refined a policy over several years which is able to address the most serious concerns while still avoiding undue censorship.

We do not expect that this explanation of the differences in official standards and personal viewpoints will please everyone but we do hope that we have helped to dispel the misinformation which is making its way through the community and that you come away from this article with a better understanding of how the review process works and what may cause certain reports to be marked "invalid" by staff.

Relevant Links
FAQ #565: You prohibit the submission of 'pornographic imagery'; what do you consider this to be?

With the growing abundance of affordable 3D modeling and rendering programs it was only a matter of time until generous artists began offering finished 3D renders as stock artwork for others to use in their works.

While the generosity of these 3D stock artists is to be applauded there are others who taint the 3D stock movement by offering chopped up works which rightfully belong to others. I’ll attempt to draw a distinctive line between the two types of 3D stock which you will find available.

Be aware that your choice to use or offer the wrong type of 3D stock can result in your submissions being removed and even action being taken against your account.

The acceptable form of 3D stock is one in which you, the submitting artist, has personally posed, textured and rendered the model or scene in question. This involves the purchase of a program capable of handling and rendering figures, models and textures or the use of an open source program capable of the same feats. Regardless of the program used the image was actually rendered in real time using your computer at your command.
Your choice of models can range from the program defaults to model data purchased from various companies. Most model vendors do not allow you to distribute the model data but place no restrictions on what you do with the images made using their models. Please try to make note of which vendor the model was purchased from in your deviation description, although this is not a requirement it will help avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

The unacceptable form of 3D “stock” is the situation where you simply take a wallpaper, artwork, screenshot or other work and simply cut it up, erase the background and generally chop it into component pieces. What makes this unacceptable is the fact that you are doing this with somebody else’s property. Whether it’s a video game company, motion picture film, deviantART artist or just something that you found in some corner of the internet the fact of the matter is that you need to obtain permission and/or licensing before you can begin offering your “stock” because it isn’t your property to offer in the first place.
To compound the confusion many copyright infringers refer to their illegal “stock” as “renders” or “tubes”, both being terms which are sometimes applied to real 3D stock art, and entire websites and communities have sprung up to cater to the myth that you may simply hack up someone else’s property and call it your own ‘stock art”.

Please make certain that your offering, and use of, 3D stock falls within the acceptable range. We have many very generous and very versatile 3D stock artists on deviantART who have purchased programs and models and who generously donate their renders for use by the public so please rely on them and let them know what a valuable asset to the community they are.

We've all came across something in life that we feel is unfair, or unjust. Sometimes it's spawned by reading a book, watching a documentary or movie. Sometimes it's driven by personal experience or observation. Many of us, as artists and community activists will feel so passionate about something that we feel the need to express it via our channels of creativity, and of course, share it here on deviantART.

This article intends to provide you with a guide of how to do this in the most effective way, without breaking policy on deviantART.

First of all, you'll want to make sure that you have a balanced understanding of the subject which you wish to raise awareness of. State your facts in a balanced manner, present statistics and cite where you got these statistics from. Key point: You'll get more respect by citing resources which are neutral and which are not affiliated with a specific terrorist group, religious party, or any other element which may be biased within your agenda. Present more than one statistic and always remember to provide a comparitive reference so that you show you do actually take time to try to see things from both sides.

If you are aiming to raise awareness of a specific political situation, it may be very tempting to rush off to google, CNN, BBC News or Al Jazeera and find some images which you think best detail your personal opinion regarding the matter. You probably think that it's ok to edit these pictures in photoshop or your other favourite editing application using a familiar phrase such as "FREE GAZA", or "SUPPORT ISRAEL", or "FREE TIBET", according to the current most high profile news story which meets with your agenda.

You may have even came across some packs on deviantART, urging you to download and distribute freely to spread the word. A simple viral marketing tool which has been used successfuly by many. However, many of these packs which are labelled for redistribution contain images which are copyrighted to various Newspapers, journals and media groups.

This is where you really need to pay attention. Please stop, and think for a few minutes before you proceed any further in making your indended awarness raising deviation. Ask yourself if the photograph or image which you have ready to enter your text phrase onto really is acceptable for use here on deviantART?

"Free for use" is a term that should be thrown under the microscope. Everything is free on the internet, right? All I have to do is right click, save as..



FAQ #8: What are violations of the deviantART copyright policy?
FAQ #157: Can I use things created by other people in my submissions?

Our policy states:

You are allowed to use any valid stock resources providing that you obey the terms and conditions set by the stock provider.

Google is not a source of stock imagery. CNN, BBC News, or any of the major news channels do not provide stock photography. If you are intending on using an image which you obtained from any such source, you will be unable to upload this to deviantART without it being removed by our Copyright & Etiquette team. There may be some other communities whoallow you to take images from anywhere you feel like it, throw on some text and then submit them as your own, but we don't.

It's in the Terms of Service that you signed up for when you joined the community too, so make sure that you read it, understand it and stick to it.

So -- where can you find proper stock images? There is a tonne of such here on deviantART.

If you still can't find suitable stock imagery for what you have in mind, you might want to try out sxc.hu or i-stock.com, however please note that the latter will require you to pay for high resolution unwatermarked versions of any images which you wish to use, prior to downloading.

Once you've sourced a suitable image, you'll want to make sure that you keeping within our Etiquette Policy, which means that you cannot post something such as "DIE JEW DIE" and expect it to remain on our servers.

A lot of charities campaigning for the awareness raising of what they consider to be worthy causes have adopted ribboned colours to highlight their campaigns. Most people these days are very familiar with the pink ribbon campaign for Breast Cancer awareness and of course the Red Ribbon for HIV/AIDS awareness raising. Two very well respected campaigns which are globally recognised and respected due to the non invasive yet still very high profile coloured ribbons. Simple, yet effective -- exactly the way awareness raising should be.

So, if you are planning on the co-ordination of any sort of awareness raising campaign on deviantART, we would ask that you follow these guidelines in order to ensure that your work can remain in your gallery, and ultimately be viewed by millions of people across the globe. After all, that is the core point of awareness raising!

Over the years the CEA Updates have often spoken about prohibited sexual themes. The one constant in our policies has always been the fact that we maintain a zero tolerance response to pornographic content whether it concerns photography, artwork, sexual roleplaying on dAmn, our chat network or any number of other situations.

Today I'd like to address a closely related subject which most often affects those photographers who choose to submit artistic nudes, fetish, or other genres of erotic photography; namely comments directed at their models which are clearly sexual in nature and which show a complete lack of respect for both the model and the photographer.

As we have never tolerated direct sexual harassment of our members we also have never tolerated this type of commentary directed at nude models and while it is more common for the photographer to bear the brunt of this type of disgusting remark than it is for the model to receive it that does not diminish the fact that it is not allowed.

The number of these comments being made has always been a small percentage overall but as our artistic community has grown so have the number of visitors treating the community as a wellspring of masturbatory material, leaving comments describing the sexual acts they would like to perform upon a nude model or otherwise commenting in a lewd and disrespectful manner.

Over the months we have observed that the number of these comments has increased ever so slightly and that many photographers, while outraged at receiving them, often do not realize that they can report the incident to the staff.

We'd like to remind all of our photographers and artists that you do not have to sit idly by and accept these comments as they are most definitely not tolerated by the administration and that you should immediately report the incident to the Help Desk and provide us with the name of the offender and a link to their comment.

This element is not welcome here in our community but we need your reports in order to identify and remove these disrespectful people so please do not hesitate to report any lewd or sexual comment which you personally receive or which you may observe during your daily browsing.

Working together we can rid ourselves of those people who have mistaken our artistic community for their local strip club.