Don't Make Wombats Explode

This has been a public service announcement of The Flying Trilobite. 

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Copyright Comfort Zone (repost)

(While thinking a lot about copyright over on Symbiartic, I thought I'd repost this piece from a couple of years ago.  Originally appeared May 2010 both here on The Flying Trilobite and at ART Evolved.) 
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In the past few posts of Going Pro, we've looked a lot at copyright. Again, a lot of people have opinions, but it's important to see what the legal definitions -and what steps you can take to protect your creations- really entail.

Today though, I want to propose a question.

Suppose you post a nifty image of a prehistoric critter online. It's awesome, you're proud, people give you kudos. You put it under a Creative Commons Licence, the most restrictive one that says your image a) must be attributed to you, b) cannot be altered, c) others cannot profit from it, and otherwise, it's okay to post and share.

1. Then someone copies it. Another blogger. Does their own riff. Are you okay with that?

2. What if they're more famous than you, getting lots of illustration gigs, but they notice it, do their own version, and give you a nod for your cool idea. Still excited, feeling the attention?

3. What if your painting happens to hit the zeitgeist and goes all viral all over the interwebs. Everyone is sharing it. There's a day on Facebook where all the users switch to you image. But you haven't made a dime.  What do you do?

We're in interesting territory. Personally, I don't believe overly restricting images (insanely huge watermarks, disabling right-clicking) are helpful to make a successful career anymore. But neither is completely open sharing.

Consider this:

[h/t Boing Boing]

It makes a strong case about question number 3, doesn't it? But how do you capitalize on that image going viral? How does it put food on the table?

I suggest it's how you parlay that viral dinosaur image into getting new contracts.

As for questions number 1 and 2, consider the post-modern, remixed, mash-up, variant-cover culture we live in. Think an Indiana Jones video game is fun? What about Indiana Jones Lego! Like Batman? Sharks? Lightsabers? Ta-da! (artist here) Authoring mash-ups and riffing on others' work is an integral part of pop culture.

Painting gets started at about the 4 minute mark in the video above.

[h/t to Boing Boing, again]

In the past, I've sometimes been the dissenting voice here at Art Evolved about all those posts showing past-art about upcoming themed galleries. I dislike them because sometimes attribution to the artwork cannot be easily found - though yes, as Peter and Craig have pointed out to me, sometimes we attribute an "orphan image" after the post goes up when a reader identifies it.

I'm uncomfortable with those posts because in a world of remixes and fun Photoshopped images, attribution and authorship can sometimes be your only coins to bank on. Literally.

Everyone has different comfort zones. Where do you feel comfortable with your images on questions 1-3 above?

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 Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Pinterest Terms of Service link round-up

After posting recently about Pinterest, I've been involved in a lot of discussion about their Terms of Service.  Here's a quick link primer to some of the discussions I'm involved in and I'm seeing in the science-art blogosphere.

To recap:

Pinterest does a lot of things right: links back to creator's sites, deleted pins get deleted on all subsequent re-pins - these are good things.

Pinterest has some problems: most people pin whatever neato things they find online when the Terms specifically state you must own the image or have permission. So it's built on misuse in many ways. Personally I think more artists should use Creative Commons type attitudes toward this type of sharing. But the point stands that most users violate Pinterest's own Terms of Service.

Pinterest has some Peril: they can "sell" and "otherwise exploit" all content according to their Terms of Service. So if you use it correctly, you're giving away your work which then involves risk assessment.

Read through these links to get the whole picture so far.

Pinterest gets right what Tumblr got wrong - The Flying Trilobite by Glendon Mellow

The Promise and Perils of Pinterest - Symbiartic by Glendon Mellow
-->Discussion on G+
-->Discussion on Scientific American's Facebook Page

Pinterest's Terms of Service, Word by Terrifying Word _Symbiartic by my co-blogger, Kalliopi Monoyios.

