GFXartist

Publish date:

12/15/02 @687

Editor:

Moderating the GFXartist galleries

Besides vote fraud and explicit content, we've recently also came across a few cases in which the integrity of certain artwork was questioned. We got reports about oilpaintings and whether they did or did not belong in a gallery of digital art and this point was also made about pencil sketches.

Now the admins have so far acted as the gallery police and they have tried to moderate the galleries based on the rules that exist and the general view on what does and does not belong in the galleries.

One of the main problems that keep surfacing are the so called paint-overs where the artist paints over the image/photo of another artist. We noticed that in many cases the artist is not aware that he is doing something that is not allowed, and in other cases people's work is accused of being a paint-over while in fact their painting style is just damn realistic. The discussion about whether this 'technique' is art or not is usually long and heavy. The fact remains that if you use work of another artist, you need his/her written permission. This also goes for paint-overs since you copy or recreate the work of another.

Now the question is, how can we moderate the galleries in a fair way? We still feel total democracy will result in chaos and we want to place the final verdict in the hands of the admins. We have a report function at the bottom of every page that allows you to report the content of that page to the admins. They will then have a closer look at the situation and act accordingly. This goes for inappropriate content, rip-offs, copyright violations, profanity, bugs, anything. However, since the amount of reports is so low, we hardly even get two reports of the same page so drawing certain treshold is not even possible yet.

My suggestion is to promote the use of the report system so we can clearly see where rules are violated and which areas raise suspicion. It will definately make it easier for us to moderate the galleries.

Any suggestions on how to improve the report system or on moderating the galleries in general is appreciated.

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Nenne

12/15/02 @777

Um Im probably a pain in the behind for al of you.. but I have study copyrightlaw thrue work and was one of thuse who had to ceep a eye to what was alowed and not to publish on the net, (thats is not a populair work as you can imagen) If we wold not have looked at that we culd be in deep trubbel... being a webpublisher/AD and doing work for other firms, if we wold have published some ones photo/art we wold have to deal with the law

here is a qvick "guideline" I got on my own page abouth copyright..

http://www.reneblom.com/portfolio2/buyerinfo.asp
if any one is intrested ..

Take a look and you probably will know what you can do and what you canÂ´t. When it comes to art then.. Its simple accual. If it is your art from scratch = no problem what ever methoth you use.. If you use someone elses art Ask for premission, its not hard you get a no or a yes, thats al.
After that Its ppl opinium on what art is to be or not, that is something the community canÂ´t do anything abouth, its just opiniums. Insperation is alowed as long you donÂ´t use the persons art what so ever, you have to do it from scratch.
It can look the same but for your own sake, make it diffrent then you donÂ´t have to deal with opiniums if its yours or not!
Well Il better run now so nobody bites me

. :hug: to you al anyway

shehab

12/15/02 @780

I think it is hard... but possible... you should search and invite profissional digital artists (people who have international and documented credits like magazines and TV) in exchange for promotion, 2 artists would be enough... also you should invite 2 old tradition artists (above 40 years old) that also has thier share of credit... promote the use of the report system and catagorize it (rips, typo, copyright) etc.
and make these people the judge... on any artwork that has 2 or more reporting.

but it is not about putting restrections, I think you should demonstrate what is a typo, and how could an artist violate copyrights with articles and demo... since most people don't know these basic rules in art, advertising, and media productions...

I would also suggest... make the report system more seen and focused, not a text and link in the bottom of the page...

I also suggested before to keep the vote system clean from fraud... you should not accept voting from people with less than 4 artworks in thier gallery, and make a unique ID for people who don't have any art in thier gallery ( like black icon

or somthing), that would make it hard for some one to register just for vote... he or she needs to submit artworks (4 of them).

if that didn't work in making GFX a lovely place and promote it as a high integraty place not like any other digital community, and also will help GFX in the future to attract advertisers and promotions... you can kill me

That is it...

shehab

12/15/02 @782

just strike me... I think no firm should do this (it takes away the lovely atmo of GFX), also no one that was in the community or still is can do this task

sorry.. had to say that...

Whitefoot

12/15/02 @805

Hey. Any of you who might have checked out my work on this site or my website will note that I work almost exclusively in oils, with minimal or no digital manipulation. If it's requested from me, I will pull my work off the site, but I frankly think this is a great place for artists of any medium to display their work and receive feedback for it. Why I posted in the first place, not thinking of digital-specific art, is because there is a category called "illustration" in the uploading field, and another one called "digital painting".. i figured traditional medium-using artists could post under the "illustration" category.
As for copyright-infringement, I couldn't agree with you guys more - in fact, lifting other people's work and modifying it to your own ends can very easily land one in court, so heed well. It's also bad disrespect to be calling someone else's creations your own, no matter how 'modified' the piece is.

