Posting is Not Permission
Food for thought, should you be a douchebag Googling for artwork to steal and utilize on your car show poster, cruise night flyer, tattoo, shop logo or tees, Trapper Keeper, whatever:
The internet and subsequent search engines are just that… A system that is designed to seek information utilizing an algorithm by which to display said found information in a discernible manner via internet server-based software. That’s pretty much it. It helps you to LOOK for things.
What it IS NOT is a fucking catalog of FREE ARTWORK for you to pick and choose from for your own low-rent ass to use as you please. Otherwise, it would have a name like “Internet Catalog of Free Art for You to Pilfer, You Soul-less Cocksucker.” Simply because it’s online does not imply CONSENT FOR USE. We artists post work to hopefully show our skills and draw an audience… and thus business, allowing us to earn a living through our chosen media. With the digital age, posting online is a necessary evil. We don’t post it to provide some bottomless well of nice things for you to take. That’s no different than walking out of a store without paying for the chair you’re carrying, and proclaiming that you “found it” on the sales floor. And leaving the artist’s name on the artwork does not compensate for your theft, or suddenly grant you with some superpowers of kindness and elevate you to hero status. You’re a fucking thief and a low-life. I know it sounds weird, but I’d bet that not one artist has a mortgage company that accepts “But look, they used my name here!” as payment. Come to think of it, it works quite the opposite.
Thus, to my artist friends, I humbly suggest the following:
Each time we find a work of a fellow artist being used without permission, we attempt to contact the offending party and get that artist paid. Failing this, we utilize family photos of said offending party as raw material for a Photoshop-based “Porn-Off”, wherein we recreate filthy scenes of debauchery and utter inhumanity, starring their loved ones. We can then gather and vote for the best use, or most original back-story. If confronted, we stand by the claim that we “found those pics online”, and felt it only fair, as we included as much information about that person as we could at the bottom of each image we create.
Posting is not permission.