ART Evolved is a No-Pin Zone, sadly... -ART Evolved by administrator Craig Dylke. I'm affiliated with ART Evolved but I wasn't involved in this decision beforehand, for the record. Good move though.

*****Edit: It was announced on March 23rd 2012 that Pinterest is indeed dropping the "sell" term in their Terms of Service - as well as making many other changes. Storify below takes place as of time of the original post.

Pinterest updates Terms of Service - drops the "sell" - Symbiartic by Glendon Mellow

For those not on Twitter, after the jump I've included a first attempt at a Storify of some of the comments there.

Pinterest gets right what Tumblr got wrong

I've started making boards on Pinterest, a fascinating new site that I think is going to be a big thing for artists. 

Attributing artwork is something I believe to of huge importance, not just the letter of the copyright laws, but also attributing art to artists who've dead for hundreds of years. I've written about it *ahem* a few times. (This, this, this, this...)

Here on Blogger, if I want to re-share some artwork, I need to save it to my drive, and re-upload it. There's a bit of work involved. So attributing the art is just a tiny step, and one I think is more likely for bloggers to do since they're crafting a whole post. 

While there are ways to effectively use Tumblr and be respectful of creators, as I've written before, it's easy to lose track of a creator of an image and have it shared and re-shared thousands of time without attribution. The reblog button makes the initial person's mistake too easy to replicate.  In part, I created the Trilobite Boy Tumblr to get a handle on how Tumblr works. You can attach an url that would follow the artwork, but it's not mandatory. So tons of people just blog away, and creators lose all credit for their images all too often. 

Enter the new site Pinterest. 

Pinterest was first on my radar when my wife mentioned it looked interesting for sharing artwork. Then, via Twitter, I read ZDNet's "Why small business can't afford to overlook Pinterest". I maintain a Twitter feed for a national retailer, and thought this was right on the mark. But I like to test things with my own accounts before bringing it to clients. Then, my friend and fantastic artist Eric Orchard started in on it in a big way. He has a good eye for effective media for artists.

Pinterest takes the responsibility of attribution away from the user: I'm using it in Chrome, and I placed a little button on my Bookmarks bar. If I'm on a site, and wish to pin an inspiring piece of artwork onto one of my themed bulletin Boards (say, "science art that inspires me") then I click on the Pin It button, and Pinterest creates a screen that has all the images from that webpage on it. I pick the one I want, click, write a description if I wish, and post on the board. There's the option to tweet or Facebook-stream it too.

But the best part? Anyone else following that bulletin board of mine who decides to pin it on their board, will still have the original link to the original website functional if someone clicks on the art itself. The more artwork is shared on Pinterest, the more potential hits the blog, gallery or website will have.

Pinterest got respect for creators right. And they made it so easy.



You can find my Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/flyingtrilobite

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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Copyright, Darwin, SOPA, and ScienceOnline2012

(This post originally appeared a couple of days ago on Symbiartic.)


So I’m sitting in an airport on a long layover in the middle of the night, excited to be heading to ScienceOnline 2012 for my 4th time. CNN is on repeat, talking about the SOPA protest blackouts by Wikipedia and others. I’ve for science-based imagery on my mind.






Like many science bloggers, I enjoy a good dressing-down of superstition and religion in the face of facts and reason now and again. On the plane, I was thinking about how the simple symbols can sometimes be the most powerful. I’m not a graphic designer, my work is too messy and complex, but I appreciate powerful designs when I see them.






In my portrait of Charles Darwin. “Darwin Took Steps”, I included the little tree of speciation Darwin had sketched and famously written, “I think.”


It’s an incredibly descriptive little diagram. It’s possible to imagine other ways to depict evolution by natural selection: a wildfire, spiral river-eddies, interlocking Venn circles, perhaps.


But Charles made an awkward, halting little tree that still describes his theory well even after the discovery of DNA and cataloguing the genome.


I was thinking: what if some skeptic, atheist group really promoted it, really rattled religious cages successfully and it became an important, loud rallying symbol? In the news, punk kids wearing it on their knapsacks. Talking head on CNN dismissing stunts an graffiti without understanding it.


