Crediting Art from Pet Sites/Lost Artist Names

Posted 4 years, 11 months ago by Nonnavlis

A long time ago (about a decade) I was quite active in a handful of pet sites and have a fair amount of art from that time. Most of it I was sensible enough to write out the account numbers and names for each artist, but after such a long time I can only imagine most of these artists are no longer active in these communities and the accounts may even no longer be theirs (and these numbers will very likely be no help in finding any kind of proper gallery). Does Toyhou.se have any kind of ruling/general consensus on if it's appropriate to upload this art/how to source it? I'm assuming without a way to give a proper credit that can authenticate my right to display the art that it cannot be uploaded, though I also wonder if it would make any kind of difference if I can verify several other drawings of the same character to show that it is in fact mine and thus I can be assumed to be the purchaser of these less easily authenticated images?

For the handful of images where I've lost all the information other than the website it was purchased on, would it still be appropriate to use them on other areas of Toyhou.se, such as as an avatar or to send someone as a reference for commissions if desired? I'm assuming for designs purchased from other websites where I cannot verify them, these are of course a no go anywhere on the site, even if new art was produced.

Thanks in advance to anyone who might have a helpful comment or took the time to read! <3

Nonnavlis

Understandable! I certainly hope I didn't make it sound like I was trying to dispute that! I'm an artist myself so I'm on board aha. It's more a question of if a link to a petsite account can be considered a credit in this instance (a friend told me they've seen it done, I felt it wasn't significant enough, so I'm at an impasse aha), and if Toyhou.se considers their image rules to apply to any art shown on the website even in PM or somesuch. I certainly intend to keep the uploading of any of these images to a minimum where I can't find a Deviantart or something to associate them with, there's just a few favourites I'd prefer not to lose if a petsite profile would be considered acceptable for now (I still hope to track the artists down elsewhere, of course).

(As an example, I have a piece drawn by one of the website artists for Wajas.com when we were friends as kids, which I feel quite sure they would be comfortable with me displaying, but have no gallery link to credit to them. As they are an actual artist for that website I personally feel comfortable linking to their profile there as a credit, but I don't want to assume this would be fine with anyone else, or skirt any rules).

Sorry if that sounds like I'm reading too much into what you said! I very much appreciate the comment I just want to be clear for anyone else who reads this as well aha. Please don't feel like you have to respond as if that was all directed at you.

Anyway, I did see that thread, and once I can be sure of what I can't find on my own (so much reverse image searching to be done!) I will certainly check it out! I feel anxious at the idea of having to bother anyone with this silly stuff, it seems like a solid resource ^^

Cliodna

I know that some people (myself included) attribute unknown art to user "Unknown", until they stumble on the appropriate artist. I think that account was made by someone specifically for that purpose. No idea how "accepted" or "widespread" it is but seeing as they have 432 pages of images it definitely gets used for the purpose.

(Personally I think that linking to the profile of the person who made your art should be perfectly fine)

BlueRocketMouse

I order lots of art from pet sites too. Sometimes people will ask for the art to be credited to another account (DA, Insta, etc) but many times they don't provide any other links so I just credit the pet site account. Personally, I don't see why linking to that profile would be a problem if they didn't specify otherwise to you—it's still a link to the person who created the art piece and therefore proper credit. People moving/deleting/abandoning accounts is an issue on any website, even gallery sites. There's really no way to avoid that sadly, it's just part of the temporary nature of the internet. You can of course try to hunt down their new account (if one exists—sometimes people leave the web altogether and you can't do much about that either) but I certainly wouldn't say it's wrong to upload the art even if you can't find out where the artist went. As long as you source the art to the account you commissioned it from, you've fulfilled your responsibility as a commissioner.