Question: artist‘s right of control over their work vs fanwork preservation efforts

[mekare]

Hey everyone, I‘d appreciate any input into this. I came across a post this week where someone reposted artworks on DW with credit to the artist but clearly without the artist‘s permission. These were about 9-14 years old and originally posted on LJ. I sent them a private message with my thoughts which stated that I‘d be angry if my stuff turned up somewhere else.

We continued to have a civil discussion which now boils down to the two points in the subject line:

- the artist has kept the LJ but hasn‘t posted anything for a long time
- there is no information on the LJ about repost or archive preferences

- the poster wanted to save the art from disappearing (since community posts where the art originally turned up don‘t have it anymore, though it is still available via the images archive of the LJ)
- the poster has taken a lot of effort in contacting the artist but been unsuccessful

What do you think - does the desire to preserve fanworks for future generations of fans trump the artist‘s right to have complete control over where their stuff is posted? Especially in a case like this where the artist doesn‘t seem to be active in fandom anymore and can‘t be asked directly about their preferences?

Comments

[olivermoss]

This is timely as Tinypic just shut down and took a lot of illustrations for fic on Ao3 with it.

I am in a few fandoms where art didn't make it to current platforms, and this is something I wind up talking about a lot.

I'll likely make a longer comment later, but for now I will point out that archiving doesn't necessarily mean public reposting. This is crucial to some kinds of preservation, like film. Some films will start coming out of copyright in the next few years, but only the original versions. Restored versions have a new copyright. They will only come out of copyright if people managed to hold onto originals. This is a different situation, but it shows an important approach.

Personally, I am for preserving fanworks. I don't allow repostings in communities I run because they are communities, not archives. And also we've had reposts without due diligence.

It's possible to archive for historical and other purposes without like reposting all the stuff to a fyeah tumblr.

[edit] Also, if the artist didn't post publicly in the first place, only in a locked community, that is something to be extremely careful of when it comes to any sharing or access.

[mekare]

Well, the artist never posted these pieces to their journal, but the comm where they were posted was public.

I agree that reposting is not archiving and that there really needs to be a better solution if that is the goal.

[olivermoss]

Ah, okay. I was speaking both generally and also about some situations I've been involved in.

I am a big proponent of archiving, but it needs to be done carefully and not for personal social capital. In the end, people are more important than the fanworks they produce.