Would that be what Charles Darwin would have wanted for his little sketch? By all accounts he tried to avoid needless controversy while preserving the idea. (It could be easily argued that better science ed is a necessary controversy.)


Charles Darwin drew that little tree, but due to copyright laws, there’s no claim he can posthumously make for it. Or his estate. So it could be used by a noisy group he would have disavowed for their tactics and there’s nothing anyone could say about it. Because copyright eventually expires, and the most impact-full images are remembered and echo through culture. The echo might get distorted but we still hear/see it.


Da Vinci, in his attempts at joining noble society would no doubt have lost his temper when Dadaist Marcel Duchamp drew a moustache on a print of the Mona Lisa. But even before copyright laws, our society understand that sometimes preserving images from the past means re-imagining them.


This is why, even as an artist and content-creator, I oppose SOPA. Eventually, all artists have to let their creations live in the world. Punishing the unfettered creativity of the Internet and sometimes, even the artist’s own fans is just fighting against the life-cycle of an image. Creators *do* have the right to nurse their creations along.


Let them go. At your own speed, of course, make your career, control your creations, steer them to the right clients and in service of the right causes and genres.


But one day, they’re going to go off on their own.


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Illustration blogging: why it's essential - a SONSI discussion

This post is mainly a supplementary series of links and points accompanying our discussion, "Illustration blogging: why it's essential" at SONSI's 2011 Presentation Day. 

Talking copyright and illustrator activism on Symbiartic

Today I have what I think is an important post up on Symbiartic over at Scientific American, discussing copyright and illustrator activism.  

Head over there to read and discuss whether I'm right in saying "It's time for Illustrators to take back the Net". Or just critique my sketchy Western illustrations. It was inspired by a lot of the posts and situations I link to, and from the growing community of illustrators on Google+. 

Here's the composite image I sliced up for the post, done with the latest edition of ArtRage Studio Pro:

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Contest banner at Science3.0

Mark Hahnel of Science 3.0 asked if he could use one of my dinosaur drawings for a contest banner on their network - I said sure!  My artwork is under a Creative Commons Licence that says it can be freely shared so long as no money is involved, it's not altered and I get credit. In this case it needed to be altered - but Mark asked, and hey, that's what the licence is supposed to encourage. This has been your copyright service announcement for the day.

Here's the Oviraptorosaur skull incorporated into the contest banner.

I drew this handsome fella a couple of years back at the Royal Ontario Museum.

More importantly, check out the contest!  

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My copyright. Mine. Go 'way.

I assert a copyright from this day forth on painting mosasaurs in the pose of a hummingbird.

© Glendon Mellow 2011 not just on the artwork itself, but the pose and that shade of blue 3 mm from the right next to the funny-looking bubble. 

Go read this at Art Evolved. Important copyright assertions and analysis.

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Neener neener.

Why I don't like Tumblr: mystery cephalopod islands

While preparing the latest Scumble round-up of science-art, I wanted to include this amazing image:

© an unidentified artist - who is it?

It was "liked" and shared via Google Reader from someone I follow.  Note, there's no visible signature on the image. It was shared from here, a Tumblr blog, and it looks like it originally was posted here.

My purpose here is not to single out this specific Tumblr blogger. Tumblr makes it easy to reblog an image, even one that has no attribution to its original creator. And this very cool surreal image of an island town built on an octopus has been reblogged and liked 535 times. Without the artist getting any credit at all.

The problem is not the Tumblr software, it's the culture of re-posting without respect to the image creators that has developed on Tumblr. It's so quick, most people posting images don't write anything at all, no title for their post, no comments on why they liked it, nothing.

There is some hope that this disrespect is recognized in the Tumblr community: Reblogged To Give Credit seem sto care. (Check out the url.)  There are others too.

As readers of The Flying Trilobite know, I sometimes advocate for better image attribution on blogs. It's a problem. Images are treated as important and noteworthy, but their creators are often treated as unimportant and worthless.

