Some deviants who have been around for awhile may remember an article from way back concerning various myths surrounding the Copyright & Etiquette Administration (or Policy Violations Team as it was called back then).

Sadly many of those myths are still around and the rumor mill is often quite busy cranking out new misinformation about how things supposedly work so it is time once again to explain how CEA functions and clear up a lot of the bad information and rumors disguised as “fact” floating around out there.

The first big rumor out there is that the reports of policy or copyright violations are horribly backlogged. It is easy to see how this one started because for a very long while this was absolutely true, however this is no longer the case.
Deviations which are reported are addressed within 48 hours- the backlog and slowness is a thing of the past so all of you who are telling people that CEA is weeks and weeks behind please stop telling this to people.

Another common rumor is that anything that gets reported is simply deleted automatically without any human input. This rumor is also false. An actual person reviews each reported item and decides whether or not any action is needed- the only thing which is automated is the notice which gets sent out when a deletion or other action is carried out.

A favorite criticism is that CEA enforces policy “when they feel like it” or that CEA “singles people out”. The people repeating these statements often point to the fact that some submissions or situations receive some sort of action while others do not.
Where deviations are concerned this apparent unevenness is due to the fact that deviantART is closing in on 30 million submissions and we have about 40 thousand new ones submitted every single day.
With this sort of volume any sort of ‘real-time’ reviewing is a ridiculous concept. Instead we rely on a combination of reported violations and organized browsing in order to locate and remove submissions which violate policy so please do not expect to see a clear and organized chronological pattern to the way submission violations are addressed. We will eventually get to them all- it’s just a matter of time and effort.

It is a similar situation with harassment or insulting behaviors. With around 20 thousand people logged in and active at any given moment during the day don’t expect anyone to be able to rapidly review every single comment. While we do zero in on various trouble areas we rely mostly on reports sent in through the Helpdesk to direct our attention. So if you see some activity which you think needs administrative attention please report it, otherwise don’t get jaded and nasty about it when it goes unnoticed.

Probably the biggest misconception that I see is the “deviantART doesn’t do anything about Art Theft” statement. Anyone who actually knows what is going on behind the scenes can tell you how surprising we find this particular rumor.
We remove hundreds of infringements every day, the actual number this year alone numbers in the tens of thousands so it is easy to see that this statement is usually made by people who are unaware of the larger picture.
But judging from most examples which I find of this myth its origin is not so much an accusation that we don’t remove cases of infringement but rather more of a criticism that we do not instantly and permanently ban every single person on the first offense.

This brings me to clarifying how we use the Account ban and Account Suspension tools.

It is our goal to ban as few people as is necessary. When it comes to alleged ‘Art Thieves’ we recognize that the internet has fostered an attitude that tramples artist’s rights- works are routinely taken, used, and distributed without any second thought to the rights of the author.

Knowing this we opt for an educational approach to most first time offenders. The vast majority of people who submit copyright infringements here, either a manipulation or the complete original work, simply don’t know any better. In these cases we remove the work and the user receives the automated notice of what they have done wrong. The vast majority of these first time offenders will not repeat this mistake and will go on to become more productive members.

A slightly different approach is taken towards people who repeatedly infringe. Those people who continue to submit copyright infringing materials after having received actions and notifications typically have their account suspended. Sometimes this is what is needed to get them to change their behavior.

Actual Account Bans are used to address deviants who are deliberately infringing and misrepresenting works. These are the people who actually take the time to crop out your signature and copyright information, or cover it up, or who write the long description about how this is their work and they worked their fingers to the bone for X hours to make it. And who can forget those people who decide to impersonate you and profit from your skill or reputation.

These are the people who get banned immediately because all of the evidence shows that they know exactly that what they are doing is both morally wrong and illegal.



If anyone has any other common rumors or misconceptions concerning CEA that they would like to see addressed, or any procedure they would like to see clarified a bit please mention it in your comment here and I will attempt to address individual concerns in future updates.