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

[goss]

I 100% agree.

Download as much as you want for your own personal enjoyment, but public distribution/re-posting without permission? Absolutely not okay.

Although the loss of something you love might be understandably painful, in my opinion respecting an artist's ownership of their creation should override a person's own selfish need to hold on to/archive/share things they didn't create.

[yhlee]

This, 100%.

[mekare]

That was my intial reaction too.