I realize I am being a hypocrite for re-posting this image yet again - indeed, in the past I've parted ways with my Art Evolved peeps on whether or not it's a good idea to post unattributed images in the hopes of repatriating their ownership.  But I thought I would try to re-post it the same way Art Evolved does on occasion: in the hopes of finding out from my readership if anyone knows who the talented artist is behind it. So far, my Google-fu fails me. I've tried "octopus island", "cephalopod fantasy painting" and about 10 other combinations, and no luck.

One of the Tumblr blogs had an interesting link I hadn't seen before: to a site called TinEye which searches for images and tells you where their being used. I put Darwin Took Steps into it, and TinEye matched the image to me as the most likely source.
Unfortunately, no joy for the Octopus Island.

Anyone recognize the artist behind this?
Any other artists find more trouble with Tumblr than other platforms?

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5 steps to proper image use on blogs - a #scio11 tutorial

Something that David, John and I brought up today in our session about Science-art - and elsewhere here at ScienceOnline - is the need to properly credit images used on blogs. Here are my quick tips on doing it properly, to give image creators the credit they deserve. 

This stuff is my opinion after a number of years as an image-maker online. I don't think there's a gold standard anywhere or a law that the Internetz Police will bust you over. 

1. Go beyond Google Images or Wikipedia to the original photographer, illustrator or artist.
2. Check for a Creative Commons Licence*.
3. Ask. Just ask if permission is unclear. 
4. Credit the photographer, illustrator or artist by name.
5. Link back to their site.

Saying "Credit: Google Images" is like saying "Credit: Someone on Earth".


If you search for more than 10 minutes online and cannot find the original creator and are desperate to use that specific image, perhaps put it up and ask your readers for help identifying who created it.  A knowledgeable blog readership on a niche topic will often know. 


Be prepared to take an image down if asked.

*A note about Creative Commons Licences: it means some sort of sharing is allowed, but the most restrictive licence still says a) You must credit the artist b) You must not alter the image in any way and c) You must not make any money from it.  It's one of the reasons an artist may allow free use on a blog, but ask for money if it will be in mainstream media.

These are my opinion on the subject of credit: thoughts? 
 #scio11

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Cory Doctorow's Internet Problem - some questions

Cory Doctorow has an excellent new column today at the Guardian, The Internet Problem: when an abundance of choice becomes a problem.  

I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow's writing for a few years, (love the occasional Toronto settings!) and most people have at least skimmed his writing on Boing Boing. He's a creative writer who has a passion for copyright reform (short version: open access is the future).  As an artist-illustrator passionate about communicating my own sometimes surreal riffs on science, I avidly read and ponder what Cory (may I call him Cory?) has to say about copyright law, and how it relates to business.  

I agree with much of his model.  The past few (almost 4!) years of art blogging, I essentially give away my artwork for free under Creative Commons (some restrictions) while I promote, share, and have a good time with others who have similar interests. I do it partly in the hopes of others looking at my artwork and saying "That's good.  I want that for me."  And that happens on occasion (here and here). 

I have some questions about today's column. In it, Cory writes, 

"I decided that I'd give the ebooks away (as I've done with my other books); sell a variety of paperbacks with different covers (the net made it easy to tap artist friends for cover designs and work with them over long distances); and do 250 super-limited, hand-sewn hardcovers with all sorts of premium stuff – an SD card set into the cover with the audiobook and full text and unique endpapers made of original sentimental paper ephemera donated by dozens of writer friends from all over the world. The audiobook was read by voice-actor pals in three countries...", 

Do those artist-friends and voice-actor pals get renumeration for their work?  Or is "pals" a euphemism for people who will give Cory work for free? Other than being friends and wanting to help Cory's work (which is so brilliant and current, I love it)  is there a measurable monetary gain for them?  For example, would one of the artists who provided a special cover for the print version actually gain enough notoriety they would make money elsewhere - prints, new contracts etc. -for realz?