ChrisThatGuy

12/15/02 @851

I agree with Whitefoot that it's extremely disrespectful to modify someone else's work and call it your own. That's like slapping a sticker on your bumper and saying "look at the car I built!" Ok, slight exaggeration there, but if you do a paint-over, most of the time nobody's impressed by your "skills", they're just thinking "who the heck does he think he's fooling?"

As for oil paintings and other non-digital work: may I point something out? There are both a "photography" category and a "photo manipulation" category, suggesting that the photography is un-retouched, digitally or otherwise. So there is no sense in asking anyone to pull an oil painting from the site, unless you also want to remove the 380+ photos, not to mention the countless textures and designs that are predominantly photographic.

Leave the oil paintings and pencil sketches; they're beautiful. If you REALLY want to emphasize this being a DIGITAL art community, then maybe just make a rule that to be nominated for elite status, and artist needs to have had a DIGITAL piece in the top 5.

Anyways, thanks for listening.

Martin

12/15/02 @861

I agree and I have no intention of blocking traditional art in any way. I do think most of us agree that besides violating copyrights, paint-overs are disrespectful towards the original author. Besides that these paint-overs are often described as 100% own work by the new 'author', which makes him/her look more skilled than he/she actually is.

Now how can we moderate this without insulting the artists in the cases in which we draw a wrong judgement (or getting credited artists to browse the galleries, thanks shahab, but the plan is a tad unrealistic)? Like shahab also says, I think the report system needs to be more visible. In case of paint-overs and rip-off we need people to point us to the original work.

We're also still thinking about putting in a treshold for voting, but that's for later concern.

I think the hardest for us, is to let all the people know and remind them constantly that they should report violations and that that should not add paint-overs to the gallery. Now which corner of GFXartist would be suitable for this information. We've put links to the faq's above the submit artwork page, but no one read them. The report link is at the bottom of every page, but no one really knows what it does.

Any suggestions?

ChrisThatGuy

12/15/02 @865

Well, for starters, sometimes the report link says "Found a dead link?" or "Item in the wrong category?", so people might not always know to click there. I would suggest having a permanent "Report ripped off artwork" link between the artwork and the comments, so that you don't have to scroll all the way down to know that you can report. It can blend in with the site design (it doesn't have to be big and flashing), but it should be easily visible.

Martin

12/15/02 @866

Yeah, we've made it a little less obvious because we didn't want to throw it at people. But if we really want to start using it, that spot might be a good place to put it. Thanks.

shehab

12/15/02 @872

I don't think it is unrealistic Martin to ask Credited artists to view reported work (not all

), I can do the contact if you are interested... most people with such credit I can contact is in USA, but if only you say you are OK with it...

ElricQuill

12/15/02 @946

Being a traditional-media artist, using the Air-Brush for almost 9 yrs now(as a hobby, most of the time its DTP), and having just recently bought a Wacom Tablet myself, i've come to realise just how extreemly easy it is to create 'photo-realistic' works using this paint-over technique! And yes i feel it is wrong and that paint-over works(unless authorized by the original's creator) is a violation on copy-right and intellectual property!

On the other-hand i think it is a great way to learn the basics of digital-painting - but i don't think that these works should be published here by the 'creators'! (problem is how to controll this!!!)

Also, I agree with Martin there should be tighter controlling of these 'suspicous works!' And, should things really get out of hand(lets hope not!!!), i think it is only fare that the ORIGINAL be published/posted WITH the COPY(paint-over), or a least a link should be provided to it, and if possible the agreement/authorization of the owner of the original work - even if it's just a post of the email correspondance to and from the owner and the 'copier' ;-)

my 2 cents!

Truly the best 'creative-community' i've found! I hope it stays this way!
I truly hope this community will not follow suite of many of the other digital creatives communities!

Martin

12/15/02 @954

Thanks for the offer shehab, but I think that's just a little bit over the top. As long as we can start utilizing the system better, the admins will be perfectly able to act upon reports. It's also because we do not intend to judge the art or the creation of the art, all we want to do it make sure no copyrights are violated.

In the end, the power lies with the people that send us reports. Without those we won't even know when something is wrong.

The thing that ElricQuill points out is pretty much what I had in mind. I'm convinced that painting over photo's can be a great way to learn. I have experienced this myself. But we have to make people understand that you keep these works personal and that GFXartist is here to showcase your own creations.

Perhaps we have to look into more drastic matters like putting an info screen in front of the 'submit artwork' page. Something that gives you some key messages every time you post an artwork to remind them of the guidelines. Maybe be a bit more harsh in our actions and ban a user when they accidentally forgot to mention that it was a paint-over and instead accidentally mentioned it was 100% their work.