I've been freelancing the last few months, and right now I have no shortage of opportunities and venues to make art - Cory is right.  There is an abundance of choice.  I'm grateful my artwork has resonance with such a variety of brilliant dynamic people, people I would never reach without the internet.  Most of these venues are unlikely to help me pay my rent however. I really want to do some of them -for fun, for establishing the contacts, for friends, for my portfolio- but I'm still limited by choosing ones with a potential to make money or lead to an art-print where mmmaaaaybe I'll make a bit of money. 

I haven't found the right formula for me yet. 

"There's so much that you can do to elaborate on a project of this nature: limited edition covers, pricing experimentation, novel forms of audio distribution … While this sort of thing was once constrained by the inherent capital costs of trying them, no such costs obtain today: all of these things can be done for "free", costing only the time spent in trying them out."

My second set of questions:  where are these opportunities?  Are there really places that allow you to assemble hand-sewn bindings on books for free?  SD cards inlaid in the cover?  I realize I'm small-time: it's understandable why Little Brother, a book about teenaged programmers fighting the government (flash mobs!) has more of an audience than some anatomically-incorrect trilobites.  Cory Doctorow naturally has more connections to these cool-tools online.

In the New Year, I plan to start publishing my Trilobite Boy story online, and would love to make a print version available.  I know this is a successful model for many comic artists, and it's become a real passion for me as the Trilobite Boy story coalesces in my brain and on the page.

I'd also love to have that collaborative book I've mentioned -consisting of my already-done paintings with 1 page short stories written by a variety of writers with little oversight from me- published, or at least shopped around. In the end, I want the writers to receive compensation as well as myself. Is there a way to do that fairly?

Cory Doctorow's column is terrific - as usual, I find his writing about the internet + copyright + creativity provide a signpost in the path to the future.  This time though, I feel like he's pointed to an abundant rainforest but I don't know where to look for fruit. Or should it be tubers? 

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How not to deal with uncited images.

So as I enter gracefully into blogging-middle-age (like a swan, I know) one of the pitfalls of discourse for me is how to address an uncited image on another science blog. 

I'm a bit passionate about the issue. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Most science bloggers cite their sources and papers, yet many lift images wholly from Google without a thought.  

Last night, while looking at a relatively new blog, I saw some artwork I recognized as probably being by Nobu Tamura. It was. A quick Google search for the species, and on Wikipedia, the first link, revealed that Mr. Tamura has granted the image of Cynognathus open under Creative Commons, free to be used and posted -and even modified!- provided he is given credit.

Image © Nobu Tamura.  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cynognathus_BW.jpg">Wikipedia. (See?  That was easy.)

I commented on the blog. I said something like, "The Cynognathus is by Nobu Tamura, and should be credited.  All the cool kids are citing images."  I can't tell you exactly what I said, because my comment has been removed.

The blog in question also has a bit of tweaking to do, apparently:  my comment appeared as black text on a black background, with only links to Tamura and one of my own posts about citing images appearing as orange hyperlinks. So I thought, hey, these guys are on Twitter: I'll say something there.

I said: "Hi, @bloginquestion . Could you plz cite images properly? & my comment appears as black text on black b/g." With a link to the post. 
Then it gets weird.  They sent me 3 direct messages saying it was inappropriate for me to comment on their blog if I had a problem, inappropriate to tweet about it (should have direct messaged) and that it IS cited on the post and they're sorry I didn't see it.

Only...it wasn't cited. The only citation was "Photos from google.ca images". Umm, yeah, that's not even close to credit where credit is due. I have the screen capture to prove it.

Nobu Tamura's artwork is cited now, but none of the maps are.

I couldn't direct message them via Twitter (they are not following me), so I sent a couple of more public messages. Then, I realized they've now blocked me on Twitter!

I sent an email to one of the blog hosts after looking it his address on their Facebook page. It's their prerogative to block me; perhaps I could have somehow handled this with more tact than a blog comment and public tweet.  There's been a bunch of words of support from many science bloggers on Twitter and Facebook about this to me, and thanks.

Being a science-blog killjoy or meter-maid is of little interest to me, roving around handing out tickets. "You parked that image here without a credit. You're fined a minor public shaming".  At the same time, when I see the art of someone I admire being used to enhance a post without a shred of proper credit, I feel I should say something.

Private emails do little to raise consciousness about the issue - the comment is not just there for the blogger and commenter, but for all the subsequent readers.

What should I have done differently?  How do I raise the issue without throwing science bloggers under a bus? Do I remove them from my personal Facebook friends?  It feels weird that they're blocking me on one media (Twitter) yet they can see all my stuff.

Oh, and do make sure you go through Nobu Tamura's deviantArt gallery.  This man is a paleo-illustrating machine. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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That's © by Nobu Tamura.  See?  Again. Easy.

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Glimpse at image credits on science blogs

Thanks to those who tweeted and commented and posted about this morning's rant. To follow-up, I had a look at some science blogs, and who is citing images.

I'm not out to be a big jerk and point at exactly which blogs I looked at, so instead I've done this by network.
Looking at Scienceblogging.com between about 11:45-1245 est today, I looked at the first 12 blog networks listed, and then looked at the 5 posts under each heading. And then I made this table:

click to enlarge

A few notes:  

• I tried to use a colour-code from green (properly linked and cited) to red (what are you thinking?). 
• If the image was clearly the author's own, (a photo of them, perhaps) I included that in the green bar, as a properly cited and linked image. 
• I didn't count videos. 
• I only counted images in the body of the post, not the sidebar or banner. 

My thoughts:

• Weird the Scienceblogs.com posts had no images whatsoever in that small random sampling. 
• Not enough science bloggers use paintings or illustrations. I'm available for hire.
• Wired came off looking good to my eyes.
• I ain't gonna point to anyone.  But a couple of these had the Research Blogging badge on the posts with zero image citations or links.  Are we to automatically infer we have to go back to the paper for those? 

It'd be interesting to do this periodically to see the trends look like.

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Copyright links

Since taking my artwork online over 3 years ago, I've been learning and thinking a lot about copyright.

Our group, Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators (sonsi) had an event on the weekend with a question and answer session with lawyer Paul Sanderson, discussing copyright.

Here's a few links of the type of stuff on my mind.  Yeah, I know some of them are written by me.

• Q&A with a copyright lawyer by Glendon Mellow, SONSI
• Image-Citation Citation! by Glendon Mellow, The Flying Trilobite
• Copyright in the new digital world by Glendon Mellow, Art Evolved
• Why the copyright wars matter by Cory Doctorow, craphound
• Copyright Infringers Target Wildlife Artists by Daniel Grant, Huffington Post
• Individual Rights Versus the Collective by The Illustrators Partnership

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Tips for web-ready images

I originally posted this over on SONSI, where I practice my webmaster skills.  I thought it might be useful to some Flying Trilobite readers.

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Recently I was asked,

“Could you help me with understanding how to format my photos for upload and how to add the transparent © symbol? (see below) If these are questions that many have already asked, maybe a FAQ on the site would be a good idea?”

We discussed it, and I thought I’d share my quick tips here and the whole intertubes.

If you use software like Photoshop or Gimp to alter the size of your files, aim to make them 100kb or less in size.  (Most of mine fall into the 75kb range).  There’s generally three things that affect file size: colour, dimensions of the image and quality of the image.

Colour: Typically, you are not going to want to reduce your colour range, unless it’s a colour scan of a black and white image.  So let’s leave that alone.

Dimensions of the image: you can often find ways to alter this (keep your proportions the same) under names like”canvas size” or just look for how many pixels wide and high the image is.  Typically, I tend to make things somewhere around 500-800 pixels on the larger side.  Most people don’t want to click to enlarge an image and have it expand to be bigger than their monitor.