We have to be careful that these precautions will not irritate the other artists though. We want to keep the place as nice and open as it has been so far. I haven't really figured it out yet, I must say.

liquidwerx

12/15/02 @990

All I can say, is it's about time. Good call GFX Martin.

tjuli

12/16/02 @284

yeah keep up the good work

tjuli

12/16/02 @288

i rekcon as long as everyone is lookin at each others work and they haveballs to speak up even if they MIGHT be wrong things should be okay..?

ninedjinn

12/16/02 @574

well
I just wonder where else i can go to see an extensive collection of traditional mediums

if its not gonna happen here
and as far as all th short cut pople do to mak things over
well
it ought to b pretty damn creative even then because alot of it still makes for good art

ELLioT

12/17/02 @461

Why don't you ask reliable persons (i.e: your elite members) to approve each artwork submission. The artwork would be placed in an approval queue then published once it's been approved by one of the elite. Such a system is used on epilogue.net . This would result in a much responsible and consistent community I think.

gridlock

12/17/02 @614

Now, wouldn't that just kill the spirit of GFX? Its a real pity that we cannot base this on trust alone - - - - -

Hybridos

12/17/02 @857

Even Luis Royo uses foto references, some time you dont even know that you are sawing a Live Taylor (LotR) and Steven Taylor (Aero Smith) in a picture, cause they appear so direrent than in the real photo, i dont think that Royo ask for permission on every photo reference, some times you have this picture from the web, you dont know who to ask for permission!
Lets use this good picture of Cristina Aguilera for exemple, how can i have permission from her or the man who took the photo, not in thosand years they will even listen to me.
So i cut off my inspiration at that momment cause i will have no permission from Cristina Aguilera to post and artwork that use a photo reference of a picture of her, jus to post it in GFX ?????????!!!!!!!!!
Lets just make good art, photo reference or from scratch, just link the photo you used as reference and give credict to who ever took the photo or made the 3d model or the painting, cause some times you dont know who the hell is the owner of this or that.

ChrisThatGuy

12/17/02 @938

I agree that we should just make good art, and I think it's a great idea to link to the reference.

I think the concern earlier, however, was people who do paint-overs, not those who use reference. It's one thing to draw something while looking at a photo, it's another thing entirely to actually draw on the photo and and try to pass it off as a painting of your own.

And if you really want to paint over a photo, why not just use your own photos. Disposable cameras are pretty inexpensive.

shehab

12/17/02 @940

Good Point here Hybridos... Only when you point the reference Photo or photos you used in your work... so that we can say: ok good painting or good creation... even if you draw it from a picture... with no trace... I think that is fair.

Martin

12/17/02 @951

Yes. I can see Hybridos' point, but we have nothing against using photo reference. If you post a link to the reference you have used, even better. Our concern goes to the people who paint directly onto a photo they found somewhere and call a work their own. While it's actually just someone elses photo with some paint smudges on it.

We want to give a clear message somehow that photo paint-overs are a good exercise but that they do not belong in the GFXartist galleries. Unless you have permission to use the photo and provide a link to the original work for comparison.

sic6six

12/18/02 @564

I definatley agree with this. although there should be somewhere where ppl can post paint overs because as stupid as it sound paint overs are actually helpfull in the learning department. Some ppl find it easyier to do this to learn shading techniques and other effects but they should actually state that the picture is a paint over and include the original picture as well so ppl can see the difference. also the voting system shouldnt be designed so u need to post 4 pic then u can vote. i have done artwork but cannot upload it as i have no webspace to upload it to so i can show it here. if anyone konws of a free webhost that allows remote linking then please message me. im just getting into the digital painting so im only a beginner. im used to sketching on paper but will be getting a graphics tablet as soon as i have the money. this way i can trace my sketches or draw straight to the pc and then paint the pictures. also if you think about it. the ammount of ppl who use a tablet could actually be tracing pictures they found but changing certain features. i thought of this whene ppl reffer to other images to draw their own so then they wouldnt be doing a paint over but still be copying some one elses work.

sic6six

12/18/02 @565

sorry bout the long essay i just wrote

but i had to put an opinion forward

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Category:

GFXartist

Publish date:

12/15/02 @687

Editor:

Martin

Comments:

23

Moderating the GFXartist galleries

Related news:

03/15/2008 @864 Update and GFXartist Team Changes (22)

05/28/2007 @665 GFXartist policy update (66)

01/15/2007 @914 The Facts and Numbers of 2006 at GFXartist (19)

10/25/2006 @515 GFXartist back online (56)

09/26/2006 @601 GFXartist members invited to create online... (16)

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