Quality of the image: This is a dodgy one, since most of us want everything crystal-clear.  However, jpeg files can be compressed quite well without losing a lot of resolution, at least for posting online.  Not good for submitting to a magazine or for getting prints, but online it’s great.  In Photoshop, use the “save for web” feature (you can monkey with canvas size there too).  In Gimp, you get the option when you save the Gimp file as a jpeg.

I’ve mentioned Gimp a couple of times – it’s a decent, FREE alternative to Photoshop that can do (kinda-almost) everything Photoshop Elements can.  There’s no insidious pop-ups or programming.  It just works really well.   (I do not work for them or receive any cool kickbacks.)   You can find it here. http://www.gimp.org/

To put a copyright symbol on your work, go into the text tool on software like Photoshop, Gimp or many others and hold down ALT and type 0169 .  Let go of ALT and the © should appear.  Or you can cut-and-paste it from this post.

Anyone have any other quick tips?

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Tips on web-ready images

One of the Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators' members asked for a few tips on making images web-ready, and putting the little © copyright symbol on things.

Head over to the SONSI site for some of my quick tips.

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Going Pro: thoughts on copyright

[Cross-posted on Art Evolved]

In the past few posts of Going Pro, we've looked a lot at copyright. Again, a lot of people have opinions, but it's important to see what the legal definitions -and what steps you can take to protect your creations- really entail.

Today though, I want to propose a question.

Suppose you post a nifty image of a prehistoric critter online. It's awesome, you're proud, people give you kudos. You put it under a Creative Commons Licence, the most restrictive one that says your image a) must be attributed to you, b) cannot be altered, c) others cannot profit from it, and otherwise, it's okay to post and share.

1. Then someone copies it. Another blogger. Does their own riff. Are you okay with that?

2. What if they're more famous than you, getting lots of illustration gigs, but they notice it, do their own version, and give you a nod for your cool idea. Still excited, feeling the attention?

3. What if your painting happens to hit the zeitgeist and goes all viral all over the interwebs. Everyone is sharing it. There's a day on Facebook where all the users switch to you image. But you haven't made a dime. What do you do?

We're in interesting territory. Personally, I don't believe overly restricting images (insanely huge watermarks, disabling right-clicking) are helpful to make a successful career anymore. But neither is completely open sharing.

Consider this:

[h/t Boing Boing]

It makes a strong case about question number 3, doesn't it? But how do you capitalize on that image going viral? How does it put food on the table?

I suggest it's how you parlay that viral dinosaur image into getting new contracts.

As for questions number 1 and 2, consider the post-modern, remixed, mash-up, variant-cover culture we live in. Think an Indiana Jones video game is fun? What about Indiana Jones Lego! Like Batman? Sharks? Lightsabers? Ta-da! (artist here) Authoring mash-ups and riffing on others' work is an integral part of pop culture.

Painting gets started at about the 4 minute mark in the video above.

[h/t to Boing Boing, again]

In the past, I've sometimes been the dissenting voice here at Art Evolved about all those posts showing past-art about upcoming themed galleries. I dislike them because sometimes attribution to the artwork cannot be easily found - though yes, as Peter and Craig have pointed out to me, sometimes we attribute an "orphan image" after the post goes up when a reader identifies it.

I'm uncomfortable with those posts because in a world of remixes and fun Photoshopped images, attribution and authorship can sometimes be your only coins to bank on. Literally.

Everyone has different comfort zones. Where do you feel comfortable with your images on questions 1-3 above?

-Glendon Mellow

- - - - - - - - Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

New Going Pro at Art Evolved

I've posted a new Going Pro at Art Evolved.

The world of online copyright has changed a lot, in law and in practice.  Here are some of the questions that rattle around in my brain about how to approach copying, remixing and appropriating other people's art.

We're in interesting territory. Personally, I don't believe overly restricting images (insanely huge watermarks, disabling right-clicking) are helpful to make a successful career anymore. But neither is completely open sharing. 

Head on over to weigh in!


- - - - - - - - Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***